I left just before 8 a.m. this morning to get my hair cut at Supercuts. I have PT just after noon. Then I hope I’m in for the weekend. I’m not accustomed to having to go out so much.
When I picked up Charlie yesterday from the groomer, the rain was coming down in thick sheets. I could hardly see to drive. But today is sunny and warm.
Charlie didn’t want his photo taken, so this was the best I could do. Sometimes he is shy about it.
Ivy is sprawled across the coffee table. She’s already been after me for her canned food. I feed them a bit of that twice per day.
Because I got up early, her internal clock must be off. I don’t typically feed them till 10 a.m. or after. She has dry food to eat.
I promise she doesn’t go hungry.
She keeps her gray mouse toy close. It is her new favorite toy. Even more than her swirly plastic toys, which she still plays with a good bit of the day. I call it her mouse baby.
I haven’t seen the possum for a few days. Maybe it has moved along. I hope nothing happened to it. Kind of miss seeing it up there in the tree branches staring down at me.
I really didn’t buy much in the way of flowers this year except for petunias. Usually I have more color diversity on my patio.
But this year so much came back in the pots from last year that I didn’t have as much emptiness to fill. That’s a good thing!
However the petunias are making up for the lack of other flowers. They are really out doing themselves. I do go out several times a day and deadhead them and cut them back if need be.
That has become my therapy. Tending to my plants. I can’t imagine not wanting to grow things. Because it has always been in my blood.
From the time I ran through tall cornstalks in my granny’s garden till now, when I’m a senior myself, gardening has always been a big part of my life.
Probably that early introduction has something to do with it.
There’s just something about watching shoots emerge from the dirt, tending to them once they’re up, and then watching their steady growth that makes my heart sing.
I guess aside from gardening and reading, my favorite thing to do is to go out and photograph nature. I am so at peace with plants and trees in my view finder, looking for angles that please me.
And then coming home and downloading them to my laptop is yet more fun. I get to see if what I saw came through so I can show it to you.
Photography is much like writing. It is a creative endeavor that speaks any language. You can take photos of one thing a dozen ways and they all look different.
For over 20 years I’ve wanted to have a camera close by. I guess it’s like most people with their phones.
Communicating through photography is silent yet says so much.
It speaks to what the photographer thought when they took it. What mood they were in. How they see the world in general I suppose.
I see beauty all around me. From a lowly dandelion to a spiderweb, I find all these things fascinating. Being someone who walks right by all these things without seeing them is just foreign to me.
People who rush through the world sometimes miss so much. I’ll never be like that. Because I can’t get enough of what the world has to show me.
What it offers me on a daily basis. Eye candy for the soul.
“Of what use are lens and light to those who lack in mind and sight?” – Anonymous
Brenda, I love your photos and seeing nature from your perspective! It shows how much you love what you do! Love and hugs!
Ivy is, indeed, a well-fed girl! The photo of her lying on her side makes her look a little chubby in the tummy! From what you say she seems to be pretty active so no worries about her being over-weight, right? She’s just a big girl. I bet she might weigh more than sweet little Charlie. That is a cute photo of him being shy.
Regarding your “blurry” backgrounds, what happens when you focus on something in the foreground of your image is that the background goes out of focus. It’s called ” shallow depth of field”. It is created by the camera automatically adjusting the speed the shutter opens and closes plus the size of the shutter opening itself. If you are manually setting the shutter speed and the size of the opening, like we had to do on the old manual film cameras, there is a formula for creating shallow depth of field which you learn. And that is probably more than you ever wanted to know about shallow depth of field! I learned photography before the advent of digital and automatic cameras, that is why I know all this “useless” information! Hope I didn’t bore you and your readers to death.
It’s become late so I will close and wish you and the fur babies a happy weekend. It is supposed to be sunny and warm tomorrow so I will hopefully be digging in the dirt and that will make me happy, too!
Thanks for the explanation. I have just never used Manual. Many say the pictures are better, but I’ve always been satisfied with what I got with Automatic. I should have learned all this stuff!
L.O.L. Ivy doesn’t look like she misses to many meals.
Same thing here 24/7 dry food and water but when I pull out a can and treats you would think they’re minutes from death by starvation.
I am very well trained.
Sounds like you are very well trained! They can look so pitiful, can’t they?
Please tel us how you get photos of flowers with the background muted to a color-blur. Do you
blur it while editing the photo or instead set your camera for a background blur before taking the photo? Thanks! Your photos turn out so beautifully!
I don’t try to get the blur. But when I focus on say, the flower in front of something, what’s in the background often blurs automatically. I just use Automatic/no flash on my Canon camera. Easy and quick.
Whoops Gerald meant to type feral ! Need to pay closer attention. Have a great weekend, Brenda.
Charlie is the cutest guy. His camera shyness just makes him that much more appealing. Love his new cut. No one could ever accuse you of not feeding Ivy. She has grown like a weed. She’s a big cat. I have three and one of mine is as big as she is. My two others are former Gerald and they stay smaller. Guess it’s their genetics. Miss having a dog terribly and keep looking for a match. Thinking about adopting a senior girl to match me in energy. The heat ion SC is oppressive. We had so much rain at the beginning of spring but now we’re dry. I haven’t planted any flowers yet as I will be traveling a bit and have no one to water while I’m gone. Just trying to keep my ferns, hydrangea and Hosta alive. It’s a challenge since I have to water from my walker but where there’s a will there’s a way. In my yard, my trees are my favorite. I couldn’t grow grass for a long time until a young landscaper moved in across from me and he has taken pity on me and my yard and I have a lawn again. I so appreciate this young man and his vast knowledge of grass and horticulture. Love seeing your photography hs.
Your speaking of your grandmothers garden brought back memories of walking through my mother’s mother’s garden and listening to them discussing flowers and what to grow where. Both of my grandmothers and my mother grew beautiful flowers. My home gardens when I was a kid was full of perennials, that’s how I learned the name of flowers. My mother always planted marigolds at the ends of garden rows to keep bugs away. We had flowers blooming from early spring to late fall in Pa. My mother’s father grew roses, mostly climbers and hybrids in a picket fenced yard, beautiful all spring and summer. I have some pots of plants in front of my little cottage, Very colorful. Your pictures of nature at it’s best are beautiful.
As much as I try to capture the garden through photography there’s still nothing like actually being in the midst of it….there’s so much more than just the colors, there’s the breezes, the scents, the sound of birdsong, the soft notes of the windchimes….I was hanging laundry this morning before work, completely rushed because I had already done ten things and needed to get out the door and the experience of being out there brought me peace in the moment. It’s amazing how therapeutic nature is!
We are having lots of rain too. I think it is coming across the mid part of the country. It is sunny now but more storms to move in later. I am so over all this rain. We need the sun to come out and stay out!!! I know you guys have had it rough.
Someone on Facebook had filmed a possum like yours with her babies attached on her back and they were in Okla. and she was taking the babies from the nest to safety before the storm hit. They say they are really tuned into when the weather will be bad and they need to take cover. It was cute how they were all on her back about 8 of them and she walked along and found a place under a deck to take the babies for safety. So maybe yours is a mom and she is hiding somewhere with her babies with all the storms and rain.
Have a good day.
Thanks for explaining the camera’s download to your computer. I had no idea how you had pictures so quickly. I hope the big rains are over but then we have summer heat. It has been so wet for almost a year.