December Sunrise

It is easy to be up for sunrise these days. Yesterday - when these images were taken - the sunrise was at 7:18 which is well after the time I am up and about in the morning. Another benefit for this time of year - the leaves are gone so the horizon is not a solid wall of vegetation. It was a very cold morning so I took the easiest vantage point: through a window on the second floor of my house!

The first image was taken about 10 minutes before sunrise. Doesn’t the sky look like molten lava behind the trees? The second image is about 5 minutes after sunrise when the light was turning lemony.

Chincoteague Sunset…and Sunrise

We arrived at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge at mid-afternoon and decided that we would make the effort to photograph the sunset….and then get up early enough the following morning to photography sunrise.

Here are two sunset pictures - taken about 15 minutes apart. I liked the burned in color.

In between, some birds flew to their evening roosts.

And thus the day slid to evening.

The next morning we were early enough to catch the reds of sunrise.

The lighthouse was still bright over the treetops.

The light turned toward orange,

And then a minute later - faded. A cloud bank must have blocked the sun!

We continued to the shore and saw the thin line of color just over the sea. The cloud layer above was very thick!

Sunrise on a Cold Morning

I am a morning person. Earlier this week the sun was coloring the clouds pink as I was coming down the stairs for breakfast. What a great ‘first scene’ for the day! The light coming through the narrow windows on the sides of the front door and the transom window over the door let some of that color into the entry hall.

Fortunately my camera was handy and I stepped out the front door to take the image of the trees silhouetted against the morning sky….and discovered the very chilly fall air.

Resolution for the next few months: observe sunrise more frequently. One of the compensations for the longer nights and shorter days of winter is the ease of savoring the sunrise. 

Newport RI - Day 3

Day 3 in Newport was full of photography opportunities: sunrise from the Cliff Walk (40 steps), Blithewold Gardens, and Green Animals Topiary Garden.

Sunrise from the Cliff Walk

The sunrise was colorful - in the sky and the water. The cliff walk offers expansive views to the horizon and close views of waves crashing against the rocks below.

Enjoy the sequence below from just before sunrise to the brightness of early morning.

Blithewold Gardens

There is a mansion but it was not open on the day we were there. We were tired of house tours from the previous day in Newport anyway. I liked the stone steps and fountains near the house.

The garden include a sculpture exhibit. My favorite was feathers. Unfortunately, it was not a breezy day so the feathers were not moving enough for the chimes at their base to move.

And everywhere there were paths leading through lush vegetation.

The slide show below includes a photo toward the sky from inside the bamboo maze and a bee on a Franklin Tree blossom!

Green Animals Topiary Garden

There is a house in this garden that includes a display of antique toys. But the draw for this place is the topiary forms. I couldn’t resist including the pictures of a bee on a dahlia and monarch butterfly (one of the few I’ve seen this year) in the slideshow below - along with the topiary.

Newport RI - Day 1

Our first day in Newport RI in a nutshell: sunrise and 3 mansions!

I was up early enough to catch the sunrise colors on the horizon and water from the balconies of our rooms. It was very quiet compared to the party noises from the night before along the waterfront. The forecast was for a near perfect day for walking around Newport.

There are a lot of architectural features in houses,

Churches,

And buildings that are much easier to scrutinize on foot rather than driving/riding.

Many structures have been restored and other others seemed to be in the process of being restored; crews were getting a head start as the tourist crowds thinned and the weather was still reasonable.

My favorite of the three houses we saw on the first day was the Isaac Bell House. The porches and interesting roof line probably clinched it for me but the guided tour through the empty rooms - showing how restoration is done - was more interesting that the overwhelming opulence of many other Newport mansions.

Kingscot was too Gothic for me but it was fun to learn about the ‘weeping’ trees that were deemed by landscapers of the time to be in keeping with the architecture. The brow over the windows was to deflect water!

The Elms was the last house on the first day. We took the tour of the house just before closing time and decided to go back another day to look at the gardens. I enjoyed the small preview of the sculptures and clipped hedges on the quick walk through on the first day.

Zooming - February 2014

I’ve been doing quite a bit of magnification recently with the microscope and loupe. The monthly ‘zooming’ post is done with cropped images from the camera - simply using the camera’s own built in zoom. Can you find: 

• The muffin liner
• The surprised squirrel
• The snow on crepe myrtle berries
• The icy pine
• The glowing knot in stained wood
• A sunrise through the oak branches
• An ice fall from a gutter
• Tulip poplar seed pod spires
• The moon through tree branches 

Snow Day - February 2014

I am delaying the weekly gleanings post until tomorrow so I can post some pictures of our snowy Thursday and Friday of this week.

It snowed all day on Thursday. I tried to capture some snowflake pictures first thing Thursday morning but it was already a mix of snow and rain - too warm for snowflake pictures. It did mean that the snow was very sticky. I piled up quickly on just about any non-vertical surface and made graceful curves over the pots on the deck.

By 10 AM we had at least a foot of snow and we bundled up for the first clearing of the driveway. I wore an old gardening hat on top of my fleece because there was rain mixed with the snow that was falling. My husband and I managed to get half the driveway done before taking a break for lunch. Later in the afternoon we got one side completed and he backed out over the remnants of the pile left by the plow when it made a pass through the neighborhood.

In the evening we noticed the snow was coming down again and we measured another 6 inches before we went to bed on Thursday night. I got up early on Friday morning and took some pictures of the sunrise.

The streetlight gilded its nearest tree before it went out for the day.

We got out to do the weekly grocery shopping and I managed a picture from the car window of snow caught in last summer’s crepe myrtle berries while my husband broke up the new pile the plow had made at the base of our driveway.

The sun was out all day Friday and the temperature got up to 40…..but there is still a lot of snow on the ground this Saturday morning. It is bumpy from the melting that must be going on underneath. The big piles on either side of the driveway are going to take many days to melt away!

A New Year Begins - 2014

2014 begins today. It’s a human designation that it is today so whatever meaning it has is also ours.

I like to get up for the sunrise rather than stay up until midnight. This time of year it is very easy to get up well before the sun comes up and I was thrilled to find a dove in our oak tree when I went out to capture the event this morning. At first the dove was quiet, but then it started cooing at me. What a gentle sound to start the year!

The first light of the new day synchronized with the first day of the New Year reminds me of the potential there always is - to savor the moment and grow into a satisfying future.

In years past - I made list of things I wanted to make different. Sometimes I made a lasting change. One year I decided to learn to use my mouse with my left hand rather than my right; that was almost 10 years ago and I have made the change permanently. Last year I decided to have one last sprint of weight loss and get down to the weight I was at 25; I did it by September and have maintained it easily since then. I started gradually increasing my reading goals beginning in 1985 and now I’m combining reading with taking online courses since they are so freely available; learning this way is one of my favorite pastimes so I need nothing to push me onward at this point. Travel and visiting family/friends is another favorite pastime; no encouragement needed there either. The volunteer gigs I started in 2013 are still lots of fun and worthwhile…I won’t be making a change away from them in 2014.

So I am left with a generic goal of exhorting myself to live more in the present in 2014…to refrain from over-planning (which I sometimes have been known to do)!