Early morning trees

Took a short walk this blustery morning.  While there isn't all that much that's pretty about the trees right now, they certainly do look beautiful in silhouette.  It's become the time of year when you really have to be ceative to capture the beauty of the season.  Once winter come on full steam, there will be snow and ice to capture, but so now almost everything is so start and brown. 

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Frosty mornings

Since I get up pretty early for work, sometimes I can see some pretty cool things along my way. It's been so cold this week that the dew has been frozen on the grass near my office almost every morning. It looks so pretty with the right light especially with the fallen leaves as a backdrop :)

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Morning light

One of the coolest and most frustrating things for me at this time of year is when we let the clocks "fall back".  I adore how I don't need to be up at a completely unreasonable hour to get lovely morning light filtering through the trees like in this photo taken on my walk at Bouchard Park yesterday.   The light is so golden a rich looking for the first hour of the day as well as at dusk.

The really frustrating part about the shift in the light is that on my way home every day the sun is setting.  So, why could that possibly be a big deal?  Well... as a photographer, being stuck in my car in tons of traffic during an absolutely gorgeous sunset without any hope of getting to a good location to take a photo of all that glory is downright infuriating!   Tonight's commute was one of those nights.  I resorted to taking a picture out of my window when the traffic was stopped just to get SOMETHING on my camera.  So, it's not great - there are tons of branches and power lines in the way, but it's still beautiful.  I can imagine just how breathtaking it would be from the top of a hill overlooking some fields.  Well, at least I have a good imagination to work with, lol.

Stony Brook Wildlife Refuge

Took this while walking around and waiting for some friends to meet me at Stony Brook Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary this past weekend.  Had a complete blast there.  Hopefully I'll be sharing more pics from that visit :)  Click here to go to the Stony Brook website.

A Very Good Watering!

Courtesy of tropical storm Irene, our jurassic-sized hosta looks quite happily soaked.  I have NEVER seen this hosta look so thoroughly drenched before!  The water usually just beads up and rolls right down the leaves.  I just love how shiny the leaves got.  I guess that's what hours upon rain will do to a plant...

Look... a wagon wheel!

You know how I was just talking about how funny things just stick with you?  Bonus points for anyone who recognized the title of this post as a line from the PSA about kids eating cheese in the 1980's.  It just popped into my head when I was looking at this picture the other day and I couldn't resist making reference to it.  For those of you who are curious yet unaware of this PSA, please let me enlighten you:

Piney Goodness

Another picture from our trip to Maine.  A closeup of an eastern white pine tree.  This brings me back to the leaf project I had in 5th grade when we had to learn how to identify a bunch of local trees and collect sample of their leaves.  I will forever remember that this tree has 5 needles per bundle because of that project.  It's funny what weird things you remember from middle school.

Is it deer week or something?

So, I'm seeing a trend here... I have seen no fewer than 8 deer in the past week.  I'm starting to think they are looking for me rather then the other way around!  First, I saw a doe and three fawns in my apartment complex.  Then this weekend I was taking a walk down the driveway at our place in Maine and I scared the heck out of this, what I'm guessing, is an adolescent deer.  Actually I didn't even see him for the longest time.  All I heard was a sudden galloping of hooves through the leaves off in the woods next to the driveway.  I looked in carefully but couldn't see anything, so I started to walk back to the house.  I just happened to look into the woods one last time before giving up and I saw him.  Cool huh?  That was probably around 11am on Saturday.  Later on that day, when hubbie and I were driving back to the house after going on a wonderful schooner cruise (pics to come), we drove by a field near the house and saw at least three more deer munching away on the tall grass.  One ran off right away and two lingered just long enough for me to get my camera, get out of the car and walk about two steps.  I swear one of them jumped about 4 feet straight in the air as it bounded off into the woods.  It was really REALLY cool to see so much wildlife in one weekend!  Too bad I didn't get any pictures of the last set.  They just moved way too fast for my camera without some prior planning to adjust shutter speed.  Oh well, I'm pretty happy we even saw them at all!

Title... who needs a title? Lol

This is another photo from my walk through Heritage Park in Sudbury, MA.  There is a nice wooded section that loops you around and back to the pond with all the easily frightened frogs and I just loved how the sun filtering through the trees made the leaves glow and the path bathed in light.  It's so neat when it seems like you are walking through a tunnel of leaves that are glowing :)

From Garden to Garden

Many people I know have gardens... some small, like mine, while others grow so much they can hardly keep up with all the ripe produce erupting from the ground.  Because I have a garden and tend to hand make gifts, I think one of the nicest gifts someone can give is something that they took time to make or grow.  A friend of mine who has a lovely garden was kind enough to give me this very large tomato and two well proportioned cucumbers this week.  I sense a batch of cucumber salad in my future... I'll have to come up with an equally excellent fate for my little red friend here so I can appease my husband until our own tomatoes ripen.

Menotomy Rocks Park

Took a nice walk with a good friend this week at Menotomy Rocks Park in Arlington, MA.  We wandered, ate some yummy cookies from a local bakery and almost got trampled by a couple very cute and exuberant yellow labs... overall, a very nice evening walk.  We'll just have to to explore it more on a weekend sometime.

True Love

Saw these initials carved into a tree when I was on a leisurely walk through a local park.  While I hate to see the trees defaced in any way, it was a sweet thought that someone would want to share their love with those passing by. 

Bumble Bumble....

Yet another picture from the Elm Bank show.  There are so many great things to take pictures of there.  Cars, plants, insects and people abound!

How can a flower be so darn happy looking?

I don't know why, but there is something about gerbera daisies that always make me smile.  I can't help it, they just do. 

A Very Soggy Garden

I returned home from a lovely wedding weekend for one of my college friends to find a very soggy garden. My plan had been to actually plant all the lovely herbs I bought last week.. but I couldn't exactly do that without becoming a swamp monster in the process.  Instead, I just took pictures of the water droplets on our hosta.  The leaves on his hosta is absolutely gargantuan... I think it might be prehistoric.

Pretty Mother's Day Flowers

 
I found this beautiful hydrangea when I was out looking for flowers for both my moms this past weekend. I just adore how this one has both pinks and blues mixed together.  Very neat!

Leafy Beginnings

Took this beauty when wandering through The Garden in the Woods with my mom last Friday for a quick early Mother's Day photography walk.  While the garden wasn't in full bloom yet, it was still quite a nice walk and we were able to get some reasonably good photos.  I especially liked this one showing the beginnings of leaves on all the trees against the blue sky.  We haven't had a lot of that lately, so it's great to capture it when I can.  It seems like even nice warm days can't stay cloud free at this point. 

Valentine's Day Tulips

No, my hubbie didn't get these for me for Valentine's Day.  He got me chocolate dipped fruit instead.  Actually I bought these beautiful tulips on the way home from work so we would have something nice and spring-ish to look at over our modest heart day dinner.

Good butterfly.... now stay very, very still....

Is it bad that I wished he were glues to the butterfly bush he was perched on?  Ummmm..... well... yeah.  But he was so pretty and flew off so soon :(  I think I'm going to have to take a trip to the butterfly place in Westford again sometime soon.  I saw this beauty when I was down at the Cape last week.  Obviously hurricane Earl really did a number on the plant and animal population.  Ok, my snark is now over.

A little bit of wind and rain

My favorite time of year is the fall... can you tell?  We had a reasonably strong rain/wind storm last night and I woke up to the sounds of a tree cracking and falling in the woods behind our apartment.  Then I went to work and I saw that all these leaves had come down around the building.  They contrasted so nicely with darkness of the sidewalk and partially browned grass I just had to take a picture.