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Here and There…Now and Then |
The View From The Couch
As usual, I’m posting this a few days late. This is my picture from Sunday, March 16. As some of you know, I’ve been out of commission since Friday evening with significant back pain. Today I spent most of the day lying on the sofa. This is my view from there out the dining room windows and into the back yard as the snow started to fall this afternoon. From my warm, dry vantage point, it was quite pretty but I was just as glad not to have to be out in it.
Dorothy, Hannah, and Tim
Dorothy went downtown with a few of her friends today, visiting the National Gallery of Art. Since I spent much of the day on my back today, do to back pain, I took a picture from my comfortable position on the couch. In this picture, Dorothy, Hannah, and Tim pose for me.
I especially like it because of Cathy photobombing them from behind the railing.
Friday Sunrise
We had another beautiful sunrise this morning and I was in the right part of the house to notice. The color didn’t last more than about 5 minutes, so I consider myself fortunate. This image is a little darker than it actually was, but just about as pretty. It’s cooler this morning, but still nice. We have more weather coming our way, if the meteorologists and their models are correct (which I know they are because I’m typing this on Monday).
Parking Lot Paint
The snow plows are rough on roads and parking lots, scraping up loose gravel as well as paint that’s marking parking spots and that’s on curbs to mark no parking zones. I was out around my building to take a short walk and took this pictures of paint and gravel on the grass. It had been in a pile of snow but as the snow melts, naturally, it is left behind as a quiet reminder of the weather we’ve had.
Actually, I just like the color.
Eranthis hyemalis
There is something special about the first flowers of spring. I suppose that the farther north you are (or at least the harsher and longer your winters are, which isn’t exactly the same thing), the more this is true. I know when we lived in Juneau, we looked forward to the greening of the woods. It’s perhaps a little surprising that in an evergreen forest, the summer is still a lot greener than the winter, but there are more than just the trees, of course. It’s the little things. In Juneau the spring came a lot later than we were used to but when it came, it came with a vengeance.
I’ve posted pictures of snow drops a few times already, and those were the first blooms in the yard. The Lenten rose, which is usually in bloom by now, has been covered by the snow too much to grow, so that won’t happen for a while yet. I was happily surprised when I got home this evening to have this little yellow flower looking up at me from the garden next to the driveway. Eranthis hyemalis, otherwise known as winter aconite, is a little plant and we only get a few flowers each year. In time, this little patch will spread and thicken and we could have a nice drift of them, but it takes time (like most things that are worthwhile). In the meantime, I’ll enjoy them in ones and twos. Happy flower.
Grease Bubbles
This is most definitely something to categorize under miscellaneous. I cooked a chicken curry this evening, experimenting with a few different combinations of ingredients. It wasn’t a resounding success but I think I learned a thing or two and the next version will be better. The chicken itself was wonderful, it was the sauce that suffered. Anyway, when I was done, I had a bit of grease in the pan and I filled the pan with water to loosen the bits that were stuck to the bottom. This is a picture of tiny bubbles of grease floating on the top of the water. Strange, I guess, but I thought it was pretty.
Sunset From Our Back Yard
It has continued to be beautiful outside and it really feels like spring. I know it’s not even the ides of March and it will very likely get cold again, but we’re all enjoying this while we have it. If nothing else, we’re closer to spring than we were a week ago, when we had half a dozen inches of snow on the ground.
We had a beautiful sunset this evening. With the two big trees in our back yard gone, we have a better view of sunsets and I’ve been happily enjoying them. It’s nice to be able to slide the back door open and take sunset pictures from the steps.
Cathy
One thing I worry about (although I can’t say it actually keeps me up at night) is that I am repeating myself on this here blog thing. Are my pictures too repetitive? Am I not creative enough? What can I do to get something different. The problem is that even if I do something different one day, that’s just one day. then I’m back to looking for something to photograph the next. But that’s life for you. Life is repetitive. We see the same people and travel the same roads most days and that’s not always bad. If every day were completely different to the day before our lives would be pretty tiring. That’s something about travel that I love but also don’t like. The sheer differentness of each day gets tiring after a while. And even then, there are many things that are the same. I mostly don’t mind the sameness to my days. It means, among other things, that life is pretty stable for me. Anyway, I get to come home to this lovely lady every day, and that really is good.
White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis)
The snow is basically all gone. There are batches in shadier spots and wherever it was piled when shoveling or plowing but the lawn is basically clear of it. Yesterday there was standing water in parts of the yard but now most of that has drained or soaked into the already waterlogged soil. It’s still quite wet out, but that’s normal and good this time of year. I walked around the yard looking for things to photograph. There are the snow drops but I posted their picture yesterday, so I wanted something else. I was looking at last years fern leaves when this little fellow landed in the hedge and let me take his picture. This is a white-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis), a friendly winter visitor, probably getting ready to head back to Canada for the summer.
Snow Drops (Galanthus nivalis)
What a beautiful day it was today. It was warm (or at least relatively warm, probably in the low 50s) and sunny. Early in the afternoon I went out and took some pictures of the Snow Drops (Galanthus nivalis) blooming in the front yard. I had a snow drop picture back on February 20 but we’ve had a few snows since then. Of course, for all I know, we aren’t done yet. Today certainly felt much more springlike that it’s been. This time, the flowers are completely open and enjoying the sun right along with us. Here’s hoping and enjoying the flowers.
Sunset
Traffic was horrendous this evening and I’m not really sure why. Anyway, as I was sitting in traffic I at least was able to enjoy the sunset. It wasn’t the most wonderful sunset I’ve ever seen but then, very few are, for obvious reasons. It was quite lovely and though there were trees and power lines between me and the most colorful parts of the sky, I was able to take this and a few other pictures while waiting for the traffic to start moving again.
Ashes
On Monday, when we had snow, I thought it would be a nice day for a fire. In addition to logs, I burned some papers. I know shredding is probably adequate for disposing of old, paid bills (and better still for disposing of unpaid bills). I’ve been known to use shredded bills as the paper under the logs when I start a fire, and that works well. Sometimes, though, it’s nice just to burn unshredded papers. When I had the fire going nice and strong, I put a large stack of papers on top and let them go up. These are the remains and as you can see, they were not destroyed as thoroughly as if they had been shredded. Of course, once I move them about a little, they will finish falling apart and the job will be done. Then they will go out into the garden the raise the pH a little and to return to the soil.
Sausage Pizza
There isn’t a lot that can or should be said about this picture. It’s two-thirds of a sausage pizza from Papa John’s, one of five pizzas that we bought for WHAT, our youth gathering this evening (yes, we stole the name because we like it). I took a few pictures of the youth themselves but none of them are very good and, contrary to popular belief and with very notable exceptions, I don’t like to post unflattering photographs of people. Much better to post an unflattering photograph of a pizza.
Evening Sky
There was very little traffic on the roads today, mostly because everything was canceled. That was despite the fact that the roads were all basically clear and dry. There was a little ice and snow left on our neighborhood street but the plows never made it here. Even so, I had no trouble and once I got a block from our house, onto the larger neighborhood street, it was totally clear. The sky cleared up and it was mostly sunny this afternoon. This picture was taken just a little before sunset.
Snow, Again
School for today was canceled before we went to bed last night, so we didn’t set our alarms for this morning. Of course, that means I woke up about three minutes before my alarm would have gone off and couldn’t get back to sleep. The snow had only accumulated to a depth of about two inches when I got up but it started snowing a bit more heavily after that and by midday we had six or seven inches on the ground. Since I can, I worked from home. I did go out to shovel the driveway and clear off the cars but otherwise enjoying the snow from the comfort of my castle.
Geranium Leaves
Technically, these are Pelargonium, not Geranium leaves, but they are so commonly called Geranium that it’s hard to break the habit. Pelargonium species and cultivars are not cold hardy, like the true geraniums and are grown as house plants and in pots here where it gets too cold to grow them outdoors year round. Geraniums (including pelargoniums) often make me think of an old Pogo comic strip, where the Howland Owl and Churchy LaFemme tried to cross a branch from a yew tree with a geranium to get uranium (Yew-Ranium) so they could make a bomb. Classic.
Sunset Through The Trees
It wasn’t much of a sunset in terms of lighting up the sky, but right down on the horizon, which I could sort of see between the houses behind ours, the sky had a fair amount of color. With my long lens, I took a few pictures of it through the trees and I like the way it turned out. The rest of the sky was a uniform and not particularly pretty color.
Bombay Bistro
Have you ever eaten at Bombay Bistro? If not, and if you’re in the area, I highly recommend it. I’m not qualified to say whether or not the food is authentic for any particular part of the Indian sub-continent. What I am qualified to say is that it’s really good. The Chicken Tikka Makhani is one of our favorites and I don’t we’d ever consider not including that in an order. We like to try new things and this time we had Saag Ghost, which is “lamb cooked with mildly spiced spinach.” I’m a fan of cooked spinach and liked this one quite well. Anyway, as far as I can tell, it’s hard to go wrong. It isn’t a big place, but that’s part of its charm. Anyway, if you haven’t eaten there, you should.
Foxes
Yesterday it was snowing and there was about an inch of new snow on the ground. We looked out the back window and saw two foxes playing in the back yard. I was going to post one of those pictures for yesterday but before getting it posted, today happened. Yesterday the pictures were taken through two panes of glass in an upstairs window with a 100mm lens. Today I had time to go down stairs, switch to the 75-300mm zoom lens, and take the picture through one pane of glass.
These two foxes are living in the area, obviously, and I couldn’t be more pleased. I’m looking forward to a rabbit free (or at least greatly diminished) spring and summer. That is unless some busybody decides that foxes aren’t safe to have around. Look, I understand that these are wile animals and not pets (or Narnians). But they aren’t going to attack and we aren’t raising chickens. They run away when I even just start to open the back door. Our neighbors have small kids but they also have a dog. The foxes aren’t going to hang around when he’s in the yard. Anyway, for now, I’m enjoying the foxes, long may they prosper. They may look like they are fighting in this picture, but they are playing.
Elizabeth
There are always people that you wish you’d run into more often and this little girl and her family are in that category. I’ve been taking pictures of her and her brothers since they were tiny but the chances I get are way too far apart for my taste. We always say we should get together more often and we really mean it, but it doesn’t work out, somehow. I’m convinced life gets squeezed out by all the stuff we fill our life with and here I use the word “stuff” where a stronger word my do better.
Anyway, Elizabeth is about 14 months older than the last time I took her picture, I think. As you can see, she’s missing a few teeth but her smile is just as genuine as ever. Her brothers were around, as well, and I tried a few times to get pictures of her younger brother but he wasn’t having any of it.
