Errands are fun when you have scenery like this

By Elizabeth Prata

I am no fan of errands. When I finish work or school, which are the only regularly scheduled activities that draw me away from my home, I like to scuttle back ASAP. But being alive means you have to sustain yourself, and that means an occasional trip to the bank, mechanic's, hairdresser's, Dollar Store, grocery store and so on.

It's been raining non-stop here for a good few weeks. And cold. A cold rain with temps in the forties is just chilling. But I see that the rain is helping the blossoms grow. We have forsythia and dogwood and some fruit trees blooming already. We also have greened-up grass and some buds on the trees.

As I was driving home yesterday after school, I had to stop at the Bank. Although the day was a bit gray, the scenes around weren't. I love my little town and the county I'm living in. Here are a few charming scenes. I got a huge kick out of the no trespassing signs. Looks like they mean it!

Photographs and french fries

The weather around here in North Georgia has been unseasonably warm. The temperatures when I leave school have been in the mid 70s, which is delightful especially when there's no humidity. I have taken to going to Hardees for an order of fries and then driving around the scenic byways of our rural county, snapping photos. With my car windows are open and the music on and with little traffic and the sun beginning to lower, it creates both a relaxing half hour or hour and many great photo ops. Here are a few of the favorite snaps I caught yesterday while driving around:

What a nice way to put a buffer between me and the work week. As I drive around it arouses my gratitude for living in such a quiet, beautiful, restful location. Then when I get home I can brew a cup of tea and play with my photos in Pixlr. More relaxation!

A brown box leaning against my front door with the happy Amazon logo was waiting for me when I arrived home. A kind soul had given me a Christmas-Birthday gift certificate. I used it to buy the world's softest socks, some pants, and two books. Here are the socks:

I had heard a sermon a while back by Sinclair Ferguson at Ligonier Ministries on Proverbs 26:4-5, titled Answer a Fool, Don't Answer a Fool. It was an amazing sermon, full of insight and wisdom. I realized how few sermons I've ever heard on any Proverb. When I recently saw this Commentary on Proverbs recommended by a credible leader, I bought when the gift certificate came along.

The other book I got was a recommendation from a friend since she knew of my interest in Queen Elizabeth's life. It's called, The Little Princesses: The Story of the Queen's Childhood by her Nanny, Marion Crawford. It's a Kindle book.

I have a lot to do today but it's all fun and at my own behest. I would like to do another lesson in the Ligonier "Understanding the Tabernacle" class, read more of my current book, Memoirs of a Medieval Woman, write several blog essays for my other blog to have them ready for the week, read my Bible, make yellow squash patties, and do some art journaling with two new rubber stamps I found at the second hand store for 10 cents! All that might not sound like a lot but it will take me the entire day to accomplish. Happily so. This evening I might watch a movie. Maybe there'll be a nap in there somewhere. I love Saturdays.

As a kid I remember reading a young adult book called The Saturdays (pub 1941) which I really loved. Four children living in a NYC brownstone with their dad and housekeeper, lament the fact that their lack of a healthy allowance prevents them from embarking on really grand adventures on their day off. They come up with an idea to pool their allowances so each child can take off on a Saturday for a really good time. I liked the cooperative element of the premise and of course I loved seeing what each sibling dids with his loot on the Saturday of his turn.

Anyway, Saturdays are great! I hope you enjoy yours.

Birdhouses I have known

Birdhouse series!!

The Golden Hour

A walk around the yard at "Golden Hour". This is the time when the sun has sunk low but not below the tree line yet, and the shadows are long and the light is soft and gold. It is the time when the last few birds are chirping before going to roost, and the rest of the world is quiet.


The side yard. You can't tell, but the light was VERY golden, especially through the under-branches of the pine tree.

Moon coming up through the trees

Squirrel!

I made a noise and he turned, "Who dat?"

I set my Nikon's wonderful zoom to full. This is the result-

This is where I was standing.

Where is the hay? Beyond the garage, at the other side of the pasture, between the two trees. Ha!

Donkeys!

I've mentioned that the area around here is rural. There are lots of fields with agricultural things growing, like canola, watermelons, or hay; and lots of animals like cows, sheep, horses, and donkeys. I've even taken photos of a buffalo herd, and several emus.

The donkeys are soooo cute when they are born and so little. I've been dying to get a picture of them for over a year now but have missed it every time. The owner rotates his animals, and sometimes the cows are in the front pasture, and sometimes the donkeys. Sometimes there are no animals in that pasture. Another problem is that it's on a straight-away in a 55mph zone and there is no shoulder to stop. Thirdly, it's on a curve. Stopping or slowing in that spot is dangerous. Last, when the donkeys HAVE been out, I haven't remembered to prepare my camera in time!

Well this week I saw the donkeys and the babies. I drove home later that day with camera prepared and there were no animals grazing at all. Drat, they're in the back pasture! Same with the next morning. The third day there was too much traffic behind me. The fourth day it was too dark and rainy. Today though, was clear, sunny, and coming home is a slightly better angle to shoot because it's less of a curve. There was one car behind me so I slowed down and he soon passed. No other cars were in sight on either direction and the grass along the side where there is NO asphalt shoulder had been mowed so I could see where it was level to pull over a bit. I'd already opened my car window and turned the camera on.

These photos aren't optimal of course, because I was in a traffic zone pointing the camera out a half downed window with no time to set up the shot, but they came out OK anyway.

I don't know why I felt so compelled to get a picture of the donkeys. Maybe it's because they were one animal in my immediate area I didn't have a picture of yet. Or maybe the babies are just so cute. I don't know but here they are for whatever reason!

This is the field I pass by that occasionally has the donkeys in it.

Here is a brown donkey lookin' fine. I'm still in the same spot but used my Nikon's excellent zoom

Here's a mama and her two babies. She's giving me the hairy eyeball...

I cropped these even closer.

But I'm still this far away. Nikon Coolpix with 30X zoom rocks!

The Nikon sets up the photo fast, too. I didn't have to idle by the side of the road long. No vehicular crashes happened in the taking of these photos. ;)

So I finally got photos of the donkeys. Now it's on to birds again!

Visual Journal: Squirrel

I like taking photos of children and sports because the action happens fast and you never know which way a player or a kid will go. Setting up the shot, anticipating, and capturing something that occurs and is over is a flash is a challenge.

But nothing like trying to get a good shot of a squirrel. This is a challenge on steroids, at warp speed. And forget when he doubles back...!

I'm satisfied with what I got. I'll try again sometime, when my head stops spinning from trying to anticipate which way he'll go next.

Sky photography

In the book I'm reading, Creative Photography, the author suggested making a visual journal by tearing out clips from magazines of photos I wish I'd taken, and as time goes on to look for themes or parse reasons why I like a particular photo. I liked that idea but I'm not going to do it. I'd rather make my own journal and fill it with my own photos, lol.

The author also suggested to take 100 photos of the same thing in different lights and from different angles. I liked this idea too. This trains the eye to see differences even among familiar things, and to stretch one's self by trying different angles on old and familiar items.

One of my earliest favorite photos I took 38 years ago in Maine, during the fall season amid a vivid and colorful section of trees lining the quadrangle. I looked UP. I pointed my camera to the upper yonder and framed a vivid yellow cluster of leaves against an azure sky with the sun behind them. It was great.

I don't do that a lot so this week I started looking straight up again. I'd been admiring the clear blue sky such as we get here in Georgia in the spring. The pollen haze was washed away and the thunderstorm cleared the weeks of the air away and left behind a startlingly blue expanse. So I pointed the camera straight up and these photos were the result.

Shooting old things from new angles

I'm reading The Creative Photographer. There are several good suggestions I've read in the "Inspired Vision" section designed to spark creativity by helping the photographer to see usual things in a new way. One of the suggestions is to look for the alphabet in nature and to look for numbers. I am going to do this.

A second suggestion is to take 100 photos of the same thing over time. The suggestion was to take it over different days, under different lights, from above, below, etc. The task is to train the eye to see the same things in new ways. The author said photos taken of the item over time can become a kind of visual journal.

A third suggestion that I liked picks up on the notion of a visual journal. It is to actually keep a visual journal. The recommendation is to cut out pictures of things from magazines or books of photos I wish I'd taken. Over time a theme may emerge. For example, I might notice I gravitate to cutting out lots of pictures of flowers, or things that are red, or lots of pictures of hands in different positions. etc.

The only problem with #3 is that while I'm good at photography I'm terrible at making anything three-dimensional. There's a massive disconnect between my brain and my hands.

Anyway, here are my letters I've been able to find so far.

Clockwise from top left, L, S, V, Z, U, O

It's a good book, basic enough to understand, but challenging with practical ideas. It's nice to have a vacation like this week's Spring Break where there are enough days to shed the stress which allows mind to relax and try new things.

New art on the wall

Yay, we are on a school break right now. We've got Monday and Tuesday off, which is really nice because the rest of February and March is a long haul until the next break. It's the most stressful, tiring part of the year. We've been advised to rest up, not think about school, and have a relaxing time. Always one to follow orders, I am doing just that.

While I waited for the word to leap in the car and go retrieve my Bountiful Basket from my friend who kindly picks it up for me, I scanned some collages I made years ago and found by looking through some of the older notebooks I have on my bookshelf. I made this one just after I moved to GA and was enjoying the first of the south's mild winters and early spring. I had a journal-type-day planner I'd done some art in. I like chronicling things. I Pixlr-ized the scanned journal page, of course.

This next one was from an old day planner in which I was obviously not looking forward to the New Year, lol. I never have been able to keep up a journal. I lasted with this ten year old one until Feb 4. Then I quit writing in it, chronicling in it, and doing art in it. Why I keep a nearly empty ten year old day planner is beyond me. I think this was the last gasp of day planners/journals I ever tried to keep.

I thought this was funny.

I have no clue what was on my mind when I made this. It isn't even cohesive.

Although as general advice, yes, avoid the herd mentality.

I finally bought some new art to hang over my bed. The art that was there before was a photo I had taken over twelve years ago. I like the photo itself, the composition, what it says, and the colors. But I remember that day, I remember that snowstorm, I remember that apartment, and I hated all three. Here is the photo I took down from over my bed, thus making a space for a new piece of art.

It is a watercolor of what seems to be a Greek villa overlooking the blue Aegean sea. The cashier asked me with a grin, if I am going to put the picture in a beachhouse, and I said, no, I am going to hang it over my bed and pretend I am there. If I have to look at something as I fall asleep, at least it's not a snowstorm from hell and frigid temperatures but of a soft sea with crisp white terraces.

It isn't a first edition, nor anything expensive or even particularly special. I liked the colors, I liked that for its size it wasn't heavy, and I liked the frame.

Our Bountiful Basket today was filled to the brim with goodies. I traded my oranges and grapefruits to a friend for her bok choy and beets. We also received a bag of pears, zucchini, broccoli, tomatoes, spinach, and cukes. I also have left over cauliflower and I still need to cut up the pineapple from last time. Yay! healthy food. Beets are so good roasted. You wouldn't even believe.

Well I hope you survive the Polar Vortex that is supposed to bring lots of low temps to much of the eastern seaboard this weekend. I have to say, today was pretty chilly and it's getting colder right now as the sun sets. I'm blessed to have food, clothes, blankets, a home and cats! Count your blessings, no matter what your circumstance, there are many blessings in your life.