Afternoon in the Garden

Concrete Cottontail Napping in Living Green Rabbit Ears
We’re all ears here …

Sleeping in the sunshine … This is the concrete cottontail that sleeps in the patch of fuzzy green rabbit ears that grows by our back door.  The expression on this sleeping bunny’s face is so sweet, it always makes me smile.

Photo Challenge: Morning

Good Morning Concrete Cottontail
Good Morning Concrete Cottontail

In our garden we have many cottontail bunnies.  Some of them are brown with fluffy white tails and we scare them off if we move too fast.  Others are concrete cottontails that we have placed around our garden. This cute little guy is our first greeter for visitors walking up to our front door.  I love the way the morning light is playing up the bushes on one side but still leaving our little friend some shadows to hide in and surprise people when they first see him.

Photo: Sunset Rose

Glorious rose with sunset colors

I don’t know the actual name of this rose, but the glorious colors remind me of a vivid sunset.  I had a day I was particularly down about something that had really gone wrong with work.  Blaine arrived home at the end of the day with a bouquet of these roses.  Can we say, Awwwwww!  I don’t even remember now what had me so down that day.  The roses are the memory now.  The colors were so spectacular that I had to take a picture to preserve the beauty.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Numbers

Recipe for a Happy Kitchen

This photo challenge was a tough one, I discovered I really don’t think in numbers and don’t really have things with numbers around me except clocks and calendars. However, I do have this print in my kitchen of a recipe and recipes are one thing I do go by the numbers. Here is the text of the Happy Kitchen print:

Happy Kitchen

4 cups Love
2 cups of Loyalty
3 cups of Forgiveness
1 cup of Friendship
5 spoons of Hope
2 spoons of Tenderness
4 quarts of Faith
1 barrel of Laughter

Take love and loyalty, mix it thoroughly with faith.
Blend it with tenderness, kindness and understanding.
Add friendship and hope, sprinkle abundantly with laughter.
Bake it with sunshine. Serve generously daily.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Water

Ducks on Blue Water Pond
Back to Blue Water Swimming

I rounded a curve in the pond and took this picture of the ducks starting off swimming.  From this direction, the water has changed to reflecting cool blues, deep greens and charcoals from the sky and trees. 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Water

Ducks on Reflection Painted Water
Movement on Impressionistic Pond

Here is the second water reflection photo today showing how the first painted water image changes with the duck flapping its wings and moving the water.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Water

Ducks in Painted Water
Impressionistic Pond

Today, a photo study in water reflections.  On May 8th, I shared a photo of napping ducks I had taken at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.  The pond they are in is round and I took many pictures of them as Blaine and I walked around it. 

In just a few minutes, I caught shots as they slept, as they woke up and flapped their wings and then started to swim on the pond.  I was snapping away taking pictures of the ducks and not really taking in the reflections and changing colors of the water that were there from the different directions of the shots. 

It was amazing to open up the photos full screen size on the computer and see this lovely impressionistic painted landscape showing the blooming spring trees reflected in the water.  I will post a couple more photos from that day later on today.  One shows the difference to the painted water landscape when one duck begins flapping its wings.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Tiny

Tiny Hedgehog
Small enough to sit on a US dime

This is a miniature I fell in love with long ago on a family vacation to Canada.  Mr. Hedehog came home with me and has traveled with me through many moves and life changes.  He is the smallest miniature in my collection.  His original label shows he was made and hand painted in Scotland.