Happy 7th Birthday Kasia!

These are pictures from our Grandma and Grandpa Date Night in December. We have a much taller hill now and you would really be able to slide down it fast but not as fast as you did at Jumping Jacks. We had a great time watching both of you go down those slides and I suppose we may have to do it again sometime. Have a great Birthday and know that we love you and your family so much. Thanks for coming to see us and we are looking forward to Tia's wedding when we will get to see you again.




What a beautiful fish face.

Nothing except maybe a fence (Part 5)

The fresh snow on everything made for a great chance to take some different unusual pictures of a fence.

Nothing (but old farm equipment) Part 4

I love photographing old farm equipment even in the snow.

 I grew up around a lot of this old equipment and it was even old then.

Nothing (part 3)

Here are some more of the Saturday walk within 75 yards of my front door.

 I still have a lot more too. (Not counting the duplicates either.)

My mailboxes. the one on the left belonged to a neihbor who is now deceased

 and we miss him and his recently deceased wife. 

The snowman my wife and granddaughters helped me build. 

He had received a new fresh skin the night before.

More use of imagination to see the dinosaurs in this one.

One of the several fence posts.

The last two are of the same scene with a different focal point.

 These are always fun to do .

Nothing To Photograph (Part 2)

Like I said I took nearly 400 pictures yesterday so here are 5 more of them. It was really quite fun just seeing what I could come up with in one day around my house. Have you tried it yet?

The mountains were beautiful that mourning.

The trees were so pretty in the bright sunlight.

More Ice on the lights.

Wood around the small deck of our outdoor pool.

Try sitting on that seat on you would probably not be able to move after you got off, if you could even get off. They were hard enough to sit on when they were warm.

"There's nothing to photograph"

Have you ever said to yourself "I just don't live in one of those neat places where I can just go out anytime and find great pictures to take."

 Well I have thought a lot about this and for those of you who follow this blog you will have seen where I have photographed my own yard a hundred times and today is no different. I decided the other day that when Saturday rolled around and I had some time (or better yet when Saturday rolls around and I make the time) I will get up and go out and just take a picture and say to myself what is there in this area that would make a great photo?

 Today Saturday rolled around and I made some time to just go out and photograph the yard. It was kind of fun in the fact that it snowed four more inches last night and that always changes the dynamics of things. So tonight my blog is the start of several that will include pictures that I have taken today within 75 yards of my front door. Here is the first set and more will come later as I process the rest. I do this so as to hopefully inspire you to "Just go look around and see what you can take. (I took over 400 images today so you obviously won't see even a small portion of them but that is just more for you to ponder next time you think to yourself, "There's nothing to photograph"!)

Ice on my new shed.

Snow on our fence.

A drop of water from ice on the corner of my house.
(By the way about 9 of the images today were taken of the same piece of ice as I was trying to catch one drop of water as it was falling off. It wasn't real easy.)

Ice on the needles of one of my pine trees.

More ice and taken with a # 4 close-up filter on my 300 mm lens.

(My fingers were starting to get a bit cold changing these lenses and filters, just part of the process.)

A winter bird singing from the top of our apple tree.

What looks like a dove flying from the top of one of our trees. 

And finally, a bear in one of the pine trees.

(Come on use your imagination a little bit and you will see it.)

Actually looks more like a bear rug left in the tree with snow on it.

Lights and Ice

Here is a new one. No wonder those lights have the word "ice" in their name.