I don’t think I’ve ever had a Christmas Cactus that bloomed at Christmas. The flowers on this one are already beginning to die – the first of November. I put one (I have 2) outside under a tree this summer and it bloomed in summer! Not many flowers, just a couple.
Christmas Cactus
I am helping my neighbor’s daughter learn to knit, and she was amazed at the pretty flowers and asked if I had taken a picture of it. So I did.
I was cleaning up my Picasa photo section and came across this photo I took during the summer months.
This pretty little pansy grew between the cement blocks all summer. It just happened to take root in a spot where we seldom set foot. So always being “stepped over” it continued to grow.
Pansy In the Walkway
I call it a Pansy, but I think it might be a Violet.
I have so many photos that I mean to use either for work, or blogging, but they get lost in the mass of saved pictures, but I thought this little guy deserved to be shown.
I’ll be looking for “him” next Spring.
Trail to the cabins
The leaves have all turned to gold and brown now in southern New Hampshire. I had been wanting to hike out on the Girl Scout Camp property and get a shot of this dried up lake view.
Cabin in the Woods
This is one of the cabins where the girls hang out. I don’t know if they actually sleep out in this part of the camp – it is way out in the middle of nowhere – and I would think it would be a bit creepy at night, but there are signs of a campfire and someone carved a chair into the remaining trunk of a fallen tree.
Late Autumn View
The carved “log chair” faces this view.
I was reminded today, while reading a blog I visit often, of my visit to the lake one day last month. I often take walks to renew my spirit and that day I was feeling really low. I stood watching the geese feed in the shallow water in small groups. And I was thinking that even they have family and are not alone. Then I pictured them all gone – except for one – what if a goose was by itself? Well, I suppose it would keep doing just what it was doing. Eating and swimming. It would have to live – so it would have no choice. Would it be afraid? Hopeful that his companions would return? I don’t know. But I took comfort in the fact that the goose would keep living – because it is what we do. We might not be feeling very fortunate
Family of 8 crosses the road
, but each day we are given is a day we were meant to have.
I read at Flandrum Hill’s blog, a wonderful post about the geese. They don’t leave each other behind, in fact they make sure that all geese get to their destination. How awesome is that? People are not that kind. I have not been surrounded by the kind of care the geese give each other, but I am hopeful. This day I am still here. So I look for the blessings, and there are always many, no matter how bad things seem or how alone I feel.
Beech nut?
I am showing my stupidity here…but haven’t lived in the northeast long enough to learn all my tree names. I found a bunch of these “nut shells” on my neighbor’s property when I went to feed their chickens while they were away. I forgot to ask what they were, so I’ll ask here.
Since Beech trees are abundant, I thought maybe a Beech nut although I don’t know what those are. Then I remembered back to when I used to hike to Mill Hill in my childhood and there was a lone chestnut tree up there and thought maybe this was a chestnut shell – I saw no sign of any chestnuts near these pods though.
Empty Shell of a- Chestnut?
Dried Hydrangea
I did a lot of gardening when I lived in Florida. It really wasn’t much fun in summer – and that is when the weeds would grow like mad of course – and I had just about every kind of southern flower and plant in my large yard. My favorites were the Camellias and Crepe Myrtle, but I also had lots of azaleas under the Oaks and yellow and white Jasmine covering the fence. I lived in that house for 12 years and added more to the yard each year.
The north has it’s own collection of gorgeous flowers that are not seen in the south. Hydrangeas are one such plant. It’s just too hot for many plants to survive that heat and the perennials need a dormant time (in winter) that the southern plants don’t get. At least not to the extent that the northern ones do.
I’ve been trying my hand at drying the blue hydrangeas that grow in the front yard of my rental house. I wrote a page about Hydrangeas and how to dry them, with lots of links, at my Squidoo site - if you are interested. I had one large blossom dry up nicely (in the picture to the right) and just added a few more smaller and darker blue ones to the vase, but my favorite thing to do is photograph them.
I think my pictures turned out better than my attempt at drying. I’ve used them to start a new store (#6) at Zazzle. I’ve sold many blue hydrangea cards and stamps from my main store- Narrow Road Designs, so this is an off shoot of that.
Click here to start your own Squidoo lens or to visit Blue Hydrangeas
You check on your blog and some lovely person – a stranger- has left a bunch of wonderful comments. This is how God throws little blessings our way.
Today I have been trying to work on a new store I decided to open at Zazzle. It will be my 6th store there and I’ve only just lately been able to wrap my mind around some new fangled ways of creating items (everyone else has known these ’secrets’ forever it seems) so I wanted to make Blue Hydrangea cards and stamps and hopefully have some additional income from it – eventually.
I worked yesterday on the uploads and started uploading the photos and graphics to the zazzle store and then…..No more zazzle! They went off line. Bummer.
So I checked my mail and found a message sent out from my old (old as in old friend! ha) Pastor in Florida about the upcoming message for Sunday. And I got sad thinking that I would miss it. I pictured all my friends sitting in church listening to a wonderful message and singing those songs I haven’t heard in almost 5 years. I saw that there would be a potluck dinner and an outreach to the homeless and I wanted to call and say I’d be there to help. But I am 1,500 miles away – or something like that.
I moved on in my e-mail and saw that a new person was following me on Twitter and this time it wasn’t some naked sleezy woman! (Don’t you hate those follows?) It was a person who’s blog I had seen a while back. I remembered the name – Red Pine Mountain - so pretty. She has great photos and stories too, but the nicest thing was that she left me a bunch of nice messages about my photos and blog here.
I don’t read too many blogs and I have to skip the “happy home and family” “wonderful life” ones for reasons I won’t bore you with, but I love photos and sometimes I just look at them…and dream. I think that Red Pine Mountain will give me some good dreams and I am grateful for her visit.
Our little town has a Girl Scout Camp that runs along one side of the lake. It’s a beautiful area and those Girl Scouts are lucky!
All summer the Camp is off limits to any of us “non-girl scouts”, but now that the girls are gone, we locals can walk our dogs or hike on the property.
Girl Scout Camp Road
There is a beautiful beach area and I noticed that some new benches have been added.
Camp Beach
This area of the camp seems to be where they all gather for something. Of course I have no idea what, but it looks like they have a fire and sit on these “seats”. Maybe they sing songs and sacrifice old counselors.
Assembly and Fire Area?
Even though we have had a lot of wind and rain lately the color seems to be hanging on. The Camp caretakers will plow the road when snow falls so we can continue to enjoy our walks.
The camp is beautiful at all times of the year.
I was just updating my Squidoo lens on New England Foliage and realized that the season is almost over…Already! Wow, it seemed to fly by this year.
For 2 years now we have had gorgeous color and if not for the horrific ice storm that hit us last December, I bet the color would have been even better. Many of the trees have been broken or uprooted and my photos were taken of different views this year.
I took the dog up the road for a walk two nights ago and the sun was just going down over the hill. It was hitting the yellow leaves just right and looked like a spotlight – of course I didn’t have my camera!! And I knew it wouldn’t last long enough for me to run (I don’t run fast) home and grab it…so I just stood and enjoyed it.
My plan was to go back up the next night and capture a replay of that moment, but it rained and the wind blew…and today when I walked up the hill I realized that I wouldn’t get that moment back. Almost all the yellow leaves have been blown away. My next chance for that photo won’t be for another year.
Time passes quickly - and in my opinion, never so quickly as in the Fall.
I got my photos. Maybe not as many as I would have liked, and I may still get some good ones, but in my area the leaves are fading away by mid-month usually and today is the 9th.
If you are planning to visit the northeast to see the color, you’d better hurry.
*Check the link on my site which has an interactive foliage map which is updated by folks who live in the New England states.
I took a walk to take some foliage photos last week and came across a wild rose growing among the blueberry shrubs.
Pink Roses Art
I had never seen the bush, but all the others along the road seemed to have gone by quite a while ago. I could be wrong about this.
The pink was pretty against the backdrop of Fall colors and ohhhh it had such a lovely fragrance!
