Photo 365 #106: Landscape

November 21, 201415 Comments

I love landscapes. I think the majority of pictures I take are either of my kids or landscapes (49% landscapes, 49% kids, 2% other). Iowa is such a beautiful place that I can’t help whipping out my camera (either of them) and capturing the glories of nature.

quixotic

As previously mentioned, I also love sunsets. The arrival of snow is seriously hindering my ability to capture them through the break in the trees that form the western borderline of our property.

I may or may not have mentioned, however, that I’m not fond of the wind farms that are springing up all over the area (seriously, I can’t remember if I’ve talked about it or not). There’s one that stretches for a good ten miles south of where I live, and the blinking red line on the night horizon is one I find quite annoying. Now there’s another one that mars the northern horizon on my way to work. If this keeps up, I’ll be living in the middle of a wind farm inside of ten years.

Still, I do like the silhouettes these particular turbines made against the darkening night sky. And I love the hint of blurriness evident near the horizon and the edges of the turbine blades; it makes the whole scene feel a bit dreamy and surreal. When I took this picture, I was reminded of Don Quixote tilting at windmills, and I love it when nature makes me think of books.

What do your favorite landscape photos depict?

Photo 365 #105: Swarm

November 20, 2014November 21, 201414 Comments

The first time I met Seymour’s extended family was at his annual family reunion. He has a big family. I know people always think they have a big family (I sure thought so, even though I was including my grandma’s brother’s family in my head count), but Seymour really does – his dad was one of 13 kids. Reunions always used to be held at a nearby state park due to the number of people who’d come and, while it seems like fewer people have come the last couple of years, there’s still quite a crowd.

So we pull into this park and start looking around. There are people everywhere, but he can’t see anyone he recognizes, and the only people there that I know aside from him and our kids are his parents. Finally, he turns to me and says, “Are we in the right place?”

I looked at him like, Really? You’re asking me?

Photo 365 #104: Moment

November 19, 20148 Comments

Life is but a series of moments. Each day I find myself recording moments for posterity, though sometimes my recordings are strictly internal (which means they usually disappear within 24 hours, as my memory is terrible). Still, those little moments are what make life worth living, are they not?

“Peek-a-boo!”

“Raaaaaar!”

These two images are from the first night we spent in our new house. We had no furniture, other than a collapsible picnic table and an air mattress. What we did have were great friends and happy kids, and we made a boatload of memories that night. We’ve made more memories in our new house in the year since these pictures were taken, and the thought of all the memories we’ve yet to make thrills me to pieces.

Photo 365 #103: Architecture

November 18, 20142 Comments

I’m lucky to work in a town full of wonderful old Victorian houses. There are two of them within a couple of blocks of my office, and they’re just gorgeous (there might actually be a couple others), despite the massive hailstorm that hit the area five years ago. But I’m not at work today, so I can’t take a picture of either of them decked out in their snowy glory.

I have a few pictures of a beautiful church I saw this summer, but I was shooting on the fly and most of the pictures came out either blurry or crooked. Then I thought of all the pictures I have of our house, both our old one and our new one, but they’re really nothing special (the pictures, that is, not the houses). Straight-on shots of one, a few different angles on the other as we were painting it this summer, but nothing great. Still, they got me thinking…

Photo 365 #102: A pop of color

November 17, 201412 Comments

Over the summer, we had a potted impatien out in front of our office. It was a lovely thing, and when the temps turned colder, we brought it inside. But sitting just inside the door as it was proved detrimental to its health, and it withered.

One of my coworkers brought it inside and set it near the window in our coat room. She’s got a much greener thumb than I have, and decided to try nursing it back to health.

winterbloom

Last week, we noticed a bloom. A couple days later, there was another one. This morning, I counted four or five, and those are just on the side of the plant I can see – the side facing the window appears to have a few more blooms on it.

Now that we’ve got a bit of snow on the ground, it’s a treat to see something so bright and different amid the white.

Photo 365 #101

November 16, 2014November 17, 2014Leave a comment

We had our first significant snowfall this weekend, and as a result, we didn’t go anywhere for most of the weekend (the lone exception being a trip to the store this morning for some milk). I was quite happy to stay inside because it was brutally cold outside (though it wasn’t a whole lot better inside), and yesterday the roads were quite slick.

Miss Tadpole is concentrating awfully hard. 🙂

That blur just above the blue robot is his head flying off. 🙂

Instead, we stayed inside and played with the newfangled Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots that Bubbles got last year for Christmas. It was certainly an entertaining way to spend the afternoon, and the boys loved watching Bubbles and Miss Tadpole pop each other’s heads off. 🙂

How did you spend your weekend?

Photo 365 #100

November 15, 2014November 17, 20142 Comments

Last night was Miracle on Main, my hometown’s annual Christmas kickoff. Among other activities, they had a whole room set aside for Santa to see visitors:

santa

Thumper didn’t say a whole lot, but that was okay, because Cricket did all the talking for him. 🙂 It was quite possibly the most adorable Santa encounter I’ve ever witnessed (at least with my kids).

Do your kids like going to see Santa? Or do they scream in terror at the sight of him?

Photo 365 #99: Mystery

November 14, 2014Leave a comment

Tiny Bubbles was nothing if not curious.

tinybubbles

These days, it’s Cricket and especially Thumper who like to go exploring in places they shouldn’t.

Photo 365 #98: Warmth

November 13, 2014November 14, 20142 Comments

I used to go to a lot of horseshoe tournaments. My ex-husband played in as many tournaments as he could get to (still does), which meant I spent the summer baking in the heat at tournaments all over the state. It was a lot of fun, if you don’t mind the heat and the humidity, and sometimes I miss going. It was fun sitting around chatting with the other horseshoe wives (the ones who didn’t also pitch), and sometimes I’d go exploring whichever town we happened to be in.

The tournaments that were probably the most fun were at the state fair. They hosted tournaments everyday, with the state championships on the weekends. The horseshoe courts there used to be in a high-traffic area right across from the nicest bathrooms on the fairgrounds and close to food, so it was about as perfect a location as you can get.

One Last Conversation on the Courts

But eventually, the fair board decided something else should occupy the space next to Little Hands on the Farm, something more farm-related than an old farmers’ game, and the horseshoe courts were relocated, making way for an animal nursery. It’s a very nice nursery, but I do miss the courts being centrally located.

As we were leaving the fairgrounds after the last tournament at the old courts, I snapped this picture of the scoreboards. The way they were all out there in the middle, I had the feeling they were a bunch of old friends, standing around discussing all they’d seen in the past ten days: all the ringers, the near-misses, the celebrations and heartbreaks. Despite its bittersweet quality, this is one of my favorite pictures ever; it just feels so dynamic, as if the scoreboards had really come to life.

Photo 365 #97: The natural world

November 12, 20149 Comments

Living in a rural area is nothing if not fantastic for capturing wonderful moments in the life cycle of nature. As evidenced by my deep and abiding love for skyscapes, I’ve got no shortage of inspiration for nature-based images. And since it’s hard for me to choose just one, here are several!

Beautiful…and treacherous.

Our yard is littered with pine cones.

“Come into my chamber,” said the spider to the fly.

Just another beautiful summer day.

Tasty harvest. 🙂

This is completely unacceptable at this point in the year.

These are only a handful of the nearly two thousand pictures I’ve taken of the world around me this year alone. I feel blessed to live in such a beautiful place.