our sunny Sunday before Thanksgiving

post #165
        Well, lately, each week, I have been posting quite a few photos.  As we must regularly remind ourselves, however, there are only 24 hours in each day.  The time has come to cut back on the number of blog photos I post, for the sake of my other photo work.  I have to practice discipline to do this, which is not my greatest strength, but giving up the blog is simply not an option. I love doing it.  So I will try instead for a period of restraint. 
       I also want to explore other layouts for the blog and to figure out how to make the photos I do post look closer to their real sharpness while at the same time protecting them. 

        Since this is the week of Thanksgiving, here's my plan: this week and next I will share some photos with comments about how they each helped the photo work better!  The first one shows the spider whose web caught two leaves and who had not blown away by the time I saw this masterful display.  I caught it with amazing sharpness considering my camera was hand held and the wind was blowing!  (This is what I mean by photographic thankfulness....)  I hope the huge web shows up in what you are seeing, and, if not, I will post this photo again in a future post once I figure out how to make safer, sharper photos appear here.

      

      Next are three "portraits," with thanks to all creatures who appear, who tolerate, and who are sharing my world:

chewing on an apple right outside my desk window

looking resigned to all sorts of attention at the 4H event

enjoying the milkweed pod, beautifully blending in

      This next photo was made hand held, on Carter Ford, after a big rain.  It has one of my semi-philosophical, semi-humorous captions, which I am always thankful to find in my head:

out on a long leaf, over muddy water....

     To make myself end for today, I thought it a fine opportunity to share a photo of one of our wild turkey visitors.  They are skittish, and don't do what they are told, so this is the best I could get:

      Happy Thanksgiving, safe travels, and my thanks to you, viewers from all over the world who visit this blog when you can. 
  

a change of seasons sweep-up

post #164
      Last week some snow, today steady rain with gusty winds in the forecast, though most trees which lose their leaves in winter have already lost them.  Now here I am, feeling in between.  What I want to share photographically are two cemeteries, a few recent milkweeds (continued) -- plus a solid old barn and some mistletoe.  

    I don't know if country cemeteries are common all over Kentucky, but they definitely are just that in the northeastern part of this state.   I am so used to them that I forget to explain to readers of this blog about how ordinary they are.  And how beautiful.  We have one on our land as well, for families who owned our farm before us. The next photo is made by turning myself around to look west.

      Last month I also visited a local cemetery in the next county, with a friend who has a burial plot there.  It is also a beautiful place in the fall so I feel it works well to show them together.  It is called Sardis Cemetery; services are held twice a year at the old church house, on Memorial Day and on Labor Day weekends. 

    Now for two milkweed photos, one with seeds about to fly off in all directions, and the other with pods mostly empty and dried out, all parts doing what they are meant to do.

    To end today, a sturdy barn, built on stones, back in the woods, that I visited on a "mule", a four wheeler, one that I hadn't expected to ride in that day, but I am so glad it worked out for me to do.  My camera was in the car when I stopped just to say hello, and so it went with me too.  We were also out on their hay producing hillside, where I made the mistletoe photo.

backwoods barn

kind neighbor/driver, with young grandson beside him

      

       Mistletoe usually has to be shot out of the tree!  But if I can harvest some by reaching with a ladder, I now have permission to sell it at the annual Arts and Crafts Fair at Morehead State University the first Saturday of December.  (This year that means 12/7.)  

       NOTE: I will be having my usual booth, with the wondrous Jennifer Reis, as before, and I hearby declare a 10% discount on mistletoe if you mention this blog! ( Also, this year I will have a lot of cards on sale since I have way too many kinds of cards and need help paring down to the stars.  Desperate times require desperate means....) 

MORE amazing autumn moments nearby

post #163
      Shamelessly showing off, that's what I feel I am doing by sharing so many photos made during those two days near Halloween.  I am so glad I was not away from home when the best of fall happened.
      Please note: I end up reducing my photos in size and pixel count in order to put them on the blog, and I apologize for the resulting decrease in quality.  I know there must be a better way to do all this -- and I am open to helpful suggestions in this regard -- but in the meantime, I do what I can figure out, which is not everything and never enough!!

      The first photos look north near our mailbox on the road, which runs along a ridge.  Later I drive over to the barn area in these photos and shoot back toward this spot where I made this photo.

  In order to get to the barn area in this photo, I drove "over the cliffs" on a road that seems narrower than ever since it was paved several years ago.  Beautiful as the drive was, I am grateful I don't drive that way every day.  

looking through the tops of trees!

next heading down, with nowhere to pass

I made it safely this far, took these four photos and then turned around!

This barn can be seen along the top of the first photo from the road....

and the barn in the top middle is up on the main road, where I started.

      We admire the homestead our friends have in between the two sides of this cliff area.  I am including this photo for the several chicken devotees I know who follow this blog!  It looks like chicken paradise to me, with their own caravan that can be moved from place to place on the precious flat land in front of D. and E.'s home.  

then going back up the cliff side, still hoping not to meet another vehicle

    At last, back home again, safe and amazed:

back on our driveway, just before the rain started

         By today, most of the leaves here have fallen.  For these last ten days, we have had an almost constant wind.  Deer season began yesterday, and a bit of snow is mentioned for this coming week!  I had a lot of hits for last week's post, and I hope today's is of interest as well.  For me, it is a happiness to be able to share these moments of beauty and wonder.

The 48 hours when autumn peaked in my Kentucky county

post #162
       This week's post is all about 48 hours of trees and color, Wednesday and Thursday.  By coincidence, I had plans to meet two close friends for lunch in Prestonsburg -- two hours away -- on Wednesday.  However, I barely made it out of our driveway because it turns out that was the day fall peaked.  It was beautiful everywhere.  But, even with all the driving I did -- and it was all exhilerating -- nothing was any more beautiful that day than our driveway. 
       So please excuse me if I share too much fall foliage today and next week as well.  I am not trying to be competitive, truly, but we did have a very amazing two days -- followed by a front passing through with strong winds and .62 inches of rain overnight....

This is where the driveway opens up, close to the house I am leaving for the day.

halfway out, looking back at where I had come from

a second look

  


 

by the side of the driveway

Because I stopped and got out of the car, I happened upon an unusual sight and one which turned out to be very brief, since the wind soon blew the web away.  I am thrilled with these three found moments.

I continued out to the road, looking left,

and looking up, while stopped,

looking out again, when the driveway crosses the pipeline area,

looking left before turning right and heading to Prestonsburg,

and passing the neighbor's fields and woods along the road.

      More next week. I have to confess I went a little bonkers with my camera despite some challenging weather conditions.  All these photos are made during that one day, the day  before Hallowe'en.  
      Speaking of Halloween, I want to add this colorful photo of the season:
 

Lovely Mary!  Great colors on you!

     I am now going out for a short walk, before it gets too dark (earlier than yesterday.)  I'm glad to be able to share these wonders with whomever makes it here to this post!