summer travels

          This week, I will be away from home, so I am posting -- two days early -- a few photos from a recent family weeklong gathering.  This is what a Kentucky summer can be!  

at the pond

walking up to the mailbox with a princess and a butterfly

from a boat, on Grayson Lake

 

Another family joins us for some swimming!

back home, MUSIC

       I look forward to posting again on August 7, during my usual weekly time. Thanks all!

gardens everywhere I look

post #294
     Today is a checking in with the gardens I see around me. So many. I don't have a garden  this year because I couldn't deal with the deer problem at this time. Next year this place will have a big garden, I am sure.
     SO, here and there, gardens, gardens. Yesterday I had my first annual bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, with lots of mayo, and the tomato was from nearby neighbors. (See first photo) Thanks, Tammy!  I have written poems about BLTs; I don't eat much bacon the rest of the year.

           We went to visit Sandy and Junie's chickens and rabbits, and I took a few photos of their hilltop garden, with three sessions of corn - newly planted, stalks in waiting, and almost ready ears on the tallest rows. Good luck distracting the raccoons!

This photo was made earlier in the visit, with my shadow for fun. This also shows what a difference light makes when a photo is taken!

Here's a garden where horses used to graze. This home's garden used to be across the road, the one we take to drive to town.

     For a book project, I needed a photo of an apple orchard, so I went searching for one. Indeed I found a house, barn, young and old apple trees, and a garden, too. Here are three views, taken from the roadside that curves up and around their farm:

    Then there is George and Margie's garden. I have shared photos from here other years. I caught this in the morning, when the light was good, and I don't think they were home.  But they have given me permission to take photos any time I can. I rarely get going early enough to catch them actually working in their magnificant garden.

again corn, for now and for later

tomatoes, beets and beans

beets close-up

Turning my back on the garden, I took a photo of fields next door, so to speak, newly mowed.

This is a garden of sorts, at Morehead's recycling center -- I love it! This grove of black-eyed susans comes up every year in the patch between the cardboard bins and the delivery entrance.  All on their own. I was hoping to see it this year, and I did! I am grateful for the hard work the center does to make our community healthier.

        I hope everyone has had some fresh garden produce to enjoy this July!!  Enjoy the beauty, too.  I will end with a photo of the wonders of family who have spent the past week here growing, like a beautiful garden.  Well, maybe beautiful is the wrong adjective for the gang in this photo.... even though it is my best photo of the week.

Second annual memorial ride for Garry Purnell, who loved horses

post #293
         For a couple of hours yesterday morning, a group of family and friends rode horses or off-road vehicles in honor of Garry Purnell, who died in December, 2014. It was the second year for this summer event; this time it was not as hot as it can be. Also the rain was short in duration. As a photographer, I appreciated the cloudy light -- and not being super hot.  
       I wasn't able go along with the ride for the whole two hours of it, but today I am sharing some of the photos I did manage to make.  

       First, the preparations at the house and the arrival of wagon and horses:

Natalie, warming up her horse, in Garry's barn

Jean's garden, beside the barn

wagon and horses now ready to go

other horses, perhaps feeling left out -- in the field

Garry's grandson

 

Garry's wife and my friend, Jean

along route 504

 

heading toward home

Perhaps the best response to my photography all day! Loved it!

 

returned

Jonathan, the "ring leader", and his daughter, Natalie, remembering Garry, and his love for them and for the shared love of horses

    

exhibiting!

post #292
       Today is a short post because my place is filled with family, which includes shifts and wonderful new adventures.  I think this occasion provides a good excuse for sharing the information about an upcoming juried exhibit called "Firmly Rooted, 2016" at the M S Rezny Studio/Gallery in Lexington, Kentucky.  My photo of the milkweed pod with a tiny frog sitting on it was accepted to be included!  More information is on the postcard I hope to show here (two sides) or at the gallery's website: msrezny.com 

       Many regular viewers of this blog already know that I followed a couple of milkweed plants throughout an entire year. Had I not been looking closely at them almost daily, I would never had noticed the handsome visitor. It was a thrill, as always, to meet and discover as part of being an artist.
      Earlier this week, a photographer friend sent me a surprise photo, from Minnesota, that I loved seeing. Thanks, Tom!  This frog was sitting on a lawn chair at the Quaker conference he was attending.  Frogs getting out in the world....

      

      

       Happy discoveries to all, Ann 




 
        

a few more favorite photos from June

post #291
      I seem to have more photos I like from June than I have been able to include so far, so today will just be some random photos, but ones I don't want to wait any longer to share.

last summer's swing, waiting for cousin camp in July

 The pond is waiting, too. I made this photo last night, and the frogs were loudly croaking out Hi! Come!! Soon!!

This is a neighbor's self-confident rooster, and I promise it's hard to get a good rooster photo!

These eggs come from a different neighbor, but I am putting the photos together since they have a poultry connection.....  Many colors of eggs indicate many kinds of hens.....

Along the path by the creek, evidence of other visitors along the path during the winter!

 

butterfly weed, a kind of milkweed

Bugs yucking it up in a milkweed flower, seen from above because the flower is on a hillside and I am tall....

Crook neck garlic, planted by a friend in my garden last summer! I think it qualifies as a hardneck garlic.

bale jumping....  (just kidding)

 

After the baling, some bush hogging - thank you, thank you, Jamie!!

and thanks for leaving the big tractor for me to play on that evening....

day lilies - to remember to do like they do and enjoy one day at a time