Weekend Reflections: Orange Glow

One of my favorite parts of going through the long tunnels in the Hampton Roads area is the way the reflection of the tail lights turn the tunnel varying shades of yellow, red and orange.

Today I am linking up with Jame's Weekend Reflections.

Wordless Wednesday: One Look Is All You Need!

Nature Photo Tuesday: Wild Strawberries

Having no idea what I wanted to post today I decided to clean up my blog reading list and see which blogs are no longer active. Of course I was hoping that visiting so many blogs in one day would inspire some ideas for a post.  While I did get some clean up done, spending most of the morning on the blog reader page I got to see the new posts by my favorite bloggers as the put them up. I am really glad I did this. Because not only did I get to read a number of great posts, I also was given this post idea. 

Today I am linking up with Rochelle at A Family of Looney's for her new meme Nature Photo Tuesday. 

When I lived in Oregon I was delighted by all the wild blackberry and wild strawberry bushes near our home. That was 20 years ago, since then I haven't come across any until this weekend. 

I was really excited when I found these tiny wild strawberries growing in my daughters back yard. Can you see it hiding in the center of this shot? That is until she informed me they do not get any bigger than this. Oh well, I may not have fresh wild strawberries to eat but at least they are pretty.

Macro Monday: Rain Drops

Visit Lisa's Chaos to view other Macro Monday submissions.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday:

Before I begin my submissions for this weeks scavenger hunt I would like to take this moment to ask that all that read my post keep our gracious host Ashley Sisk in their positive thoughts and prayers. She lost her grandmother yesterday morning, and I am sure this is a very difficult time for her and her family. 

Now for the

As each day passed and little appealed to my eye, Saturday came around and I had yet to find shots that I wished to share on the hunt. I had thought to go for a bike ride to one of the older neighborhoods on Sunday and do the entire hunt. Then my daughter informed me that the weather forecast for Sunday was 100% rain. At first I thought I might have to pass on submitting photos for this weeks hunt and then they just popped right out in front of me. So I hope you enjoy my submissions this week, I am sad to say though that due to cloudy skies my "In The Sun" shot was pulled from my archives.

Yellow:
My dog Max may not look yellow but he most certainly fits the term. This photo was taken with my daughters cell phone. I didn't want to lose the shot and my camera was in the next room. Max wanted to curl up in his bed. But the cat had decided it looked like a comfy spot to take a nap. Instead of chasing the cat out of his bed he stood there whimpering and then looking to us to move the cat.

Something that makes you smile:
There are many things that make me smile. A good southern breakfast for dinner is one of those.

Ancient or Antique:

This tin knight guards the back porch. He once took a trip across country from Georgia to South Dakota with my Son-in-law. Stopping and having his picture taken at many of the sights along the way. The signatures on his Armour are from a band that played at the Jazz Fest in Sioux Falls, SD the year he attended the festival at my Son-in-laws side. I have no clue if he is actually antique but he is modeled after ancient knights so I hope this qualifies.

Splash:

It was getting a bit late in the day to try to capture any type of splash out doors and splashing water in the tub or sink just didn't appeal to me. So I asked my Son-in-law to briskly whip the gravy so I could capture a splash.

In The Sun:

This photo was taken at the Japanese Gardens last summer in Sioux Falls. I sat in the sun for a good half hour as still as could be waiting for a dragon fly to alight on the reeds along the shore.

I hope you have enjoyed these photos. To join in the fun click the button below to visit Ashely Sisk's blog for more Scavenger Hunt Sunday submissions.

Weekend Reflection: Sunny Weather

There is nothing so good as a warm sunny day to make you want to get out and play with some bubbles. Or at least was the dust off your car. 

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend. Don't forget to hop on over to Jame's Weekend Reflections and check out all the wonderful submissions.

Wordless Wednesday: Perch

Oh For A Good Macro Lens

Getting the photo I want with the equipment I have is sometimes a challenge. During times like this I am glad to be able to crop the image to obtain the desired framing. While this doesn't work well if I want to do full size prints, it serves the purpose for digital and smaller prints. For example take this lovely lawn ornament.  I was intrigued by the lines and vivid colors, and really wanted to focus on small sections. However the ornament was hanging in a tree in someones backyard. The first three images I was able to capture with my camera but to get the last two I had to crop the original image to the desired composition.

 

 

Until some good fairie brings me one of these, I guess this will have to do.

Macro Monday: Spring

 One of these days I am going to have to get myself a better macro lens so I am able to get in as close as I would like to. All but the photo directly above and the one directly below are cropped to show the desired composition. Unfortunately my 18-55mm lens will not allow me to get that close.

Dandelion plants may be unappealing, but they sure look cool close up.

Joining in with the great people at Lisa's Chaos' Macro Monday.

Sunday Submissions

There are a number of Sunday meme's that I really enjoy. So I have decided to combine a Scavenger Hunt Sunday and Your Sunday Best  on this blog and place Sunday In My City on my other blog.

 

So here are my submissions for Scavenger Hunt Sunday and Your Sunday Best.

Found this on one of the playgrounds and thought it was perfect for this post.

For the scavenger hunt this week I took my grandchildren on a walk through the housing track to find a shot for each prompt. Here is what we found.

 Simple

This simple little wind chime was hiding high on a branch near this tree.

Grain

I had almost given up trying to find a shot for grain when I noticed the kids playing with the sand and it clicked, why not grains of sand.

Transportation

This transportation themed tic tac toe is built into one of the playgrounds we visited. Not long after I shot this a plane went overhead and I couldn't resist so you get two for this prompt.

 

Stitch

I was going to take a photo of my grandson's stitches he got when he fell and cut his gum line open but they had all dissolved. Instead I decided to try out the stitch assist on my older Cannon Power Shot. Here are the stitch results.

Bubbles 

Having no bottle of bubbles for the kids to play with Sissy and I decided the best way to get a shot of bubbles was for her to blow spit bubbles. Needless to say her mom was not all that pleased with me, LOL.

 I hope you have enjoyed my Scavenger Hunt Sunday submission. Please click on the button to visit more great blogs and see what they came up with this week.

Now to link up with A Rural Journal for My Sunday Best.

There were so many shots this week that I really loved it was very hard to pick my favorite of the week. Of course many of my favorites are of my grandchildren and since the Sunday best is only one photo I have decided to reserve this submission for my favorite from  either a photo shoot or one of the non family shots. So here is my favorite non family shot of the week.

Eastern Redbud Tree

Until yesterday I had no idea a tree like this even existed.  As much as I love trees, flowers and plants I am pretty clueless when it comes to their names. After a bit of research I now know this is an Eastern Redbud tree and is native to the area. Here is a closer look at those delicate pink blossoms.