Shall We Paint With All The Colors of The… Peacock?

Posted on by

Photo #356: Peacock ColorsLocation Taken: Frankfort, Michigan
Time Taken: May 2008

Now, this isn’t the best photo of a peacock I’ve seen, or even that I’ve taken. But it IS the best one I have for showing just how magnificent the colors on these birds actually are.

I mean, just look at that iridescent sheen on the tail feathers! And that brilliant white against the magnificent dark blue!

It’s no wonder these birds became prized possessions of royalty and other people through the ages.

This one is a pet, by the way. Or at least solidly tame. He was hanging out in the greenhouse at the garden store my Grandma buys from. The peacock was just sitting calmly up in the upper beams, largely ignoring the people picking out plants below him. Or that odd person pulling out a camera to take a few photos of him.

The light’s not the best, all flat and white. But then, it was a cloudy day AND we were inside a greenhouse covered in translucent white plastic. There was no chance of directional light for this shot, not one bit.

But this fine fellow doesn’t need good lighting to strut his stuff. Or, well, to casually look away from the people paying attention to him, I guess.

  

The Sweet Scent of Mystery

Posted on by

Photo #355: Brilliant HydrangeasLocation Taken: Garfield Conservatory, Chicago, Illinois
Time Taken: April 2008

Hydrangeas are fabulous flowers, technically clusters of flowers all growing off the same stem and forming a giant ball of flowery goodness. And they can come in a very large variety of beautiful colors, usually based on the acidity level of the soil they’re growing in!

That’s why they are one of the flowers most likely to be mentioned in murder mysteries, you know. The usual plotline for a hydrangea mystery starts with a detective/botanist noticing an unusually colored hydrangea. They poke around a little and check just what the gardener is using to get that color, only to find it’s being fed by human remains! Oh, the plot thickens!

Now mind you, these days we’ve mastered the art of soil manipulation, having all sorts of (non-human-remains-based) additives to toss into the soil to make the plants grow tall and strong and exactly the color you want. So don’t go digging under any brilliant hydrangeas looking for bones. You’re far more likely to get an irate gardener mad at you for killing their favorite plant by ripping its roots out of the ground. Which might produce a murder mystery of its own, given how blazingly powerful the anger of a wronged gardener can get, but that’s another story entirely.

  

We named him Revel because Rebel would give him ideas…

Posted on by

Photo #354: Skinny RevelLocation Taken: Arcadia, Michigan
Time Taken: January 2011

I feel like posting a puppy picture. So here’s our newest dog, Revel, romping around in the snow not long after we got him.

…Looking far skinnier than he does now. Revel, what have you been up to?

Oh, sitting around begging for petting all the time?

Maybe we should start getting that dog some serious exercise, since unlike our other one, he’s not getting it on his own…

  

A Torrential Downpour – of course I’m out taking photos in it!

Posted on by

Photo #353: Heavy RainLocation Taken: Savage, Maryland
Time Taken: August 2010

You know, as much as I miss snow this time of year, I think I miss hard-pounding rains even more.

That’s the ones where the rain comes down in sheets and rivers form instantly. We get them a lot here in Maryland during the autumn months, as heavy frontal systems and hurricanes head our way with glee at that time. In the spring, we do get an occasional heavy rain, but it’s much more likely to be lighter. The conditions just aren’t right for the prodigious amount of rainfall a frontal system hitting a summer-warmed ocean can manage.

For a long time, winter was my favorite season. Long cold days, snow, vacations, all sorts of fun stuff. But these days, autumn is more my thing. I love the long rainy days, the chill in the air, the falling leaves. Especially these last few years, winter has dragged on too long, the days monotonously cold, the grass that dead winter brown, the trees bare piles of sticks. When there’s no snow, winter is boring.

But autumn, even late summer, when the rains come, that’s when I delight. I especially like being caught out in them, though preferably under something with a roof. I’ve had some marvelous days working outside at the Renaissance Festival where the skies open up and the hill I’m on forms rivers. It was especially glorious the weekend Hurricane Irene came through. It was opening weekend, and with as few days as the Festival is open each year, each one is precious. So they opened, and lasted as long as they could, as the rain slowly came in and then went from a small drizzle to a deluge. Which is when they finally said enough was enough and kicked out the employees and that core group of regular customers who always come (not that they’re at all regular people in general, mind you). It was glorious, sitting out in a small stand watching the rain come down harder and faster and stronger.

If I’m just inside, heavy rains don’t make that much of an impact. Though I do often open my window to let the scents and sounds in. Just one of the ways I’m a little backwards, opening my window when it rains and closing it when it finishes raining…

  

A Lovely Orange Sunset – hmm, do we have any oranges left? They’d be tasty…

Posted on by

Photo #352: Orange SunsetLocation Taken: Agewa Bay, Ontario
Time Taken: June 2010

I’m trying to shift my meal schedule around. I’ve long had the habit of just making one large meal a day, maybe two. Cooking takes long enough that well, if I can get all my calories in one meal, why shouldn’t I? But that pattern tends to trigger some of the body’s starvation-mitigation cycles that slow down the metabolism, which is part of why I’m eating a thousand calories a day fewer than what the nutritionists say I should be burning each day just to maintain my weight, which I am, alas, doing just fine at maintaining.

So I’m shrinking each meal but bumping it up to three meals a day. So far the shrinking it down part is actually going pretty well.

The bumping the number of meals up part, on the other hand…

You’d think that’d be the easy one. Smaller meal mean you’re hungry sooner which means you remember to eat, right? Yeah, not so much. I’m still struggling against my established routines, and keep putting off eating for a bit too long.

Which gets me a bit headachy and woozy, which leads to me posting easy (but pretty) pictures on this blog. Especially when I’ve lost track of time because of daylight savings time and realize I only have an hour to get this up, and well, if I go eat before I write this, I won’t get it done in time.

Yes, it takes me (on average) an hour per meal. That’s because I cook from scratch and eat slowly. My meals usually take at least half an hour to prepare. Even when they’re smaller than before.

Hmmm… shall I make Chicken Noodle soup or something else tonight? I’ve got the noodles and the vegetables, not sure about the chicken…