last weekend i went for a wander up into the nearby foothills and it was a beautiful day. as you can see the snowline is dipping lower with the trees seemingly in flames down below . . . our fall season has been an extended and beautiful one so far and i am enjoying the profusion of color all around me.

i loved taking these shots of the local seeds, hips, berries, petals and leaves as the local flora approaches it's lengthy winter rest. this is a fairly harsh environment and these things struggle in our high altitude and short seasons. it's both exciting to see the colors and sad to know that it will soon be covered by snow. i am grateful to have my camera and be able to capture and save these sweet mellow moments of this fleeting season.

i only wish that i were as adept at capturing these wonderful natural gifts as my fellow blogger Carolyn at http://www.love-stitching-red.blogspot.com/ . if you want to really see some fabulous photography and how she interprets it into some of the most sensational needlework i've ever seen you should pop on over to her blog. let me warn you that you should plan on staying a while because you will almost certainly find yourself wanting to brew a cup of tea (or two) and get comfortable as you explore her sweet space. she's been doing some still life photography using vellum as a layer within her set ups and it's just one of the many beautiful and oh-so-inspiring things you will have the pleasure of enjoying. she has been on a short blog vacation and i've really missed her but a little bird tells me that she'll be back to posting very soon and may even be hosting a give-away . . . just one more good reason to go over for a visit . . . i'll be there and i hope that you will join me in welcoming her back.

it's all about golden sunshine moments

and COLOR today~!~
check out the intensity of that blue sky~!~

i am grateful that i live

in a color filled world

and

that i have the gift of sight.

last night it rained. and rained. and rained. i expected our temps to dip into the freezing zone and i would wake up to snow but that did not happen. instead i woke up to partially cloudy skies and some sunshine trying to break through so i went out with my camera to see what i could see . . .

at first glance things look bleak as there have been some frosts (earlier this fall) and the plants are all brown and droopy. but i simply cannot look through that lens without it being set to macro and so discovered a multitude of seeds. when looked at this way, i decided that i could be grateful for the many and varied "promises" being made by the garden to enchant me once again after their winter rest.

the ornamental crabapple tree is just loaded with tiny little fruits that are getting redder by the day.

these fruits are about the size of a marble and the birds are going to have plenty to feast on this winter.

some have fallen to the ground and made their own colorful poetry.

thank you to all of my readers who left such understanding and comforting thoughts on my last post. i have discovered that one of my gratitudes is the friends that i have made via my blog.

i have no reason to be overwhelmed by depression and yet i am. it is such an ugly state to be in and i find myself knee deep in it with the waters rising dangerously fast.
my current ammunition of choice is to hunker down and look for the gratitudes within my life until it lifts. i do not give this information in an effort to elicit sympathy. i don't want sympathy. what i do want is understanding for whatever may come. i'll continue to share what joy lies in my life in an effort to stay focused on the positive because if i don't, the negative will darken my life like the worst kind of dark storm. these things may or may not be things that you feel grateful for and i will totally understand if you decide to mosey elsewhere while i get through it.

i am grateful.

for lunch i enjoyed a toasted parmesan cheese bagel with a slice of muenster on top and a few slices of a deliciously ripe nectarine on the side. as i prepared and ate it i kept in mind how much i enjoy this tasty meal and how lucky i am to have virtually whatever i might like to eat at any given time. i live in a wealthy country and can enjoy a simple, nutritious and beautiful meal whenever i feel motivated enough to prepare it. never do i cry because there isn't enough to nourish myself or those that i love. this is a gift and not everyone is able to enjoy it.

my garden and i are tired today.

all twisted up inside.

worn out.

and definately in a funk.

i've been thinking about what i might do for the SPA challenge which is "BONES & SKELLIES" . . . when i went out in the garden with my camera i ended up finding lots of both~!~ i suppose if i could master something (anything!) within photoshop elements 7 i could do something creative and postcard-like with one of these shots but have been totally frustrated trying to figure out the simplest stuff within that program. ~aaaaaarrrgh~!!~

doesn't this look like part of a dried up old finger bone?

and this stick looked like a bit of bird skull . . .

black and white felt right for these shots . . . can you tell that i'm missing summer already~!?!

i'm also missing my daily photography discipline. i don't seem to find myself with camera in hand nearly as often and really wonder if i shouldn't still be doing it . . . if i do the photography than i have to let something else go as i just can't juggle too many creative "balls" at once.

is anyone aware of photo blogs and or challenges that i could check out? maybe a group getting through a particular book or set of photographic challenges . . . or maybe some sort of BEGINNER photoshop elements type of exercises being done as a group . . .

Sunday Postcard Art Challenge/Fish

www.sundaypostcardart.wordpress.com

Sunday Postcard Art/Botanica

this week i was so inspired by the theme for Sunday Postcard Art that i decided to make two paper postcards. both cards use plants/flowers that i pressed myself and a bit of map that is from a nearby area. i aged the map with tea/coffee and added faux postmarks as well as some brick colored ink to the edges. on the second card i created a tag with "Ephemeroptera" on it which i thought was wonderfully serendipitous: read my previous post regarding the mayflies discovered in my pond.

www.sundaypostcardart.wordpress.com

Life Emerging

this afternoon, with camera in hand, i went to sit by the pond just to see what i could see . . .

a small bug dive-bombed into the water and was struggling. i stuck my thumb in and under it in order to bring it out with as little damage as possible. and started snapping shots with my other hand. when it was in the water i thought that it was possibly a lacewing . . . you can see by the above shot that it was very small and the only reason that you can see it's details very well is because i was shooting in macro. and because of this, you can see that it's actually a very tiny dragonfly~!~

eventually it dried off enough so that it's wing was no longer stuck to my thumb and i gently placed it beside the pond among some small pebbles so that it could continue to dry off.



in the meantime, i took LOTS of photos~!~

at some point it was laying on top of a pebble in this superman position that you see above. i have no idea why, except maybe the surface was warm and it was trying to make the most of the situation. it stayed there like that for quite some time.



i know that i have included quite a few shots here and you may find this pretty boring but i was totally captivated and took more than 200 shots while watching this all happen . . . you should be able to click on any one of the shots to see details if you are so inclined. i have tried to include various perspectives for those who may be as fascinated as i was.

by this time even i was beginning to get a bit bored and it seemed to be wandering about quite a bit so i expected that it would eventually fly away . . .

and it probably did. my attention was back on the edge of the pond momentarily . . .

when i happened to notice this little swimmer. upon looking closely i thought that it looked quite a bit like the insect that i had rescued earlier. but there were a few differences . . . such as i couldn't see wings and the tail end of it had three long whisker like bits rather than two AND it seemed to be swimming about quite proficiently . . .
the shot isn't as clear partially because it's actually under the water but if you look closely you will see the differnces too.

i was pondering these differences and wondering what i was seeing when suddenly this little "being" bobbed straight up to the surface and split wide open and flew away~!!~ all of that took a split second and i was quite startled by the whole event.

and this empty bit of outer shell was all that was left . . . floating on the water . . .
i'm guessing that the first one just didn't have quite as successful of a launch and once it's wing was wet it was in trouble. the second one flew quickly off, up and away . . .

check out those ultra tiny hairs on the whiskery end bits. no wonder it was such a good swimmer while still in the "shell"~!!~

i'm so very delighted that we have this life cycle in our pond and that i have now seen a part of it that i had never seen before~!!~and with my camera at the ready, no less~!~

UPDATE*UPDATE*UPDATE

it's a mayfly~Ephemeroptera~!!!~

i have such terrific readers~!!~THANK YOU all for your interest and support and for the wonderful additional information that you have contributed.

Eileen of Keeping it Rural in Wisconsin (http://ruralwisconsin.blogspot.com/ ) has added: http://www.earthlife.net/insects/ephemer.html

and

jonskifarms (http://jonskifarms.wordpress.com/) has added: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/pictures/Ephemeroptera.html as well as: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/resources/glenn_firebaugh/0374alt.jpg/view.html

****by the way: don't you just love the latin word for it~!!!?!!!!~ Ephemeroptera . . .

definately going on my list~!~