Sara's Chair

Somewhere I have a "before" photo but I can't seem to find it anywhere so you will just have to enjoy the picture of Sara in her chair!

Summer at Squaw Creek

Sunday on the way home from Jack and Mary Jo's, Sam and I drove through Squaw Creek.  It was windy and overcast which kept the temperature down, yea, but also made capturing dragonflies on blades of grass difficult.  We drove around the reserve with the back doors of the van open!

Turtle family sunbathing.

Belted Kingfisher

Dickcissel

Baby Wood Ducks

Great Blue Heron

This is a Green Heron.  Not a great shot but my first time to see and photograph one.

Early Morning Walks

Another thing that Mary Jo and I, oh and also Max, did was to go for walks in the early morning.  There is a creek that runs through a neighborhood not too far from Jack and Mary Jo that has a great trail along its shore. 

We thought these little guys looked like garlic, but on Saturday we noticed that they were beginning to bloom.

The Cricket Rocker

I spent part of last week in Kansas City with Mary Jo having a great time and doing some projects around her home.  One thing we did was to recover her "Cricket Rocker", given the name because of the noise it makes while rocking.  The history of the chair is sweet.  Mary Jo's dad bought the rocker when he learned that Mary Jo was on the way.  Mary Jo lost her dad when she was a little girl due to a ranching accident, so the rocker is a lovely memory of him. 

The rocker before...

...and the rocker after.  I would have used a photo of the full rocker but it was irreparably out of focus.  I'm still learning to use my new camera =).

New Camera

Sam surprised me last night with a new camera body, a Canon 50D!  Wow, was I surprised.  This morning after a walk around the lake, Kris and I went to the Children's Zoo and took some photos.

White Coneflower, I didn't even know they existed.  They were in the garden outside of the Zoo.

The butterflies liked Kris!

There are 2 Bald Eagles at the Zoo who have been injured to the extent that they cannot live in the wild.  You can get pretty close to them and the light was just right on this one. 

American Golfinch

As we were leaving the Holmes Lake Golf Course after shooting the poppies, Kris noticed some American Goldfinch.  They were gorgeous among the bright wildflowers!

The female was sitting on some flowers in front of the male the whole time.  Isn't she cute!

Morning Poppies

These are the same Poppies I photographed the other day but in the morning sun they were spectacular.

Sam gave me a special neutral density filter.  The idea is to photograph the motion of the wind blowing things, in this case the flowers.  I need to work with this filter some more, try it with some grasses with a background that isn't in motion, I think.

 

Bird Bath & Feeder

On Saturday Sam and I went to Hobby Lobby to buy some supplies for a project I am working on and decided to stop in Ace.  We bought a bird bath and feeder.  Now I need to go buy some Safflower seeds so that the Grackles quit coming and scaring off the finches!

Reflection of a Coneflower!

Playing with my Diopter

Soon to be Coneflower.

These photos were all hand-held with the diopter on the 50mm lens.  Someday I need to take the time and use the tripod!