Have I told you lately . . .

. . . that I love you? Have I told you there's no one else above you? Fill my heart with gladness, Take away all my sadness, Ease my troubles, that's what you do. And at the end of the day, We should give thanks and pray, To The One, to The One. I'm glad I still have you.

Happy New Year.

My heart goes out to you

Aloha, my dear friends in Pie Town, NM. I can feel your pain all the way here. My heart breaks for you. I am so sorry for your loss.

Black Cat

Have I mentioned that I also have a cat? Well, there isn't a whole lot to say except that her name is Blackie, and she used to be called something else until my husband decided it was easier to just call her the name of the color she is.

She was born in one of the barns here on the farm out of a tiny little mother who just happened to show up one day. Many of the cats we've owned were dropped off by well-meaning people; people who probably figure that their little gift will be helpful to us farm folk. Usually, it's a nice pregnant cat they dump from their car. You know, it's just so thoughtful of them. Blackie spends most of her days staying away from that darn puppy, but she seems pretty happy. Notice how she's perched atop this fence post? Well, guess who's at the bottom? You got it. This is her life and she is dealing with it as best she can.

Sort of like what we're all doing.

A Tale of Two Ornaments

I love buying Christmas ornaments. I enjoy giving them as gifts to friends and I often buy two of the same kind, keeping one and giving the other away. This is my favorite ornament on my tree right now. I have other acorns because I like them, but for me, this one just takes the cake. When I found it, I bought one right away and wrapped and boxed it and mailed it to a friend whose birthday is just before Christmas. She also collects acorns and when she received this gift, she called me to say how much she loved it. I was pleased. Well, I had only bought one. And I realized that as silly as it seems, I was going to miss that pretty acorn. But when I returned to the store I purchased it from, all the acorns were gone. Oh, they had other acorn ornaments to show me, but none like this one. But I perservered and finally, in a little corner, on a little tree display, I found them. And there were only a few left. And it makes a perfect subject for my new camera lens.

The Absorbent Puppy Strikes Again

When he was really young, and I first began taking him for walks, George would not go near a horse. If you were to walk between two paddocks and there were any horses around, you'd either have to pick him up or just go another way, he was that afraid. I mean, horses are HUGE. And he was very tiny. But now that he's gotten a lot bigger, he's also gotten a lot braver.

I wouldn't get too close, Mrs. Bay Broodmare, this puppy is fierce. Yes, he is.

And for those of you who think I am making fun of my husband for his "Absorbent Puppy" comment, (try clicking onto that link because I think I have figured this out) I am not making fun of him. I am merely making fun of his use of the word absorbent.

Reality Show

Have I mentioned how much I love this new camera lens? I am getting so much more mileage out of it than the KitchenAid Pro mixer that was my original gift from my husband. Here's a photo I just shot of an African violet bloom. Quiet day today. My husband is in the basement and I can hear power tools, so it's a normal day. I just returned from another walk with the Absorbent Puppy (see one of the previous posts). A small goal I've set is to figure out how to link posts using a link word. I've got Project Runway on the TV, another one of their marathon shows. I love it when Project Runway runs their marathon shows. I could just leave it on all day.

Misty Moisty Morning

Does anyone remember the old English nursery rhyme about a misty morning? Well, I do. And I remember long ago reading it to my sons when they were very small. One misty moisty morning, When cloudy was the weather, I chanced to meet an old man Clothed all in leather: He began to compliment And I began to grin-- "How do you do?" and "How do you do?" And "How do you do?" again . . . Thankfully, I didn't meet any leather-clad old codgers in the woods this morning, but I did notice that the weather back East here has been pretty damp and mild lately. I also noticed that it's really difficult to take pictures with this Macro lens without a tripod. This is why these photos aren't as sharp as they should be. Try as I may, I could just not stay still enough. So bear with me during my adventures in close-up photography, because some day I'm going to be famous. Just like Adrienne. But not for my charm and good looks. Well, maybe for my charm. There's always that . . .

Tell everyone you know

Adrienne, you should tell everyone you know about this site. Because now you're on it. And some day you will be famous.

Yes, famous!

You will be sought after not only for your charm and good looks, but for your ability to play games like Charades, Apples to Apples and Dominoes.

And you really are a Country Girl at heart.

Love, your friend, Country Girl

Quiet Day at Bombay Hook

As soon as we arrived at the wildlife sanctuary, the sun went in and didn't come out again. What was a sunny day when we took off from home turned into gray skies and chillier temps. My bird shots were too far away and the light wasn't right, but I did manage to get this Red Fox from the window of the car. The Great Blue Heron landed and as I was taking photos of him hunting, he decided to take off and luckily, I was right on it. I have been chided for not being able to get the shots of the Bald Eagles flying. But I'm over it. There's always another day.

Adventures in Vocabulary

The sun came out and the day looked promising, so we packed a lunch and all the camera stuff and we're heading out the farm driveway and, well, here's the conversation as I remember it:

Him: "George is so absorbent! Look at him."

Me: "Um, er, don't you mean observant?"

Him: "No. I mean he's absorbent. He's checking out everything and he's learning and soaking it all in like a sponge."

Me: "Oh-kay, honey."

Him: "He's absorbent. You know, like a sponge?"

Me: "Yes. I see."

Him: "See. I know what I'm talking about."

While I was sleeping . . .

My husband was out taking these photos of the sunrise. He's always up early, probably because he works on the horse farm on which we live, and probably because he's just an early riser. But today, I slept until 8:30, which is pretty unusual for me. Luckily, I had left the regular lens on the camera and it was set to Landscape because he doesn't change lenses and he doesn't change settings. He just takes photos. George was all over me when I got up, wanting to play fetch with his fish toy and he doesn't understand how much I need my coffee.

I think we're packing a lunch and heading back to the bird sanctuary this morning to try to get some pictures and some walks. I may take a book with me because there's only so much bird stuff I can handle before I really start to yawn.

Thanks, Char and Kathy, for the input on this blog site.

I love my new camera lens

I am loving my Nikkor 60 mm lens for taking extreme close-ups. My son sent me a link today to an article in the New York Times that featured a woman who is an exceptional photographer and very inspiring to me with her artistic photographs of flowers in extreme close-up. They're breathtaking. Thanks, Matt. You can view her gallery by visiting her site at http://www.rivaberkovitz.com/-/rivaberkovitz/default.asp

Out for a walk

I'm figuring out how to navigate around this site, and although the layout options are fairly simple, it's still limited as far as I can see. I'm still not sure about what I'm doing, but all I really want to do is to take some photos and arrange them in a nice way so that I can share them with my friends and family. Oh, and write stuff too. Yeah, there's that as well.

I Live in the Country . . .

. . . but it's only a short drive to get to a town. When we moved here almost 10 years ago, it was pretty quiet, but now you can drive 10 minutes and find traffic, and the big boom town of Middletown, DE. But out here, tucked back in Maryland is where I took this picture today. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera with me when we went out this morning.

A quick trip to the Border's Books & Music, about 45 minutes away, turned into an all-day affair that ended up down at Bombay Hook Wildlife Refuge in DE. If you've never been there, I should warn you that it's all about the birds. So if birds and nature hikes don't float your boat, steer clear. But for us, we love it. We bought lunch out and ate in the car. We took the pup on several walks, going up two viewing towers where he did amazingly well. I don't know how we lucked out and got such a great dog, but we did and I'm so glad about that.

Only problem was that we had thought we were only going to Border's, so we didn't pack the camera supplies. We're thinking maybe we should go back tomorrow. Meanwhile, I took the dog out for an afternoon walk when we got home and snapped these. I also don't know how to add 2 photos to one post and make it look nice.

I love this photo

My husband took this photo and it's one of my favorites. I Photoshopped it just a little bit, upping the colors to make it look more of what it really looked like that evening. Then I added a little border around it. Don't go thinking that I know what I'm doing in Photoshop, because I don't. I know enough to get along, and that's about it. It's raining here in Maryland this morning and I'm being lazy and letting my husband take George for his walk. We were planning on going away somewhere this week because we both have off. But with the weather the way it is, we've decided to just stay home and take day trips. It will save money, too. Where to today? Don't know yet, but it's early and we'll figure it out. We could just stay home, watch some movies, read, work on this puzzle my husband got out yesterday, cook something nice, take some photos. Maybe I'll buy that Scott Kelby Photoshop book I have in my Amazon cart today. Actually, all that sounds really good to me. Oh, and about the cooking? My husband likes to cook, so I let him. Damn, I AM really lucky.

These Photocubes are fun to make

I found these instructions to make photo cubes and gave one to my neice, Colleen, for Christmas and she really seemed to like it a lot. It's fun and easy, but it takes much less time if you make your photo files smaller before uploading them. The cubes have 5 sides, so there is no bottom. You can visit this site:

http://app.tabblo.com/studio/productinfo/cube to get started. Have fun!

George's First Christmas

George is our border collie puppy. He's just turned 5 mos. old and is celebrating Christmas for the first time. Frankly, every day is a celebration for a puppy, so Christmas was probably just another day to him. However, there were presents under the tree. And he didn't eat the ornaments I hung up, which is really surprising given the fact that he is a puppy and does enjoy a bit of mischief.

Actually, this dog is pretty great. He's well-behaved, well-mannered, and much loved. I'll probably be posting a lot of photos of him, so be forewarned.

Jerry joins the party

When I arrived at my in-laws house to celebrate Christmas, I noticed that the Jerry Garcia doll was missing this year. They said he was napping upstairs and didn't feel like coming down. I let it go, but eventually people started to miss him and he was finally brought downstairs. Jerry Garcia has been a guest at my husband's parents home for years, ever since they won him in a Dirty Santa game. It was a gift my husband had brought that year. This is my neice Kim and my nephew Tim hanging out with Jerry, who looks like he's having a pretty good time. The next photo is Kim with her mom, Helen, my husband's sister. I love my husband's family and consider myself really lucky after hearing other people's in-law horror stories. Sorry, Char. But you know it's true.

I got a new marco lens

I still don't know what I'm doing with this site, but it will come to me eventually. Today I returned the KitchenAid pro mixer I got for Christmas from my husband and bought a Nikkor 60 mm micro lens, which is what I really wanted. Please, don't think I'm an awful person for returning something he gave me. It was actually his idea that I take it back. I guess he could tell I wasn't that enthused about it when I never even opened the box. Sorry, my husband. But this lens is so much more fun. And non-fattening.

My first attempt. Ever.

I have only a slight idea of what I am doing. I don't even know if this is the right site for me. I need to be able to write to my sisters every day and send photos. Hopefully, I'd like to do this via a blog-type site, but I have no idea how to incorporate photos into this site! So this is just an attempt. I may have to delete the entire site and start again from scratch. Meanwhile, my dear husband is making me drinks. I don't usually call him dear husband. But when the drinks are coming, I'll call him anything. Let's see if this worked, shall we?