Day 50

On the evening of the last day of the decade and year, I was at a grocery store, picking up non-NYE items. On the way to my car, I noticed some of the trees had clusters of green leaves. I know they don't look green in the photos, but dusk doesn't lend it's self to colorful photos with the sky as it's background.

The low bushes along the main path of parking lot are mangled and dying. I'm not sure why this is, but the gnarly aspect of them is really neat looking. They also have berries.

Day 49

I have been feeling ill today. I woke out of a nap as I remembered I needed to take photos. I ventured out right before dusk. Most of the snow has melted. I like the ice crystal structure of the remaining snow.

Day 48

Today, while we were driving to Jason's Deli for lunch, I noticed the lake near by was partially frozen and had geese around it/in it. After lunch, I went over to take photos while Alex finished up her ice cream with John. I took photos of the ice, but I should have looked closer before taking photos. If you haven't been around geese before, well there is a lot of poo. So much poo, that there was poo on the ice. The below photos don't include those poo filled ruined photos. Though this blog is about photographing nature and poo is natural, it's not pretty and you don't need to see that in a photo. No amount of blurring in photoshop could have removed it and left recognizable ice. Gross. Ok, on to photos not about poo...

This is Fountain Grass an edge of the lake. In the background you can see the ice and water. The unfrozen part is due to the fountain which you can sort of see on the right middle area. Geese are opposite. This water has to be really cold. Apparently geese don't mind.

Here are some of the smarter geese that aren't swimming in the freezing water.

This is a seagull on the ice. Since we don't live near the sea/ocean (it's about 1.5 hrs away driving), we call them trashgulls as they tend to hang out in parking lots and land fills. The footprints in the snow are from the geese...I think. They were smaller than human feet.

Brown plant. I'm not sure what type.

Back at the house, I decided that the rock salt was photo worthy. It's natural, though not naturally occurring here. It's all over the paths and stair due to the last recent snow. It's tinted the path and snow a pink color. I tried to take photos of the tinted snow, but they didn't come out clear. I will try again another day, before the snow all melts.

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My friend and co-conspirator Noah Scalin of Skull-A-Day fame, added this blog to his growing list of daily and weekly projects on 365: Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life. To read the full article, go here.

Day 47

This morning, I heard and saw a large flock of Starlings in the back yard. I've only seen the black ones here. There are other colors (see link), but not in the area we live. I went on the covered back porch to photograph them without them being threatened by me. They are very social birds and fly from place to place quickly. They were in a section that was hard to photograph a group of them well. Both of those factors mades them hard to photograph.

I thought this was a Starling. Nope, it was another fat Robin. This bird kept coming back to the tree. It got fairly close to me, but this was the best photo.

This is a Starling.

There are five starlings in this photo. (one at the top right, two in the middle, and two on the bottom branch) There were around 100 in the back yard.

Day 46

I found these clinging to the back bumper of my car. It was too cold and windy today to search for other things to photograph.

Day 45

The snow continued through the night and day. When I woke, the trees were coated heavily and there were icicles on some branches.

Snow on Holly Tree

Icicles on our Crape Myrtle

Icicles on our Crape Myrtle

Icicles on our Crape Myrtle

Icicles on our Holly tree

Icicles on our Crape Myrtle

Day 44 - Christmas Day

As part of our Christmas traditions, we went to my parents' house for a large breakfast. After breakfast, I went outside to take some photos.

This is a dead hydrangea. I was still alive about a month ago, but now all the blooms have died. Mom plans on cutting it back soon, which means removing the dead blooms.

This is a beachy plant. I love the fuzzy texture and appearance of it.

Gumball

Dad likes to pay Alex (as he used to pay us when we were kids) to pick up the massive amount of gumballs that cover the yard. They missed this one, but there aren't many left.

This is a dead potted plant.

After 1pm, we headed over to John's parents' house for more festivities. The sky was overcast, but not thick enough that you could not see the sun. Later, it snowed...which we will get to in a moment.

The snow was still falling as we were leaving. This is snow collected on the front passenger side window.

By the time we got home, the blanket of snow was thick. I figured I would photograph some snow covered plants just in case there is a freak thing and there is no snow in the morning...that is doubtful.

This is a Rhododendron.

This is a leaf from a bush.

This is a dead plant.

Day 43 - Christmas Eve

I spent most of the day making a painting for my mom. By the time I was done, the sun had set. However, we headed over to my parents' house for Christmas Eve activities, so I knew I could get nice shots there.

For dinner, we have steak. This is dad rescuing steaks from the grill that flamed up. I figured fire fit in nice to the nature theme of this blog. It's rare if I can take photos of that. This one was so large, it went down and caught part of the deck on fire. Thankfully, dad fixed that fast.

Using flash in the dark, when you're not sure if your camera is really focused, is a difficult thing to do. This is the best photo of the plants in one of the deck rail baskets.

Leaves had fallen in one of the bird bath. The cold temperature, had frozen the water, so the leaves were encased in ice.

They have this tray on their deck table that has grass in it. Snow from earlier in the week was still sitting in, but part of it had melted, revealing the plants below.

Day 42

Since the birds had decimated the berry supply, I decided to take photos of the after math.

This is a mixture of berries and nut shells.

This is a squished Holly Berry on a root of the tree.

This is some moss that I noticed on the Holly Tree

Where a month ago, there were clusters of berries, now there are single ones.

Day 41

Today, I woke up to a beautiful sunrise.

In the evening, we went to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens for their Gardenfest of Lights.

This is a light under the snow.

This is a white puffy flower back lit. I like the glow the light gave this type of flower.

Poinsettia

Lewis Ginter has many specialized varieties of poinsettias. I didn't look at what type this one is.

I don't know the name of this plant. I liked the shape and color of the plant.

White Orchid

Pink Anthurium

Pink Powder Puff Tree

I don't know the name of this plant. John really liked it.

White rose with a pink bud.

Most of their lake was frozen over. I like the glow of the lights and moon over the ice.

These are tree root that have been lit with purple and blue lights.