Day 420

Today was my friend Elizabeth's birthday. We went to Maymont for a bit. While laying under a large shady tree, I took a few photos of some sunlit leaves.

Day 397

Despite the snow the other day, we've had a mild Winter, which means the flowers bloomed early. We've also had more birds around, which is always nice.

Some type of rose, or the larger form of Camilla

Vinca vine

Robin

Daffodil

Day 384

Today, I sat down on my couch, and noticed my squirrel neighbor was perched in the crape myrtle, eating a nut.

Day 123

I took a walk in our section, looking for new flowers that have bloomed.

These blue flowers bloomed in my neighbor's garden.

This Robin was among the purple flowers in my yard.

This plant has started to open up it's blooms.

The white flower was looking outwards.

My Camellia has new blooms.

The first Daffodil finally opened.

There are a few little purple shoots growing here. I don't know what kind of plant these will be.

This little insect was moving around on the ties.

These pink flowers are covering this tree.

More pink flowers on the same tree.

These pink flowers bloomed on this bush.

Day 107

Today Alex and I went to Maymont Park, to meet up with the 365 ladies. Amy Whitehurst of Snow Globe 365 was the only one able to join us for a bit. The weather was windy and cold, so we didn't stay long after Amy left.

If you've never been to Maymont, it's a huge estate that was owned by the Dooleys and is now a privately owned park, but open to the public. They have lots of events, a large variety of animals, gardens and acres of rolling hills to explore. Today, we started at the main entrance by the gardens. We focused on the Italian Gardens and the Japanese Gardens...mostly the Japanese, as it's a larger area and has a bamboo forest to wonder through.

At the main entrance, there are pansies in a variety of colors.

These yellow pansies are along the right side of the entrance path, below some bushes.

These little bugs were all of the park. They clung to my clothing, but they were so small, they didn't bother me.

We had a picnic under this beautiful tree. In the Spring, Summer and early Fall, the leaves provide shade.

There has been a strong wind lately, so there were lots of limbs on the ground.

This is a fallen dead bloom from the tree above.

After our picnic, we put our picnic stuff in the car (which is when we took the photos by the entrance) and ventured into the gardens.

This is a tree with small red flowers. The tree is behind the carriage house.

Near the tree, the ground was covered with violets.

This dandelion was alone in the surrounding violets.

The upper wall of the Italian garden is lined with flowering bushes. I think they are roses. There were several new blooms, but the bases of them looked dead.

The ground on the Italian garden path had these small purple flowers as a ground cover plant.

The lower section of the upper wall had these dead flowers.

There is this beautiful double stair case leading down towards the Japanese garden path. There is a waterfall that flows between the two stair cases, but it was turned off for Winter. There were these brown spots on the water side railing. I assume they are rust.

You can take the regular path to the Japanese gardens, or you can have a bit of an adventure and go through the bamboo forest. I choose the bamboo forest, since it was only Alex and I. I knew we could do this without a problem. Also, we were just crossing over to the other waterfall and this is the faster route.

This is the ceiling of the bamboo forest. Different sections are tall enough to easily walk through and some less traveled routes you have to crouch through.

This is one of the taller path ways.

This waterfall was turned off  too. This is what the base of it looks like without the flow of water. Some areas were dry and some were muddy. This waterfall flows down into a stream and eventually the pond.

The pond is stocked with koi fish. There were 4 geese and 3 ducks swimming in the pond with the large amount of Koi.

There are many koi in this pond in a variety of colors. We saw orange with black spots, yellow, somewhere in between those two, off white and black. Photowise, I was happy to see so many and I also liked the reflection of the trees on the water.

These are two of the geese.

Something (maybe annoying people) upset the geese. They started honking loudly for about 30 minutes. They were swimming quickly in the water, chasing each other and towards the humans.

The ducks quacked a bit too, but not much. This is one of the two male ducks and the one female. I love the rippled effect in the water, that the male duck caused by swimming quickly.

We headed to the other end of the pond, to escape the noisy geese. I wanted to capture the tall trees and their reflections.

I like this section of the pond, because there are many odd roots. This particular grouping is unusual, as there are two faces. I like to think of them as mystical guardians of the pond.

The trees in this section are very tall, with many spiky looking branches. This photo was taken by setting my camera to a 2 second delay, a landscape setting and placing the camera on the ground, facing up.

I think the Grotto is man made, but the plants are natural. It looks like the mouth of a monster. Of course, I had to temporarily feed Alex to it. She emerged unscathed.

We climbed back through the bamboo forest, up towards the Italian Gardens from a different section. I don't recommend this, as your calves will hate you. The view of the park here is amazing. This is a section of it where you can see the James River and the rail road tracks.

This is a fallen pine cluster, under that tree with the red flowers.

Day 91

Today, when we woke, there was a light dusting of snow. On the way back from the bus stop, I took photos.

I liked seeing the singular dead leaves with snow on them, against the pavement.

This English Ivy leaf is partially broken. I like the contrast of the white snow against the dark green leaf. Also, the snow dusting shape on the rail is neat, since it follows the shape of the Ivy leaf.

As I was taking photos, I heard crows, so I went off looking for them. They flew off just as I got close. The formation of the trees above where is was, were pretty.

This is a gumball with snow.

On the way back to the house, I notice this mirror globe on the ground, had snow at the top. I thought this would be a nice photo for Amy of Snow Globe 365. Essentially it's snow on a globe, but still fitting. The globe is reflecting the trees and what remains of a garden. You can also see me in it a bit. There is soil on the bottom side of the globe.

I liked being able to see myself in the reflection, in my crouched pose. Whether I am taking photos of the ground or sky, I'm normally crouched. I wear flat shoes. I'm wearing my normal herringbone pattern coat and my grandmother's black faux leather gloves. Photo wise, I like the view of double globes.

This a better photo of the second globe with snow on it. This one also has dirt at the bottom. I suspect this occurs when rain splashed mud up.

When the type of weather changes, different plants are more noticeable than at other times. Today, I noticed the color of these tree leaves. I like the shape and how the snow has laid on them.

I never thought much about Fall leaves until this project. Now, I appreciate the discoloration of leaves and how weather affects the color.