cairistiona | Entries tagged with nature photography

When I stood up this morning and glanced out the window:

He/she sat there for the longest time, just contemplating reality, until finally scampering off when I had to open the front door to take Boom out. We very rarely see chipmunks here--this is perhaps the 3rd time I've seen one, and the first time ever seeing one on the front porch. You'd think there'd be scads, as this is prime habitat, but if there are, they stay hidden. I suspect if I put out food specifically for them, I could attract a lot more, but I hear they're actually fairly destructive little varmints, so I'm actually a bit glad to have only seen one or two over the years.

Dink got her car back from her uncle yesterday. I drove her over to his shop and she left for work while I stayed behind to chat--and ended up chatting for about 45 minutes! My BiL is quite a talker when he's away from a family gathering. He told me all about a health issue he's developed (he's 60) in where he's allergic to darn near every food group. Barley, corn, dairy, even things like garlic and peanut butter, all give him horrible hives all over (but he can have certain types of wheat--my SiL makes him homemade bread that doesn't set him off). He can't even eat beef if it's from a corn-fed cow (but he can eat grass-fed beef, so it's not something like alpha gal, which renders you unable to eat ANY mammalian meat). He's finally sorted out what not to eat, but it's been a hard road since it started about a year ago. None of the doctors he's seen can figure out what caused it, but he's seeing a naturopath now who at least has sorted out how to abate the symptoms. During the worst of it, he lost 70 lbs in 2 months. I can see why doctors are mystified--at first they'd consider, "Oh, celiac... but you can eat some wheat." Then they decide, "Oh... *insert something else*... but you can eat *something you normally can't with that*..." ysilme , it reminds me of the issues you have, actually, though I think you've got yours sorted into actual named disorders.

Life can certainly throw you a curve.

My sister is coming this weekend, yay! It'll be rainy Saturday evening, but she's driving down Saturday morning, and by evening we'll be ensconced in the theater watching Black Widow. I'm grateful for being vaccinated.

Cut for anti-vaxxer rant.... (and by "anti-vaxxer," I specifically mean anti-Covid vaccine):

( Read more... )

Sorry about the rant, but the rage I've been feeling lately is just rather unbelievable.

I hope everyone has a good weekend.

Happy Friday!

Ahh, Saturday. During summer, it's not as much of a "day off" for me as it is during the school year when I wake up knowing I don't have to lunge out of bed straight off to get ready to take Dink to school. I still have to get up and let the cats out and walk and feed the dog etc, but I can do that knowing that I can go back to bed if I want or stay up and have a leisurely cup of coffee in my pajamas. :)

Today will be somewhat busy. We decided on a paint color for the dining area... we're simply going to use the same color already on the walls in the living room, which is a warm beige-y tan color. When the backsplash tile came in and we laid several out to see how colors would go, we saw that the warm tan works well against it. It also works well with the poster and the propellor (which arrived while we were in Florida and looks every bit as cool as I'd hoped... when hubby gets it hung on the wall, I'll share pics). So painting is on the agenda, though it shouldn't take long with one entire wall missing and two others taken up by very large openings.

Still no countertops nor date for installation, which has me so frustrated I could spit. Since it's evidently a family emergency situation I can't really hold much ire, but still.. I have a kitchen that's *this* close to being usable staring at me all day long and nothing I can do about it. *sigh* To be honest, I'm still not entirely sure something less excusable is going on. *sigh* I'm still waiting on a reply to my latest text but I may need to punt to hubby to call, because he's more diplomatic than I am.

Other news... last night's sunset was lovely.

#sunset #Ozarks Northeast Greene County, before the storms rolled in.

Most of our weather moves west to east, so normally I'd see this and think of the old refrain, "Red at night, sailor's delight," but it ended up being the opposite as there was a line of strong retrograde storms that moved in from the east--the sunset was actually the leading edge of the storms instead of the remnants. Weird, but it happens a few times a year.

I hope all of you have lovely weekends!

My White Tree is blooming nicely today!
( White fluffly clouds in the woods... )

Mushrooms at winter's end:

Okay, I've posted 3 times this morning; Aragorn-a-day here and an early-morning-crack-of-dawn snowy pic over at the

photo_scavenger comm, but now the sun is up and it's all so pretteh!

It was only about an inch, but I think it must have been combined with some frozen fog because it stuck to everything (but the streets). And this morning the sky is absolutely brilliant blue.

It's just .... *flails* I'm a grinch when it comes to winter, but I like this kind of snow!

Actually, just fog on the pasture (no one's buried there that I know of)....

Got a little creative with the editing tools on this next one. It wasn't *quite* this spooky this morning. Feel free to imagine Rangers hiding from wights.... and write me a story about it. *g* (Why, yes, that was shameless begging and releasing of plot bunnies.)

My mom has been having quite a time of it lately with some serious health issues, but today she was feeling a little better, so I took her and my dad for a drive to see the fall color in the hopes that it would cheer her up a little. What we didn't expect to see was this:

Apologies for the blurry photo... I literally threw my camera to my eye and snapped blindly, hoping that I'd catch him as he flew over the lake. This is the earliest I can ever remember seeing a bald eagle in our area. They don't usually arrive until late December or January. I don't know if he's sensing a hard winter ahead and so left the north early or what, but we felt incredibly blessed to have seen him (or her!). Needless to say, it made our day!

As for the lake and the trees, the lighting was pretty bad for photos, as it was the middle of the day and cloudy at that, with storms rolling in, but here's a couple of the lake itself:

I've posted photos from this lake before... it's always a beautiful area to watch nature. :)

The hickories have turned golden, which makes it seem like I live in Lothlórien, only they're not as tall. And there's no Elves. And there's no Caras Galadhon or Lady of Light or Aragorn and Arwen...

Okay fine. It looks like autumn in the Ozarks!

It's been a lovely fall day today. I took a walk with the camera and came upon some pretty little wildflowers. I hope that everyone's had a lovely weekend. :)