Sunidesus Sees

These palms (at least I think that's what they were) were right outside my hotel.

It sure seemed like we were out west today. We had these tumbleweed things all around the building at work. They started to collect right next to the door and we ended up with a pile at least 3 or 4 feet high of them just blowing around out there. And since I'm constantly taking pictures now... I took pictures of it!

There are a number of white squirrels in my city, I saw one of them while doing errands today and just had to stop and take a few pictures of him.

The leaves are just starting to turn here. I'm going to have to go leaf peeping this weekend I think. Yes... it really is called leaf peeping!

It's starting to get cold out and the ladybugs are trying to find warm places to stay. They've found my bedroom!

This is a close up of the two on top of my index finger.

One more...

I had a wonderful day today. It was nice and cool, beautiful bright blue sky, a few little puffy white clouds. I spent more than 2 hours outside just taking pictures of everything changing. Beautiful!

It snowed today, for the first time this year. It stuck a little bit... on my car and on the grass. It isn't sticking on the sidewalk or the street just yet.

This little guy was making noise on the top of my air conditioner. When I stuck my head above the window sill to try to take his picture, he flew off. But, he landed just a few feet away on a wire coming into my apartment.

I've not been feeling like taking pictures lately so I've been AWOL for the past week or so. But the meteor shower Monday night/Tuesday morning was an amazing opportunity. I didn't manage to capture any meteors, but I did get a couple of pictures that I think are pretty cool. The moon behind the clouds and a long exposure of the trees and the stars.

I took these the other night after work. It's amazing what you can do at night with a controllable shutter. For these I left my shutter open for 2 seconds and then bumped the levels just slightly in PhotoShop.

This is what's left of the crab-apple tree that has been in my parents' back yard since we moved in when I was 3 or 4. I remember picking up the mooshy berries for a quarter a bucket (big money!) and getting yelled at for climbing it. And the delicious crabapple jelly my mom made. It was a very cool tree and every time I pull into the driveway now I miss it.

I took this picture late Wednesday night, when it snowed an inch or so. Today it was 61 degrees and there was a pond in my back yard! Spring weather is just so strange.

I went grocery shopping last night after work and there was a big display of Easter Lillies. I've always loved these flowers. It's one of the few really strong scents that I actually enjoy. I always love walking into church on Easter Sunday and being met by a wall of smells wafting from the front of the sanctuary. They're up there with Pansies as one of my favorite flowers.

Well, two ducks really.

And I just noticed when I logged in that the previous entry, (the one with the door) was post number 100 to this little 'ol photoblog. Cool!

It's Photo Friday time!
This week's challenge is: Small

These are some lilac buds from a few weeks ago when they were just starting to open.

I visited my aunt & uncle after I dropped my parents off at the airport yesterday and she always has lots of flowers and these were just so amazingly cool! If I'm remembering correctly they're called Magenta. And yes that's their natural color.

Yes, I know they're Pansies. She always had them. Always. So they're very important flowers, and I love them (and my grandma!) dearly.

Just a pansy that I took a picture of and really liked the end result!

There's this little park downtown. I drive past it at least once a week. But I never noticed this fountain in the middle of it until tonight. Driving past, a flash of purple caught my eye and I slowed down to figure out what it was. It was lit and created this great cove kind of feeling in the middle of the park.

My Theme Thursday entry for this week...

The theme is: Yellow

Not the best flower picture I've ever taken :P but it works I suppose.

It's Thursday! And we all know what that means right? Yep, you got it. It's Theme Thursday time.

Theme: Ground Level

I'm not sure what it's called in still photography, but in television this would be the beginning of a rack focus. I've been having fun experimenting with this look lately.

It's getting a little stormy tonight and the clouds looked interesting.

I have this feeling that this place is slowly turning into a flower blog. Ah well. These are flowers in my parent's yard. Mom said these are called "Johnny Jump-Ups" but I think I'm just going to call them baby pansies!

I'm pretty sure Mom said this is a Hydrangea. I also have a second picture that shows them before they get their full color, but it needs to be messed with and I'm not on a computer with the right software for that at the moment so that'll have to wait.

I'm not exactly sure what this thing is. I'm guessing it's a muskrat, but I really have no idea. Maybe it's some huge mutant rat or something. I saw it on my way home from work tonight and of course I had to take a picture.

Flowers on the way to this cache.

I came around the corner on the way back to my car from this cache when I saw a duck.

Took this while I was geocaching on Sunday.

Cis was talking about bleeding heart flowers. I looked at the photo she linked and hey I've taken a picture of that before! I hadn't posted it at the time, but figured I would now just because I was thinking about it. And hey blogs are all stream-of-consciousnessy so why not?

This is the first shot I've ever taken of a butterfly that I didn't completely hate, so I'm posting it! He took off just as I snapped, so it's Monarch in Motion.

This little thing is sprouting out of the top of a huge pile of dirt at a big contruction area near the main mall here. It's the only tree around and it just looked so pitiful! I wonder if it somehow was missed, or if someone put it there on purpose. And why? It's obviously going to need to be ripped out as it is right in the middle of the area that is under construction.

The snow started last night. Today there's already at least 6 inches on the ground. It's gorgeous!

It's been insanely foggy here the last couple days.

It does interesting things to the colors.

One of the various ways I get to work takes me over and past some water. It's kind of a big lake/slow river kind of thing. I've noticed a bunch of ducks, geese, and swans there every single time I take that route to work. The other day I actually had time to stop and take pictures. There's signs up saying it's illegal to feed them, but they're all VERY tame so I'm thinking that sign gets ignored quite a bit.

There's more in the extended entry (as if you couldn't figure that out yourselves)

I snapped this on the way home tonight. I had a couple with a sharper focus, but I like the softness of this one better.

A little Phototime today. The theme is: It's a Spring Thing!

I left work for my dinner break and this big pink flowering bush was outside. I just had to stop and play for a few minutes. The bees were enjoying it too!

These are from a tree that had tons of these tiny white blossoms on it.

Our friend the Chinese Goose stopped some traffic today.

It rained today, these are on the tree outside my living room window. The screen in that window has never really fit right, and now I'm glad since it makes it a lot easier to get it out so I can take a decent picture.

I had a hard time finding an appropriate picture for this one, (which is why I'm posting on Wednesday instead of Tuesday!) I finally went with a couple shots I already had in my "arsenal."

The Phototime theme this week is: Cargo

Inspecting the cargo before takeoff and...

Unloading the cargo!

Having fun with Photo Friday today. The challenge this week is: Play

These girls just wanted to play with the "ducks." I'm not sure if the parents were just playing along and not wanting to correct the kids or what, but apparently giant black, grey, and white birds are "ducks."

Despite signs to the contrary everyone, including the security guys feed the geese. So when the kids went off with their parents (and a few suspiciously food like bags!) these guys followed right behind.

The sun tonight. There was just the right amount of clouds so that you could actually look at the sun. Very cool.

There's a little farm/zoo thing in the park near my house. This gal was a most cooperative photo subject!

Driving in to work today I passed this guy just sitting in the middle of the road not moving at all. I had a sparrow hit my car once that acted the same way and the wildlife rehab people said to just put it in a box in a quiet place and let it recover for a couple hours and it'd be fine. So I quickly stopped my car, got out, and gathered up this little feather bundle. He didn't move at all when I went to grab him. So I found a box with some help from Slightly Surly Tape Guy and let him be for a few hours. I went to check on him and he was standing up and acting normally. I tried to get him out of the box, but he flew out! Definately feeling better ;) Once I caught him I took a couple pictures of him sitting on my desk and then took him outside, where he hopped across the parking lot and then took off.

Photo Friday's challenge this week is: Macro

Waaaaay too much fun with this theme!

And because I couldn't resist, a slightly more standard macro shot:

So I'm incredibly late with this week's Theme Thursday. I was having major Photoshop issues and finally got them fixed. This week (or last week's) theme is: Frame

A chain-link framed chicken!

For PhotoTime.

It's just wrong that I let this thing bite me just so I could take it's picture.

For Photo Friday.

The landscape of an ant!

The sun setting while I was above the clouds in the plane on the way back to RI. Very cool!

I started putting birdseed out on the ledge outside my living room window a couple weeks ago. I now have a pair of sparrows that are regulars as well as at least one squirrel. This guy is the bravest and so far has been the only one that I've gotten a good picture of. Hopefully his wife will calm down soon so I can snap her picture too. :)

Some flowers out back at work.

I was in the middle of posting this when I realized it worked for today's Photo Friday! I thought it was really cool when I stumbled across these guys in the midst of enjoying themselves. ;) Although, I wonder if something with a brain as primative as a moth's would really have a concept of "enjoying" anything... Well, it was certainly cool to see at any rate! At least I thought so.

Another pretty flower. This one reminds me of those ultraviolet pictures of flowers in science books. The ones that are supposedley what the insects see (or something like it anyway!)

Just some tracks I was walking along while hunting for a cache on Thursday morning. It was all warm and misty and the tracks looked like they went on forever until disappearing into mist.

Found this little guy while geocaching today. Little bitty toads are cool!