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Speechless

Some days, even I have little to say that is worthwhile sharing.

Of course, it’s early. Which is probably why I have nothing to say. I’m not quite awake yet. But I have an 8:00 a.m. meeting, so I’m trying to get the brain cells moving.

No one likes 8:00 a.m. meetings. Even when you work from home and your day starts at 8:00 a.m. anyway. That’s just too early to talk to people. Unless you’re discussing stuff that requires little thought. But when you work with people around the globe that are like 6-7 hours ahead of you, the window for scheduling calls is rather limited. So sometimes you just have to grin and bear it.

In the spirit of keeping things light as I try to wake up this morning, I thought I’d post some pics I took recently but never shared. (Click on each image for a larger view.)

I’m amazed this shot turned out reasonably well (it is a tad blurry). I was being dragged along by two dogs with no leash manners when I saw this Great Blue Heron through the reeds surrounding a pond at Terrapin Nature Park on Kent Island in Maryland.



I just love all the colors of Fall.

I’m also a sucker for wet vegetation. I think the water droplets look neat.

I hope you enjoyed the show. Next time I’ll have more to say. I promise.

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It’s All About the Light

As I’ve said at least once recently, the quality of light in the Fall is awesome. It’s very soft. So colors are generally more vibrant. Add that to all the changing colors of the flowers, trees and grasses, and Fall presents a pretty good show.

Yesterday, between rain showers, I took the girls for a walk. I almost always take my camera. In fact, they get excited when they see me pick up my camera because they know it usually means a walk.

As expected, I was able to capture quite a few leaf images. The light was good, but I also massaged them a bit with Photo Shop. And added some artsy frames. Titles, too, which were not easy to come up with. I put them all together in a short little slide show, with music of course, for your viewing pleasure. (If you don’t see or can’t start the slide show embedded below, let me know.)

If you’d rather just see the images, or see them at higher-resolution, I posted them on Flickr, too.
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Last Fall…

…I took a short road trip to Maine. I’d never seen Maine, had always wanted to, and had this overwhelming desire to just go.

So I went.

The light was amazing.

Autumn light is as soft as it gets. What’s that mean? Colors just look richer. Fall has officially arrived for me when the air becomes crisp, I start seeing lots of pink in the sky at dawn and dusk and colors in general are just warmer-feeling.


After sunset, looking across Gloucester Harbor (Massachusetts).
Do the dark colors in that image depress you?
Or do you find it soothing?

This shot was also taken in Gloucester, but at the Inner Harbor.
I shot this one 30-45 minutes before the first one.

This picture is from Rockport Harbor, also in Massachusetts.
It was taken at 6:43 AM, but I was facing sort of north,
which is why you don’t see the pinks in the sky.
You need to face east or west for that, don’t ask me why.
All I know is, quality of light is about angles.

This shot was taken at about 12:45 PM.
Eagle Lake at Acadia National Park in Maine.
The warmest colors here are the leaves.
Midday is the worst time for pictures.


The Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse in Maine.
Just before sunset.
That’s the Golden Hour for photographers.


The light was perfect for this one.
It was completely accidental.
I saw this when I turned to leave the lighthouse.
Looking east at 5:12 PM from Bass Harbor Head.
That was after sunset on October 7.
Maine is the easternmost US state.
And that spot in Maine is pretty far east.

I hope you enjoyed the quickie road trip.

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It’s Coming…

Fall is in the air. The nights have gotten cool. Crisp.

I can see it, too. Last weekend, I saw my first fallen, colorful leaf. This weekend, I can see the trees starting to turn.

You can see it, too, if you just look closely.

Here are some leaves on the ground. An isolated incident? Nope. Check this out…

The ground was littered with them.

I call this shot, “Last Daisy Standing.” It’s only about 8 inches tall. Standing alone. Struggling to survive. Reaching for the light.

As the days get shorter, the sunlight becomes less intense. Which makes for fabulous pink-sky sunsets. I’ll have to try and catch an image or two of those. It’s hard in the mountains, being surrounded by trees and all. But I’ll do my best.

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Um, Just Some Stuff

It’s Friday, around 7:30 a.m. I’ve been up (as in out of bed) for 5 hours. I’m not sure I ever went to sleep. I have no idea why I’ve had such a hard time sleeping this week.

What I do know, however, is that my thoughts are a bit muddled and random at this point. Not knowing what else to post today, I decided to share some miscellaneous, unrelated images and musings to make sure you get your ToadMama fix for the day.

As I was playing Scrabble this morning (an addiction), I thought back to the moment when, at about age 13, I realized the guy I’d had a crush on for a while was really an idiot. We were playing Scrabble with some other folks. He spelled out “vakum” and argued for at least 5 minutes that it was a word.

I wish I’d known as a kid, or at least an adolescent, just how much I prefer being outdoors over being indoors. I would have studied Forestry in college and become a Forest Ranger. Wouldn’t that be cool? Although, with my luck, I’d probably end up somewhere boring like Fort McHenry instead of someplace fabulous like Glacier Bay National Park (Alaska). Or maybe Zion National Park (Utah, first picture shown above).

The uniforms they have to wear are not very flattering. Especially if you’re overweight like me (I am very close to being normal). Although, if I were a forest ranger, I’d be way more active than I am now. I’d probably be enjoying my work more, too.

Tomorrow is August 15. It’s a very special day this year. It marks my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. They were married 8 whole years before I was born. And, at 42, I feel like I’ve had a pretty long life. Can you imagine 50 years of marriage? Wow. Hubby, Eric and I are taking them out for a nice lunch tomorrow to celebrate.

Speaking of my parents… I was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We moved to Maryland when I was about 18 months old. As much as I am sick of Maryland, I am really, really glad we left Lancaster. If I still lived there, I might be a Philadelphia Eagles fan. And they just hired a new knucklehead. How embarrassing for the team and its followers.

Any idea what state I was in when I shot the pic at left? Wanna guess? I’ll narrow it down for you… it’s either Maryland, West Virginia, Washington (state), Idaho, Alaska. You have a 20% chance of guessing correctly.

Hubby was very excited to see a Bald Eagle last week. We were somewhere near the Potomac River in Maryland or Virginia. We’ve seen our share of eagles, just not many in that area. I am not, by the way, suggesting that the bird in that picture is an eagle. It is a Great Blue Heron.

There are lots of them in Maryland, but there are also lots of them in MANY other places.

This is an interesting picture, wouldn’t you agree? I found the scene interesting when I came upon it while on a trip out West. All those pretty, vivid butterflies. Then I looked closer and discovered they were dining heartily on scat. That’s how people with Forest Ranger tendencies refer to poo when in the wild.

And speaking of being in the wild…

Here’s another wilderness shot for you. Wanna guess the state where this glacier-topped mountain can be found?

That’s about all the randomness I can take for now.

I hope you at least enjoyed the pics.