Sometimes Words Are Overrated
Blizzard Aftermath
So, wanna know what my world looked like the day after the blizzard dropped about 23 inches (58 cm) of snow on us?
People tend to get cabin fever and do weird stuff when trapped by snow. I decorated the Christmas tree (finally!) and, while doing so, took some pictures of FibroDuck with some of our more unique ornaments.
I also took lots of pictures. Lots and lots, I should say. A blanket of snow just makes things look so much more interesting.
I took the above shot around 6:30 AM from the front window of our house. On the far left, covered in snow, is my car. In front of that, toward the center of the frame, is Shannon’s car.
This is the view from our front door.
And here’s what it looked like from inside our garage moments after Hubby started to shovel.
That’s my car in the foreground. It’s still snow-covered. So is our front sidewalk. I might have to clean my car off soon so I can get all my last-minute Christmas stuff done.
Here’s my happy Hubby in the newly shoveled driveway.
The view of our street from the bottom of the driveway.
One of MANY dog pics I have to share. Belle and K have been chasing each other and having a blast in the snow.
Meg has fun in the snow, too, despite the grumpy look she has in this picture. (I’ll post more snow-dog pictures eventually.)
I actually took this photo at about 11:00 PM on Saturday night, not too long after the snow had stopped. Because it was nighttime, the camera shutter stayed open for about 4 seconds. I am not sure why the sky is so pink, but I think the overall effect is pretty cool.
And now, I need to get to work.
Happy Monday everyone!
Oh, the Weather Outside is SNOWY
When I went to bed last night, the weather man said we might get about three inches of snow overnight. That was to be topped off by up to 12 inches on Saturday.
Not too long after I came downstairs this morning (Saturday), I decided to take a picture of Shannon’s car.
The snow was a bit deeper than a few inches.
This image was taken five hours after the first one.
This shot was after another three hours had passed.
And this was taken after another two and a half hours (around 7:00 PM).
By just after 9:00, the door handle could no longer be seen and the mirror had almost disappeared. The entire car had almost vanished. But it may have FINALLY stopped snowing.
Wanna see my car? It’s much bigger than Shannon’s, after all.
Good thing there’s a mirror on the side, eh?
The airport won’t release the official numbers until after midnight. I’m going to guess we got at least 23 inches of snow in less than 24 hours.
But, you know what? I LOVE snow. The dogs and I had a blast outside today.
Here you can see Meg completely airborne. The snow brings out her inner puppy.
She’s even in the lead as the girls all cavort around the yard. (This picture was shown on the local TV station — ABC2News — after I submitted it by e-mail.)
You know I had to include at least one picture with Belle’s ears flying, right?
The previous four shots were taken around noon. The snow wasn’t very deep then. Yet Belle still looked like this…
We didn’t go out again until about 4:00. The snow was so deep by then, Belle’s body created a plow effect as she ran.
That doesn’t help her snowball issue at all.
But she sure enjoys running through the snow.
The snow was so deep by 4:00 that our wall was almost completely hidden. Belle is the only one that cleared the wall cleanly. Meg did a face plant into the snow. Poor K forgot the wall was there and ran right into it.
She was a bit shaken by that, and was slow to get back into the swing of playtime.
She even went and sat on the step for a bit.
But soon enough she was back to normal.
Even Meg was still feeling pretty feisty. That’s her inner puppy again. She is absolutely exhausted now, though.
The dogs really do love the snow.
So I had to let them out to play again after dinner. Even if that did mean I would have to de-ball Belle yet again. She’s pretty good about not giving me a hard time while I brush the MANY snowballs out of her hair.
After K’s wall incident, I shoveled out a spot so the wall could clearly be seen by all.
I think it’s a really cool picture. It was taken earlier this evening. Since it may have actually stopped snowing, perhaps I can go out and get some more nighttime snow shots.
On Visiting National Parks
Surfing the Internet this morning, I came across an article in the Anchorage Daily News about a guy who got attacked by a rabid wolf. I read the short article, which led to this radio segment on the Alaska Public Radio Network. I only visited Alaska once (I will go back), but I’ve read quite a few books, too. The Kuskokwim River mentioned in the broadcast is very remote. While surfing, I stumbled across a cool, short video taken while some folks were kayaking at Kenai Fjords National Park. To see the video, look at this Blog post, making sure to scroll all the way to the bottom to see the short video clip. It reminded me of our trip last year when the orcas swam right under our tour boat.
National Parks are cool. Hubby and I are going to have to make it a point to see more of the National Parks in Maryland. I think we’ve only been to six. Did you know the BW Parkway is a National Park? Hey, I could visit that one today! But why?
He and I are already planning to add some District of Columbia National Parks to our “visited” list in October.
I’ve never actually tallied how parks we have visited, but here are some of my favorite National Park pictures.
Glacier Bay National Park – Alaska
Denali National Park – Alaska
Badlands National Park – South Dakota
Devils Tower National Monument – Wyoming
There’s more, but finding and posting these images is far more time-consuming than I had anticipated. It’s a gorgeous day here in Maryland, so I need to get out and enjoy it!
Make a Spherical Collage
I just discovered a really neat tool thanks to a Flickr friend of mine.
If you go to THIS WEB SITE, you can create an image similar to the one you see above just by entering a tag (keyword, like “Maine” or, as I did here, “Frog”).
The Web site pulls images from Flickr that have that tag and displays them like this. You can use your mouse scroll wheel to zoom in/out and drag your mouse across the screen to turn the globe. You can also click on an individual image to see it close-up or go to the original Flickr page.
If you do like me, and give your pictures unique tags for the sole purpose of having them pulled for the sphere, you’ll get a sphere full of your own images. For example, I tagged all my New England photos with “x13197y.” So if you CLICK HERE then enter x13197y in the little white box, then click on GO, you’ll see a glowing neon sphere. Click on the sphere and it will pull 259 images to load.
That’s all there is to it.
It’s one of those neat but not really useful things one stumbles across now and again on the Web.
Let me know if you try it and whether it works for you.
Election Day is Finally Here
I am really, really, REALLY glad November 4 has finally arrived. Not because I’ve been chomping at the bit to cast my vote, but because I am so sick of reading about it in the paper/on the Web, hearing about it on the radio, seeing billboards, etc.
I couldn’t resist posting this video, though. My Mom sent it to me. It’s cute. And timely. And is great fodder for my Blog.
I just haven’t had much to say since my last post on Halloween. Not that a lot hasn’t happened. Just not a lot of Blogworthy stuff.
Although I guess I could mention that autumn has finally arrived in my backyard. Saturday, despite the fact that it was oddly warm outside (about 75), I took some pictures. I’ll share a few here.
At left is the “bigger picture” view.
Nice, but not overly dramatic.
You have to get out there. Look closely. Stop and appreciate the spectacular color while you can.
My yard really isn’t all that big. Just under 1/3 acre, I think. But by actually going outside, looking closely and from different angles, I got some pretty cool images.
Like this one…
This is a close-up of a beautyberry bush. From afar, it is quite unremarkable.
I like all the greens in the image below.
And here’s a close-up of a dwarf burning bush.
CLICK HERE to see the rest of Saturday’s photos.