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Bucking the Trend

I’ve come to the conclusion that not many people do Blog posts on the weekends. Not the bloggers on my “most read” list anyway.

I guess they have lives.

I usually do, too. Most weekends are spent at the WV place. But this weekend is different. Hubby is off to a business convention in Long Beach, California for a few days. And here I am, in Maryland, with not much to do…

So I am bucking the trend of no weekend blog posting and telling you, and showing you, how I spent my last summer Friday.

I did not pick apples. But isn’t this a neat shot?

Um, I didn’t pick a bunch of tiny little pumpkins to line up on a fence either. I just couldn’t resist the lure of a roadside produce market.

I didn’t buy a goat. Or even pet a goat. I just took pictures of a goat. Mainly because he was kind enough to pose for me.

Tired of trying to guess?

I drove to Lancaster, Pennsylvania for the day. I did a little shopping, but mostly I stalked Amish people who don’t like to get their pictures taken, and took some pictures. Rude, I know. But I enjoyed it. And that’s what matters in my world.

I did it from sort of far away, which is why you don’t see crisp, clear focus. But with a little tweaking, I think some of the images are sort of cool.

Here’s one of the shots I got of a family working the field. I used “plow” in the picture title, but I don’t think they are plowing.

If I knew anything at all about farming, I might be able to guess. But I don’t. So I can’t explain why they need this big-ass wagon of hay. They didn’t appear to be baling the hay…

This is just a barn shot. I liked the contrast of the green grass, brown corn and white barn. Too bad the sky was so overcast.

This is the last shot I’ll post here. It was getting dark, so I had to boost the light a bit. To me, it is obviously Photoshopped. But I still like the effect. If you want the see the other images, go to my Flickr page for the day.

Enjoy your Sunday!

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Uploading ’til My Heart’s Content

I did it. I took the plunge and forked over the cash for a Flickr Pro account. Actually, it was credit. But it wasn’t much ($24.99/year).

Now I can upload whatever I want, whenever I want. Free account holders are limited to a 100 mb transfer per month and only three sets. That is nowhere near enough transfer bytes. And who can categorize all their stuff into three simple sets?

I really do have lots of pictures floating around. And I take more every day.

On a regular basis, Hubby thanks the powers that be that he was able to convince me to go digital. We’d be so poor by now…

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I Have Decided to Share…

…some images. I have TONS of pictures floating around on this computer network of mine. And I keep taking more. After all, the more photos you shoot, the better you become, right? I just need to learn to DELETE some of them.

Anyway, I have decided to be generous and share my images with the world. Not just via this Blog or through my photo sharing sites, but on my Web site.

I figure folks might appreciate some different wallpaper images. Or images for their own Web site or Blog. Whatever. We all know I’ll never become a professional photographer. So why not just share?

The first shot you see on this post is my favorite. I darkened it with Photoshop a bit. (You gotta love the BOKEH!)

I really like this one, too.

That’s one of the benefits of having an 8 megapixel camera. The photos are huge. So you can zoom in on a specific segment of a photo, crop it, and you have a separate, very cool image. You can do the same thing with photos shot at lower megapixels, the final image will just be smaller.

Here’s another example…

That’s a neat, colorful, textury shot. It’s just a small piece of this photo…

If you’d like some FREE WALLPAPER or just want to see the rest of my wallpaper images, just follow one of the links I conveniently place in the first half of this sentence.

Let me know what you think! And be sure to tell your friends. About this Blog and about the aforementioned FREE WALLPAPER.

By the way, HAPPY FALL!!! It’s my favorite time of year. The colors fascinate me. Can you tell?

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I Made Something Interesting

The other day, I was lamenting the fact that I’d missed posting for two days because nothing interesting had happened. Shannon, my oldest, said I should try to make something interesting happen.

She was right. The problem is, I couldn’t think of an interesting thing to make happen.

Instead, I just made something interesting. In a Flickr interestingness kind of way. That is, an everyday thing I could photograph that would be cool because of the colors, and the angles, and the light (if I am lucky). Not to mention the fact, that not a lot of people would think to take pictures of…


… my lunch fixin’s!

I was hungry. Short on time, too. So I decided to multi-task.

I am not mimicking the Pioneer Woman! Although I do enjoy her blog. And she does inspire me to take lots more pictures. I am not sharing my recipe, though. Just my ART.

The tomatoes were given to me by my Dad Tuesday night. They’re home-grown. Store-bought tomatoes, even the vine-ripened ones, never look this red.

Seriously. Doesn’t that look like a yummy tomato?

Nothing says “summer” like home-grown tomatoes. Except maybe corn on the cob. And steamed blue crabs. And snowballs. And frozen blue margaritas! And eating Dolle’s caramel popcorn on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland…

Um, moving right along.

I realize letting you see the salt and pepper is dangerously close to divulging my recipe. But I think the close-up is cool. It is sooooo red and juicy. Can’t you just taste it?

It was fabulous. Simple, but still fabulous. I forgot to mention I was having potato chips on the side, too. With a glass of ice-water to wash it all down.

Maybe something interesting will happen to me tomorrow…

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It’s Just Nature, Baby.

So, in yesterday’s post, I told you I had lots of nature pics to share. I was going to post them all here. That is until I realized I had more than 30 to share. Even I think that’s a lot of pics for a blog. And I’m a photo nut.

Anyway… I also mentioned the soldier beetle yesterday. Why? Well, ’cause they’re in lots of my pictures.

I was walking with the dogs at our WV place, camera in hand, enjoying the very tall, yellow wildflowers growing in abundance along our driveway. Along the road, too. Me being me, I took a closer look and saw this.

Not too remarkable, eh? Then I saw this.

Um, well, me being me, of course I thought to myself, “Heh, heh, look. Bug sex.” (There’s a kid in all of us you know.)

So I kept looking. The more I looked, the more bug sex I witnessed.

There are lots of yellow flowers. And there were copulating bugs on just about every flower I saw.

Going to town.

I was amazed. Not just at the numbers, but how densely congregated they were.

Next year, I’m thinking there will be lots of baby soldier beetles.

This wider-angle view might give you a better idea as to how many active couples there were.

That one branch of ONE plant, had more than a dozen active couples (go ahead and click on the picture for a close-up, you know you want to).

And there are hundreds of plants! It wasn’t just soldier beetles, either. Check this out…

Amazing. I’d stumbled upon a bug orgy. And I couldn’t resist photographing all of it. Now I feel, well, sort of dirty.

The session wasn’t really all about graphic images of bug sex, but practicing close-up shots. I’m amazed how clear the pictures turned out. Considering I was holding the camera in my hand with no tripod and there was a slight breeze.

Here are a few more cool ones…





If you want to see the entire collection, visit my “Nature” album on Picasa. The SLIDESHOW is the fastest way to see the pics. You can also click on any of the photos above to see a larger view.

I hope you enjoyed the show!

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New Beginnings

Yesterday was a big day in the ToadMama household. A big, big day. The beginning of a new chapter in Hubby’s life. He started his new job. And, even after only one day of orientation, he thinks he’s really going to like it.

“I met about 50 people today,” Hubby reported, as he was telling the family about day one. “And they were all really excited about me joining. It’s been a long time since anyone was excited about having me work for them.”

That just reiterates the fact that his former employers were idiots. It was WAY past time for him to get out of there.

On another front… I do have lots of pics to share from this past weekend. But not enough time right now to get them all posted. So I’ll just share a few. They’re all nature photos. I like nature. And since this blog is letting you experience the world through my eyes, well, here’s the kind of stuff I see.

First, a big, fat toad. He (or she, I didn’t look THAT closely) was on our porch in WV two evenings in a row.


Next, a pretty neat butterfly picture. That’s a SOLDIER BEETLE flying in the background. More on that later this week…


Here’s my favorite ladybug pic. Entomologists call them lady beetles, but that just sounds stupid. “Ladybug” rolls off the tongue better. I think it sounds more natural, too.


And the final bit of nature for today is just another butterfly picture. It’s not a super close-up or anything, I just like the composition of the picture and the vibrant colors.


I hope you enjoyed today’s nature shots. Trust me when I say there are MORE nature shots yet to come. And a weird story, too. I’ll try to get that posted tomorrow.

P.S. – Did anyone notice anything strange about the family photo from my Local Photoshop Disasters post? I thought for sure at least one person would comment…