Weekly Photo Challenge: Local
Tudor Houses, Tree Lined Streets, Train Tracks passing through, and a pond within walking distance from my home. Life in the suburbs.
A Photo a Week Challenge: Ruins
Duke Farms is an estate that was established by James Buchanan Duke, an American entrepreneur who founded Duke Power and the American Tobacco Company. This is what is left standing of the Hay Barn. Following a fire in January 1915, the building remained abandoned. Doris Duke who inherited the estate from her father used the ruins as an outdoor sculpture gallery, placing individual marble statues of human figures in linear arrangements along the walls, which can still be seen today. 
Feathers on Friday: Black throated Blue Warbler
The black-throated blue warbler is a small bird of the warbler family. Its breeding ranges are located in the interior of deciduous and mixed coniferous forests in eastern North America. Over the cooler months, it migrates to islands in the Caribbean and Central America. The adult male has a black face and cheeks, deep blue upperparts and white underparts, while the adult female is olive-brown above and light yellow below. Predominantly insectivorous, the black-throated blue warbler supplements its diet with berries and seeds in winter.
Sitting at my kitchen table facing a window that looks out onto a small tree I thought I spotted a flash of blue the other day. I grabbed the camera, stood on a chair and hung out the top half of the window in order to capture a few shots of the flash of blue flitting from branch to branch eating the berries. My patience paid off as I was able to get a few and then he actually headed for the ground under the tree allowing me to get more shots as he wrestled with a berry. I was also able to capture his lady friend, though not as clearly, but it was still a thrill to see the pair of them.
The Mrs.
Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Rocks
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Yellow
Wordless Wednesday
Discover Challenge: Animal
Both Sammy & Max were rescue dogs. Sammy was left tied to a fence in the snow of December, someone took him in and called us as they knew we had been looking to get a dog. He was trained, the vet figured about 5 years old, and so very smart. Two years later we brought Max home, another rescue, quite a character, our “mush ball” wanting nothing but to slobber us with kisses. Sammy barely tolerated him, but as the years wore on they found their place together, and Max was always protective of Sammy as he slipped into senility, living to age 19. Max died 2 years later at age 17. To say our lives with them were changed is an understatement. They brought us joy and laughter, they made us crazy with the predicaments they got into that gave us extra work, but the frustrations were always short lived. They left an indelible mark on our hearts that to this day, 6 and 4 years later I still cannot speak of them without crying. It is sometimes hard to fathom what an imprint they make on our lives, how deep the love for an animal can run. People who have never had that bond don’t understand, cannot understand it. When Sammy died I was touched by the phone call I received from my brother in law. Though he is not a tremendous fan of dogs, and never had one, he called to say how sorry he was, that he knew how much Sammy had meant to us, and what a loss it was for us. I have always remembered that call, and his sensitivity to understanding that although it may have been a foreign emotion to him, he understood the depth of it for us.
Max sleeping in the same bed with Sammy – giving comfort to him in his old age
Share Your World
Do you believe in love at first sight?
I think I do even though it was not love at first sight with my husband. When I was 16 I was immediately drawn to someone who I would become involved with for many years- it wasn’t love as much as a physical attraction.
I wrote about my first meeting with my husband here
Wedding 1991
Your first car?
The year was 1978 and I remember it like it was yesterday. A friend took me to a dealer he knew, and we spent hours in the showroom. I decided on an Oldsmobile Starfire. Back then there were a myriad of colors to choose from, as well as interior colors. I chose silver with burgundy interior. I went for air conditioning which in those days wasn’t standard, and added more onto the price. I had enough to pay for half of what the car cost, so my father came with me to the bank and co-signed a loan for me. When I paid off the two year loan I felt I was a real grown up. I was 23.
Who taught you to ride a bike? How did it go?
My father taught me. We went to the parking lot of a nearby school and he let me balance and pushed me along until I got the hang of pedaling, and off I went!
Ugly and rich or beautiful and poor?
What an interesting thought- what is beauty really? It mostly comes from the inside I believe, and then is seen on the outside, making the person rich – maybe not monetarily, but rich in who they are as a person.
What was the first dish you could cook?
I learned to make Toll House Cookies as a child- chocolate chip cookies- but have no recollection beyond that. I only began cooking after I moved into my own apartment when I was in my early 20’s.
Weekly Photo Challenge: H2O
Cee’s Which Way Challenge
No Turn On Red? I think that is pretty obvious seeing as this is a one direction at a time underpass!
I waited my turn
Travel theme: Enlightened
Song Lyric Sunday
Our Song Lyric Sunday theme for this week is to post a song that has something to do with “nature”. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about nature, just as long as there is a word or phrase that mentions a form of nature in the song.
John Denver, was an American musician, singer-songwriter, record producer, activist, actor and humanitarian, whose greatest commercial success was as a solo singer, starting in the 1970s. He was one of the most popular acoustic artists of the decade and one of its best-selling artists. He recorded and performed primarily with an acoustic guitar and sang about his joy in nature, his enthusiasm for music, and his relationship trials. “Annie’s Song” was written as an ode to Denver’s wife at the time, Annie Martell Denver. Denver “wrote this song in July 1973 in about ten-and-a-half minutes one day on a ski lift” to the top of Ajax Mountain in Aspen, Colorado, as the physical exhilaration of having “just skied down a very difficult run” and the feeling of total immersion in the beauty of the colors and sounds that filled all senses inspired him to think about his wife.
When I saw the theme was nature John Denver immediately came to mind. I have put some of the photos I have taken to the music of his song. Hope you like it
You fill up my senses like a night in the forest,
like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain,
like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean.
You fill up my senses, come fill me again.
Come let me love you, let me give my life to you,
let me drown in your laughter, let me die in your arms,
let me lay down beside you, let me always be with you.
Come let me love you, come love me again.
You fill up my senses like a night in the forest,
like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain,
like a storm in the desert, like a sleepy blue ocean.
You fill up my senses, come fill me again.
Error
This video doesn’t exist
A Photo a Week Challenge: Horizon
Feathers on Friday : Baltimore Oriole
I spotted a Baltimore Oriole’s nest in a tree this week, hanging high up from a branch. Their nests strike me as a true work of art. Cornell Lab of Ornithology says:
Baltimore Orioles build remarkable, sock-like hanging nests, woven together from slender fibers. The female weaves the nest, usually 3 to 4 inches deep, with a small opening, 2 to 3 inches wide, on top and a bulging bottom chamber, 3 to 4 inches across, where her eggs will rest. She anchors her nest high in a tree, first hanging long fibers over a small branch, then poking and darting her bill in and out to tangle the hank. While no knots are deliberately tied, soon the random poking has made knots and tangles, and the female brings more fibers to extend, close, and finally line the nest. Construction materials can include grass, strips of grapevine bark, wool, and horsehair, as well as artificial fibers such as cellophane, twine, or fishing line. Females often recycle fibers from an old nest to build a new one.
I am always amazed seeing how the nest looks almost crocheted together- woven together and hanging from a branch, strong enough to withstand the elements so high up. I spotted a Baltimore Oriole for the first time last Spring, and was able to capture a few shots. Their stunning orange standing out in sharp contrast to the surrounding green foliage or blue sky.
Sunshine Smile
The sun was high in the sky as I walked yesterday, shining its light all around me, and on all that surrounded me. I could feel its warmth on my back, and I stood with my face raised to it, soaking it in, my dose of Vitamin D for the day. It made me smile, inside and out.
Wordless Wednesday
Trail Time
I was finally able to take a walk along my favorite neighborhood trail today. 
The leaves here have really not started changing yet, I saw just a few smaller trees beginning to turn color. 
I did notice berries along the way 
and a hint of color here and there- blooming bushes not quite done blooming yet
I spotted a Yellow Rumped Warbler who managed to sit still long enough for me to take a few photos
A pair of ducks were snacking in the creek, but they were the only ones there unlike Springtime when the creek is filled with families. 
Hope your week is filled with good things.
Song Lyric Sunday
Our theme for Song Lyric Sunday is to post a song you love that falls in the category of “singer/songwriter”.
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose, and perform their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. The genre began with the folk-acoustic tradition. Singer-songwriters often provide the sole accompaniment to an entire composition or song, typically using a guitar or piano. The first popular recognition of the singer-songwriter in English-speaking North America and Great Britain occurred in the 1960s and early 1970s when a series of blues, folk and country-influenced musicians rose to prominence and popularity.
Judy Collins came to mind immediately as a singer songwriter I have loved since I was a teenager. The song Born to the Breed is written about her only child, Clark. In 1992 at age 33 he committed suicide after a long bout with clinical depression and substance abuse.
I was only nineteen
The morning you were born
With your hair fine and red
And your eyes like my own
Barely a woman
With only a song
I sang to make you smile
And held you all night long
Home through the streets
With you in my arms
Cold winter mornings
In a Colorado town
I’ve seen you stumble
You’ve watched me fall
You know I’ve got nothing
You know we’ve got it all
Trucks roll by and the rain coming down
Does that old parka keep you dry?
Sixteen years old out on the road
Trying to get to the sky
Back in September
You called me on the phone
“Ma, you know I love you
But I gotta be own my own”
“Comes a time in a boy’s life
When he’s got to be a man
Please don’t try to find me
Please try to understand”
Now he’s playing guitar
In a rock and roll band
Looking like a baby
Talking like a man
The life of a guitar man
Is a hard life to live
What can I tell you
You were born to the breed
Rain comes down, the trucks rolling by
I that old poncho gonna keep you dry?
Sixteen years old, January child
Trying to get to the sky
I’ve watched you growing
Through all these years
You’ve seen me stumble
I’ve watched your tears
Sometimes there was roses
Sometimes there was thorns
But I know you’re gonna make it
As sure as you were born
And I hope from what you wanted
You get what you need
I know you’re gonna make it
You were born to the breed
Sixteen years old, January child
Trying to get to the sky
A Photo A Week Challenge: Blue
Nostalgia
Nostalgia:a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.
Nostalgia: pleasure and sadness that is caused by remembering something from the past and wishing that you could experience it again.
The definitions sum up my feelings looking back on my childhood and thinking of my father.
Me and Daddy in a photobooth in the late 1950’s
Climbing the dunes and running down together every summer at the beach
Always the bartender at summer family parties
Feathers on Friday
White-throated Sparrows are brown above and gray below with a striking head pattern. The black-and-white-striped head is augmented by a bright white throat and yellow between the eye and the bill, which is gray. You’ll also see a less boldly marked form, known as “tan-striped,” with a buff-on-brown face pattern instead of white-on-black. They stay near the ground, scratching through leaves in search of food, often in flocks. You may see them low in bushes as well, particularly in spring when they eat fresh buds. White-throated Sparrows sing their distinctive songs frequently, even in winter.
I love that tiny spot of yellow standing out in contrast to their brown and white.
A Day In The Life 
You must be logged in to post a comment.