Summer is Slipping Away

ACK! Everywhere I turn, I find reminders that summer nearly over. I’m in the single digits of days left to enjoy in that carefree, summerlike way. Meghan moves back to college on Sunday, I return to work on Monday, Sarah begins her senior year of high school a week from tomorrow. As if I needed one more reminder, yesterday, day 60 of summer, we picked up the proofs for Sarah’s senior portraits.

This is a sample of the 30 or so shots that I have to choose from.

Today, day 61 of summer, is a day of errands and chores, blah, blah, blah. Here have a pretty butterfly that I saw on my butterfly bush instead!

You didn’t want to see pictures of housework anyway, did you?

Another First for this Summer

It’s happening again, the blog posts are stacking up! Today is actually a very special day, my younger daughter Sarah’s 17th birthday. However it is after 10 pm as I am writing this post, and I never posted yesterday’s photo. I will address Sarah’s birthday post tomorrow when my head is a little clearer and my body is hopefully a bit less tired!

Friday, August 1st was day 43 of summer. It was a day of running around, cleaning up and getting ready for Sarah’s party – none of which would provide a very interesting photo. I did get to photograph my first tiger swallowtail butterfly of the summer now that my one remaining butterfly bush is in bloom.

I feel like I’ve been having some issues with focus and exposure lately and I’m not sure if it is my camera or me! I’m guessing it is probably me. I did notice the exposure dial was not set in my normal position of “P” this evening, and I don’t know how long it has been that way. I’ve gotten lazy in my photography technique lately. Time to start paying better attention.

Sometimes It’s the Little Things

You can feel it in the air. You can see it in the light. You can hear it in the heat bugs. Summer is in its downward spiral.

Kate was saying it too. It seems strange to be thinking this way when we are still in the single digits of August, but the end is much nearer than I’d like it to be.

We leave for Maine for our annual week’s vacation on Hills Beach this Saturday. When we return, time is going to fly. Meghan moves into her dorm only 2 weeks from today. School begins again for me on Monday the 26th.

In the little time that I have left, I’m trying to remember to enjoy the little things, like the little visitors to the area of my backyard deck.

All of these little ones appeared just yesterday.
A great spangled frillitary

What I believe to be a juvenile ruby throated hummingbird(according to what I’ve read it is difficult to tell the females from the juveniles)

Can you see him (or her) sitting on the other side of the feeder? Here’s another shot with the head tipped back and a wing out for balance.

I thought the bee in the background was kind of neat too.

While I sat with my current summer read (Under the Dome by Stephen King – have you read this one? Excellent so far!) I noticed a hopping motion out of the corner of my eye.
This tiny visitor was making its way across my deck:

It occured to me that there was no frame of reference for just how tiny this little guy is in the photo, so I grabbed a dime and quietly slid it over to where it was sitting, hoping it wouldn’t decide to hop away before I took this picture:

This will likely be my last post before we leave for Maine. I’ve got my fingers crossed for nice weather. We may have wi-fi available during this trip, so I may check in with you from time to time during the week and on Facebook if we are friends there.

“..you feel it in the air, summer’s (not quite!) out of reach…” Extra points if you can name the song I’m paraphrasing in the comments without googling it! 😉

Portrait of a Summer Evening

I don’t have to tell you it is hot.  Seems most of the country has been experiencing a heat wave over the last few days.  Thankfully, at least around here, it seems to be breaking today.  Highs should only be in the upper 80’s and we have a chance for showers throughout the day.  Due to the heat of the day, evening has been the more pleasant time to head outside, and it is a nice time for taking pictures.

The girls came outside for a swim and hand-stand practice:

The day lillies glow in the evening:

One of my dahlias showed a deep red that I have difficulty capturing in the daytime:

The sky was painted with swirly clouds:

And some of my favorite summer creatures came around for a photo session:

Tiger Swallowtail butterfly

Hummingbird moth

and my hummingbird took his evening post.

Daphne says, “I don’t care what you think, Mom, it is still too hot!”

My June Photo Hunt Shots

Hi Everyone!  It is photo hunt time!  As of this writing, I have not been around to check out the links that have been submitted to me so far; I was just finishing up  my own hunt photos and I didn’t want to be influenced by what I saw.

A colorful bird of my choice :

I tried to think of a cheeky way to interpret this one, but both of the ways I thought of wouldn’t work.  The first would be an indecent gesture that no one would want to see a picture of!  The second, I don’t live in the correct country to get the shot – an English girl in a colorful dress would fit the bill too.  So I settled for this guy:

He’s the chlorine floater for my pool and he’s pretty colorful!

A grad – of any sort :

 

This is the daughter of dear friends who graduated from high school this year.  I met these friends when I was a senior in high school, so this makes me feel really old.  This photo also contains the project that I’d been working so furiously on for most of the month of May.  I’m very proud of how Brianna’s graduation quilt came out.

A dad – of any sort:

 

For this shot, I resorted to my archives.  Here’s my hubby from vacation last summer, doing what he does best as a dad – acting like a diabolical goofball with his children.

Something purple:

A fairly typical Karma shot here!  I have these flowers near my mailbox, and I can’t remember what they are called, but they don’t stay open all day long and look pretty after a rain shower.

A butterfly:

Hee, hee! Gotcha!  You were expecting one of these pretty things weren’t you?  I had a few twisted ideas for this one, like trying to carve a house fly out of butter or trying to catch the stick of butter flying through the air.  This is actually the very rare sweetcreamerusaltificus species.

A funny face:

Because a pointy-faced collie fresh from doing battle with the evil garden-hose-monster is pretty funny, and I haven’t had a reason to feature a picture of Teddy lately.

Bonus: a cow, bull, heifer, calf or ox.  Extra bonus points for my favorite, the belted galloway. (Also affectionately known by me as an “Oreo” cow):

Ha, ha – kid!  I kid!  I really did go out and finally get some pictures of those real-life Oreo cows:

Awwww, aren’t they sweet?  I want one for a pet.

I hope I gave you a little chuckle with my photos, and I hope you had fun taking yours!  You still have time if you haven’t posted yet.  You’ve got all day tomorrow to post – and I’ll probably let you slide if you do it for Monday too.  I’ll be making the rounds to check out your shots soon!

ETA:  Oopsie, dear sister of mine pointed out an error in my original deadline!  I wrote Sunday, June 25th.  Oops.  Today is actually the 25th, isn’t it, and as far as I know it is only Saturday.  My bad!  I meant for the deadline to be Sunday the 26th, but meh.  You know how I feel about being strict on these things.  Take til the end of the month if need be.

Of Kings and Queens

Well, that’s what monarchs are, right, kings and queens?  I took some pictures of the “king” or “queen” of the butterflies the other day – I say this because I have no idea whether it was a girl or a boy (although I did witness what I assume was some butterfly hanky-panky going on, I assume there was actually one of each.  I don’t think you are interested in the picture of that!  Maybe you are?) Anyway…

I am just loving the butterfly bushes this summer for all the opportunities it has presented me.

This one was actually taken on the near-by rasberry bush.  I just love those polka-dotted bodies!

I’d never noticed those furry, fluffy backs before.  It reminded me of a phrase my daughters have been repeating ad infinitum since they saw “Despicable Me” this summer:

Thank you, your majesty, for having this little photo session with me!

Oh and one more shot of a very sweet monarch that I couldn’t help but share:

(Sarah, Halloween 2003, 6 years old)

Butterfly Fly Away

The butterfly metaphor post.  After the comments I received in the “voting” post, I hope this doesn’t disappoint!

About a week ago, my girls and I received our video of our recital.  It is something we look forward to watching together each year.  We complain about the mistakes we made and how we wish the videographer had done this or that, but mostly we enjoy reliving our big night.  As we watch, we also talk about things we heard from friends and relatives who watched the show about things that happened and favorite parts of the show.  One unexpected reaction that we heard about was one of Sarah’s dances turning out to be the “tearjerker” of the show.  Usually, each year there is at least one dance that is so sweet is causes a few joyful tears to flow.  One year it was a beautiful mother-daughter duet done by dear friends of mine.  I didn’t have a strong reaction to this dance myself, I think, because I was caught up in the hurry, hurry of the night.  As I think back about it now, I understand.

(Sarah pictured center)

Sarah’s class was a group of 13 girls aged 9-12 dancing to Miley Cyrus’s Butterfly Fly Away.  We are not Miley fans in this house, but this song was sweet.  Included in this class is a darling girl who happens to have Down’s Syndrome.  She did well in the class but needed some prompting to be where she was supposed to be.  The girls in the class handled this very well, and their cooperation seemed to add to the charm of the dance.  The lyrics of the song couldn’t help but remind the families of the dancers that it wouldn’t be very long before our butterflies fly away.

(Sarah pictured left)

Sarah is my younger daughter, but as I’ve mentioned before, my older one is in high school.  It won’t be long before college is breathing down our necks.  Sarah “officially” becomes a teenager in a few weeks.  Where is the time going?   As parents, we all hope that we have “done right” by our children, so that when our butterflies do fly away, they will  be able to “take those dreams and make them all come true.”

Butterflies are Free to Fly

While spending a sunny morning puttering around my yard recently, I was happily suprised by a visitor to my butterfly bushes.  I have two quite large bushes on one side of my deck starting to bedeck themselves in lovely pink and purple blossoms.   I’m hoping to feature a nice wide shot of the butterfly bushes when they are both in full bloom, which should be any day now.  In the meantime, after a couple days of photo frustration, I was rewarded with this beauty:

That’s the first shot I took.  I realize its underexposed, but with all the disappointment I’d had recently in getting any  interesting pictures, I wanted to be quick to get something.  Despite the underexposing, I kind of like the play of shadows in this one.

I kept clicking and clicking away, just trying to get as many shots as I could before the subject flew away.  I don’t remember how many I ended up taking.  This one has a good view of the top of the wings and the tongue unfurling to taste those little blossoms.

Here’s a side view with a good look at the underside of the wing.  When I first saw orange and black flittering by, my first thought was, “Ooh, monarch!” but as I got close enough to take these pictures, I realized that was not the case.  I’m sure one of you faithful readers will be able to help me in the identification of my subject.  Tracy?  Gerry?

Here’s our friend’s face.  Kinda has a big shnozz for a delicate little creature, doesn’t it?

So what do you think everyone?  What kind is it?  And I hope you enjoyed my happiness with getting some photos of a subject that did not evade my efforts!