Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: Dahlia Garden

(+2 insets) (looks best at full size on black!) (And please forgive me for the length of this entry, I had nothing to do for hours!) I planned to get up at about 7:15am this morning, but just as Pumpkin and I were beginning our morning conversation of happy chortling and contact calls, the house power flickered. This caused several devices around the room to beep in surprise and more importantly, the overhead lights automatically turned on. BLASTING RAYS FROM A THOUSAND SUNS BURNED THROUGH MY EYELIDS. Inside my head I screamed, "OMG MAKE IT STOP!!" The power went off. The lights went out and I relaxed in utter relief. A few seconds later, the power flickered again, the overheads went on and devices beeped at me. Pumpkin gronked at the unfamiliar sounds. I shielded my eyes with a hand and grumbled about the stupidity of lights that automatically turn on with power fluctuations. After going on and off for a moment, the power officially died. That's when our bedroom UPS* decided to speak up *(uninterruptable power supply). It's hooked up to our tv and dvd player. Yelling at me in loud, plaintive beeps in series of three, it screamed, "I don't have enough power to keep running these devices!" And that, quite frankly, made me very annoyed. How can a UPS which is less than a year old, no longer holding a charge in its battery? "BEEEEP-BEEEEEP-BEEEEEP!!!" I lay there in bed, mentally glaring at the stupid UPS. We have more problems with those dumb things. In the game room--which is down the hall, around the corner, down the short hall and hang a left into the room—I could hear another trio of bleating beeps...make that two pairs of triple beeps...both of our computers are plugged into their own UPS, and they were loudly objecting to the loss of power too. Soon Steve had the UPS's in the game room turned off along with the computers. We decided to go back to sleep for a while in hopes that the power would be back on soon. Thoughts of no espresso had us drifting away like innocent babes. Not that the feathered alarm clock cared. Pumpkin peeped at me every 15 minutes for the next hour until I really couldn't pretend to sleep anymore. Thankfully our hot water heater is large so I had a lovely shower and Pumpkin didn't seeme to mind the dim room, lit only by the light coming through the blinds in the bathroom. Once downstairs I realized that I neglected to cut up Pumpkin's veggies and fruits yesterday so I busied myself with that task while getting Molly's breakfast ready. Soon Pumpkin was set up in her day cage, the room bright with light coming in through the many windows. Steve readied our little generator with four intentions: power to our Monitor heater, to Pumpkin's floor heater near her cage, to the music ipod so Pumpkin has her Sarah Brightman/Annie Lennox playlist to listen to, and of course to the espresso machine! I went out on my walk and when I got back, Pumpkin was comfortable and rockin' out to her tunes, the house was warming up and the espresso machine was ready to go! HUZZAH! As I sit here typing away on my laptop, the power is supposed to be back on within ten minutes but who knows? We've got our fingers crossed! Can you see my glowering face as I stare daggers at the time on my laptop? 12:25. The power was supposed to be back on at 11. We did get a call from the power company saying that the updated approximation was 12:30. *drums fingers on the arm chair* Steve is off to get our two propane tanks filled. We had the brilliant idea to cook breakfast in our new RV! GREAT PLAN!! We busied ourselves with the gathering of 4 eggies, bacon, seasoning, a pan, plates and utensils and marched over to our "home away from home". Steve was hoping that there would be enough propane to cook our food but alas...though he got it fired up, the flame soon dimmed and spluttered out. He checked the propane. Yep. Empty. Well, it was a fine idea. We marched back over to the house, Steve gathered the propane containers and headed out to the local gas station. We need the tanks filled anyway, and his hope is that by the time he returns the power will be back on. He's back, it's 12:36 and nope...no power yet. *sigh* On top of that, there was no power at the gas station or anywhere for many miles in all directions. Thus, he wasn't able to get any propane either! ARGH! Well, at about 2pm we finally got our power back…what an ordeal! :D After all of the fuss of the day, I think it would be very nice to post a picture of a beautiful flower to look at. I ask you: what's better than sharing another dahlia from San Francisco's Conservatory of Flower dahlia exhibit? The only problem is choosing which to post…they all yell and scream for attention, the high-falutin' divas! Well, since they wouldn't stop jumping up and down, I picked the first one in my finished folder: she with the ever-so-fancy hair and amazing graduated colors of yellow, peach and orange. Totally outrageous beauty! Along with that picture I'm including two more: one of them is a group of breathtaking peachy-orange dahlias who are all trying to shove in front of each other to get a better position in front of my camera…CALM DOWN LADIES! You're ALL beautiful! The other picture is a rear view of a glowing, hot pink dahlia who's much too lovely to be bothered with the lime light! (I cannot help but assign personas to these flowers, they have so much pomp and character!) Pam, do you have any favorite flowers other than your beloved Snow Drops? I would understand if you can't choose one, since well, that's how I feel too…but I am curious if you do! I went to your photo stream and picked out a picture that made my heart swoon…and I fell upon your ridiculously gorgeous collage of bearded iris! I remember seeing that picture years ago and I was so smitten by the colors of your flowers that I put them in order of favorite so I had an excuse to stare at them and decide which I liked better. They are truly incredible! Here's hoping that you guys are doing well and that your heart is soaring on the warm winds of affection I am sending your way! *BIG HUGGGSSSS*!!! Explored on 3/13/19, highest placement, #1.

(This picture also wants to be seen at full size) :) What a difference a day makes! The sky had some clouds when I arose but I could see that it would be a beautiful, sunny day. At one point on my walk I had to stop and look out over the valley towards the Rogue River because of the racket I was hearing. There was a huge flock of Canada Geese flying around the Rogue River and they were making so much noise I could hear them from miles away! I hoped they might fly overhead but instead they landed on the river for a break before setting out on their migration (I'm guessing, anyway). I snickered at the boisterous fuss they made but was also very pleased to hear them. It is so nice to live in a place with so much wildlife! Tromping up and down the driveway, it was fun to think about my friends on ipernity and all the good times I've been having with back-and-forth comments, letters, and the delight of the wealth of awesome photography. ipernity really is such a wonderful community and I feel like a new person these days because of this upward spiral. There are no words to express my gratitude, but I do my best! The past few days I've been taking some time to process some of the pictures I took of the gorgeous dahlias at San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers. There is a total bummer about that photo shoot. When I got home and took a closer look at the images I was horrified to discover that the flowers were FILTHY! I didn't remember seeing this at the time but when the gardens were watered, it was obvious that a lot of dirt particles flew up and hit the blossoms. In fact, most of my tight shots looked like someone had taken a pepper shaker and covered the entire flower with a million black specks. YUCK!!! If I had any thoughts of posting a close-up, it was going to take a lot of work. However, I have finally been in the mood, and these flowers truly deserve the attention. And so, I present to you one of my successful clean-up jobs! What you're looking at may look like a pristine, perfect blossom, but to get to this state took over an hour of dirt removal! Every petal was covered with dots of dirt! What a mess. But truly, the effort was totally worth it because now I can show off this stunning wedding bride of a dahlia! And, it isn't so bad to sit and click away the dirt when I have some nice music to listen to. In fact, I saw a picture on Explore of a henna-painted hand captured magnificently by Boro (Thank your Betty for the proper ID), and the music to accompany the picture was a French artist I'd never heard of... Bernard Lavillier ...and I loved the piece so much I went over to YouTube, queued up a play list and spent the whole time listening to his fabulous music while I cleaned up this picture. What fun. Pam, this beautiful dahlia is only a fraction as lovely as you are, my dear. I hope you enjoy its radiance and maybe it will give you some warm fuzzies to help you on your way to recovery. I am thinking about you all the time! *big hugs* Explored on 11/25/18, highest position, #7 .

Please see our new group, Pictures for Pam , we would love to have you! You may read the latest news of Pam`s recoverery here (11/9/18): www.ipernity.com/home/christine.bentley ------------------------- Put on the brakes!! Where did THAT flower come from?!! Ok, ok, I admit it—this lovely Dahlia was most certainly not growing along the Upper Table Rock Trail. Granted, there are flowers to be found here which rival this one's beauty, but last time I checked it was late autumn, not springtime when endless wildflowers have exploded into bloom. No, this beauty was photographed over two years ago when Steve and I went down to San Francisco to visit my ailing father. We'd decided to bring our cameras with the idea of taking pictures at some point to get our minds off our worries. Specifically, I wanted to go to Golden Gate Park which is full of wonderful plants and flowers, including the beautiful Conservatory of Flowers. Funny enough, I haven't been inside since I was a kid. It's not free to enter and why bother? The acres surrounding the building are lavishly planted with outrageous displays of ornamental plants and blooms everywhere. Most specific of all, they have a jaw-dropping Dahlia garden that I visited once with my previous camera and I had hopes of updating my pictures with higher quality images from my Canon 5D Mk II. As it turned out, Steve and I did get about two hours to explore one day and had a marvelous time filling our memory cards with countless images. I got my wish and came home with so many Dahlia pictures that attempts to browse the hundreds of pictures have often ended in overwhelmed horror! Still, I have been able to work on a few photos. Last night I stumbled across the images I'd finished and my jaw dropped in amazement—why hadn't I done anything with them?!! I thought, "You know, Pam would adore these…let's share some!" I hope this picture pleases you Pam! I have a veritable truckload that I need to clean up but I have you to thank for making my inner tail wag again and I've already finished a few more! Hurray! Explored on 11/18/18, highest position, #11.

So much fun to take pictures of my friend Laura, while she was absorbed in her photography. Which is more beautiful? :) This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

the Dahlia is a genus of bushy, tuberous, perennial plant native to Mexico, Central America, and Colombia. There are at least 36 species, some which grow up to 10 meters tall! Dahlia hybrids, of which there are countless types, are commonly grown as garden plants. The Aztecs gathered and cultivated the dahlia for food, ceremonies, as well as decorative purposes, and the long woody stem of one variety was used for small pipes. Dahlias are used as food plants by the larvae of some moths and butterflies, and are a favorite nectar source of bees. The dahlia is named after Swedish 18th-century botanist Anders Dahl.[5] In German the dahlia was known during most of the 19th century as Georgia, being named after the naturalist Johann Gottlieb Georgi of St. Petersburg, Russia. (Info from Wiki) If you would like to know more about dahlias, please visit this Wiki page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahlia This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

(for those of you who are interested in seeing my San Francisco trip images, I have uploaded 10 pictures in this batch [88 in the past couple of weeks]. Thanks everyone for your comments and your visits to my photostream! I hope you enjoy the show!) This is the first of many pictures I took at the Conservatory of Flower's jaw-dropping Dahlia Garden. Never in my entire life have I ever seen such an enormous garden of absolutely perfect flowers! My friend Laura spotted them and in the end, she had to drag me away, kicking and screaming the whole way! There were dozens upon dozens of varieties to drool at, and I could have spent the whole day taking pictures of these intensely beautiful flowers. In the following days, you'll see lots of dahlia images sprinkled throughout my San Francisco: Golden Gate Park images...I hope you enjoy them as much as I did taking them! By the way, for those of you who may not know, there is a very fun, free Flickr competition site which you might like to take part in. It's called FlickrDuel and features dozens of ongoing competitions, or duels every day. You can enter your pictures into many different categories and vote on contests too. It's another way to enjoy your photography! This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

Have you ever played with a Spirograph?! These flowers look just like some of the designs, don't they?! This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

Who is to say what is more beautiful: an open flower or a bud which is beginning to show itself to the world?! From beginning green bud to the point at which a flower has turned to seed...there are visions of perfect splendor to capture. This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

These colors are completely outrageous and spectacular, don't you agree?!! Can you imagine what it would be like to be faced with THOUSANDS of different flowers, all perfect?! I think I lost my mind back there! :D This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

It was really fun trying to get pictures of the many insects that were attracted to the dahlias. I got a really lucky shot here with what appears to be two different types of bumblebee! This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

This is my very favorite kind of fern...I call them "Dinosaur Palm Trees" because well...they're that old! This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

(for those of you who are interested in seeing my San Francisco trip images, I have uploaded 10 pictures in this batch [98 in the past couple of weeks]. Thanks everyone for your comments and your visits to my photostream! I hope you enjoy the show!) The Conservatory of Flower's breath-taking Dahlia Garden was overflowing with thousands of absolutely perfect flowers! So many lovely blossoms, I wished I could have spent the whole day taking pictures! By the way, for those of you who may not know, there is a very fun, free Flickr competition site which you might like to take part in. It's called FlickrDuel and features dozens of ongoing competitions, or duels every day. You can enter your pictures into many different categories and vote on contests too. It's another way to enjoy your photography! This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

Winner of FlickrDuel contest: Versus: Flora This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.

This lovely dahlia was facing into the garden and gave me a very nice opportunity to take a picture from behind the blossom. This also marks the last of my dahlia garden images! I hope you enjoyed them! This image was taken during my trip to San Francisco during September 12-15, 2011.