Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: buds

(+4 insets!) Whew! It's nearly 4pm and I haven't stopped running! Finally got a break to write my post for the day. :) I'd like to start off by thanking all of you who've been letting me know how much you've been enjoying the beginnings of our RV adventures. I want to document it because it's kind of a big deal. It's also been a lot of work, so I also appreciate your patience with the fact that I simply don't have time to comment right now. I really hate that because it's such fun to go on my virtual trips around the world when I visit you all. Well, hopefully I'll be able to get some commenting in sometime soon. And of course, huge thanks to everyone for your amazing comments and stars for my pictures. It makes my day to read what you have to say, you're all just so very wonderful. :) Today is Macro Monday!! The theme this week is another seemingly "hand-picked for Janet" theme…Flower Buds! I am a little bummed that I wasn't able to get all the different bud pictures I was planning on. The plan was to go out today and take more pictures but it's literally been drizzling and raining all day long. I keep checking every hour and there is no end. So, sadly, I ran out of time for more buds. Boo. My main picture is a cluster of jonquils that grow in a thick patch next to our traditional daffodils. They are so fragrant! And of course, lovely too! How nice that the buds were covered with rain drops...BONUS! I have two more picks as insets: a trio of jonquils with daffodil and jonquil bokeh and also a rhododendron bud which is just thinking about what it will be like to flower in a month! I hope you like my week's Macro Monday contributions! You'll also see a couple of panoramas from our faux campsite! The first one was the lovely sunset at our "campground"! The second one was the view from the doorway of our trailer first thing this morning! :) LOL, isn't it funny that we're just here on our property and I can still get some wonderful pictures to share?! :D I don't forget for a moment how fortunate we are. Our Faux Camping Trip Continues! Our second night at the trailer was a great success! We had another dinner like the night before (perfectly amazing and delicious! :D) and afterwards we worked on putting LED lights in cabinets and wherever it made sense. One of the problems with RVs is that they can be quite dark but we're just about done and it's been a great improvement. Both Pumpkin and Molly were there with us from dinnertime and on. That was really nice and both of them enjoyed being in the trailer. Once Pumpkin got used to the new space, she's been fabulous! Whistling, singing, and of course laughing her head off at us whenever the mood suits her, we are confident that traveling with both our bird and dog will be very easy for all of us. We all slept really well and after we got up, Steve and I took our first showers there! One must be extremely conservative with water in an RV and one of the first upgrades we added was a proper shower head that has a button to instantly stop the water flow. This way you can turn on the shower, douse yourself, stop the water, soap up, turn on the water and rinse. I didn't wash my hair there because I wanted to keep it simple but that will definitely use a lot more water. We have exactly six gallons of hot water so there can be no lollygagging about. After one of us showers, the other waits for 15 min for the next 6 gallons of water to heat up. I chose to have the second shower so Steve could let me know what to pay attention to. That's why I got on better than Steve; he ran out of hot water so I was in and out in a mad flash. I also didn't wash my hair but he did. We shall see how well I manage with that addition. I just didn't want to risk running out of warm water…we all know what that's like and it being April 1, I didn't like the idea of some gremlins pulling a prank on me! :D After my shower I made our espressos there because we brought our machine over and will be bringing it with us. We've experimented with the new faddish "pod" machines but the US coffee pods are total watery garbage from our experience. We learned about these compact and convenient coffee machines in France and fell in love with L'OR pods. Intensity 12 are AWESOME but they are expensive in Europe when we found them and stupidly outrageous if purchased in the US so forget it. We'll bring our tried-and-true Rancilia Silvia and stop fussing about it! Testing the camper has been incredibly valuable and we'll keep it up until we run out of issues. Steve learned that he needs a longer shower hose to work for his 6'2 frame…he has to hold the hose up and lean over to get his head wet. That totally sucks. It's perfect for me though, I'm only 5'4 and don't need to make any adjustments. With a longer hose he'll still need to hold the hose up but at least he won't have to bend over! There are lots of little things that we need to change, buy, add, adjust and build but with each passing day we're slowly getting the trailer ready for the road. It's also totally exhausting! So much thought and consideration and shopping and decision-making. We're going to be happy to take a break once we're satisfied so we can recuperate. I think I might have mentioned yesterday that it's like a combination of moving to a new home and going on a trip. But in the end, we'll be confident that we can go on a real trip and it should go smoothly! Pam, it tickles me to no end to learn that you're a very experienced camper girl yourself! I love it! Our digs may be larger the van you were in but the experiences we have will ring true to the ones you have had! How cool is that?! (Plus, vans have some incredible advantages!) :D You know, in all the years that Steve and I have known one another (2000), we've only officially been camping once. We decided that it's just a bit too much work--even though the reward can be so sweet. We thought that someday we could save enough money for an RV and take a proper home with us without needing to break everything down and set it all up again at the next place. And here we are at the very beginning of our adventure. I'm so happy you're enjoying the show…I plan to write about the whole kit-and-caboodle so get ready for the ride…it's going to be AWESOME! I looked in your stream for a lovely place and landed on your Mt. Jefferson State Park picture…holy cow is that lovely. We are hoping to get to the Blue Ridge Mountains in our travels so this picture makes me so excited! So lovely!! Thank you for adding to my wanderlust with this gorgeous autumn landscape! *BIG, BIG HUGS* (Your panorama is a total jaw-dropper too, WOWZERS!) Explored on 4/2/19, highest placement, #1.

A while back I featured a series of garlic as its bud began to burst open to expose the countless florets inside. I found this display of developing allium buds at the Harry & David public garden and had fun using depth of field to focus on one while showing that there were many in the back

I love the shapes of forming flower buds. They are so varied and sometimes they don't look anything like a bud at all. These are a perfect example—they look like some sort of strange triple-headed space alien! I took this picture during the garden tour that Steve and I went on a few years ago in Ashland. Looking at these buds and the fine detail I got, I really wanted to process the image. However, the background was a white garage door, which meant it would be a perfect opportunity for a textured background! I'm really happy with the result—what do you think? :) Explored on August 2, 2016. Highest placement, #59.

Just a few miles from our home are the beautiful Upper and Loweer Table Rock plateaus. Every spring the rain turns these plateaus into large marshy areas with pools of water everywhere. The flora and fauna are wonderful to see, and some are unique to the Table Rocks. Steve and I ventured up to the top for a photo walk back in March 2012 and enjoyed photographing the special environment there. These buds are probably a common, very tiny flower called Spring Sandwort, and when I saw these buds surrounded by water, I couldn't resist taking pictures! It was a challenge to get this image and not fall face-first into the muck!

A week ago, Steve, our friend Michael, and I went on a hike up to the top of Grizzly Peak near Ashland, Oregon, and I got many wonderful pictures along the way. So many images, so little time to process the nice ones, but I have this one to share and more in the future! :)