Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: Marie-claire Gallet

(+1 inset!) Please note: I no longer have internet, will check in when I can So I am going to try to get my posts up first thing in the morning now because my usual way of doing things isn't working out. Basically, I am pushing my post time later and later because we do things that keep me away from my computer until the latest I can manage. Then I'm so tired that it can be frustrating if there are any issues at all. Last night Steve and I got back from an incredible 2-hour bike ride along the Deschutes River and it was 8pm. Then there was dinner and that made it 9pm. And then we were dead exhausted from the long day and long ride and just to add a wrench in the works, the internet disappeared on us completely. There would be no posting. How annoying that was. But also a lesson learned. So, I'll be posting this early today. I began by posting yesterday's picture--which is a "technical fail" as a "365" post but who cares, right? I'm posting two pictures of the chipmunks I successfully photographed yesterday! The main one makes me laugh because he's standing up so high on his hind legs! The inset shows one of the chipmunks licking the grease off the griddle we had sitting on the picnic table. SO CUTE! Sorry Pam, no time to chat! *BIG HUGS* :)

(+3 insets!) (Sorry, this is probably my longest War & Peace novel yet! Scroll to the bottom for photo info or get some coffee, kick back and have yourself a read if you like!) :) Oh, the SMELL of PINE FOREST when sunshine is just starting to warm up the pine needles….MMMMMMMMMM!!! There is simply nothing like that amazing fragrance and that's what hit me in the face as I opened the door of our RV to take a sneaky peek outside. I spotted movement on the ground off to my right and--OH!! A CHIPPER!!! *SQUEEE*!!!--there was a tiny chipmunk poised on a rock about 10 feet from our doorway. "Awwww," I cooed, how adorable it was! I tucked back into the RV and grabbed my Sony, but when I opened the door again the bitty chipper scooted off at Tasmanian Devil speed, disappearing into the bushes. However, I did get to see its dark tail flicking and its little feeties kicking up the silty dust as it zoomed away…"Ohhhhh, so cute!!!" I purred happily as I stepped outside and took a deep breath of the lovely, scented air. "Mmmmmmmm…." I repeated, "It smells soooooOOOooooo good out here!" I took a pair of pictures where I stood to capture my first impressions, noticing too that it was chilly but not too cold…how nice! My photos showed both the picnic table with conifer forest beyond and also an upwards capture of the lovely trees that stretched up to the beautiful blue sky. I peered around, hoping to see my wee buddy but there was no sign of it, so after enjoying more forest fresh air, I reentered the RV and got my day started…hooray!! Our RV trip has truly begun! :) I'd already enjoyed a snuggle with Steve and a shower supervised by Pumpkin. She was sitting in her clear travel cage now as she ate her breakfast and watched me move around the RV. We twittered and whistled back and forth as I set up her day cage with fresh vitamin-enriched water and made my Americano-style espresso. Steve was cuddled in his fluffy bed, still exhausted from the drive and days of preparation for this trip. He didn't usually get up as early as me so as I climbed back into my "Nest" with my computer, he drifted back into a blissful snooze. "Good," I thought to myself, he needs the sleep and it's only 8am. I spent an hour working on pictures and enjoying the sounds of the campground coming to life around our trailer. It was a great place. Quiet even though it was full. I'd always judged my perception of campgrounds on a few experiences which were accented by yelling kids and guffawing adults, campfire smoke and mosquitoes. The reality that we have experienced thus-far has been the opposite and we couldn't be happier. I gently woke Steve a bit after 9am and he smiled sleepily up at me, yawning and stretching. We shared our "good mornings" and soon Steve and Pumpkin were singing in the shower and having a merry time listening to music. Steve's now eating his hemp-heart porridge for breakfast along with his iced espresso and cream. He enjoys cruising the photo/info/fun website, "Imgur.com" while he eats and is really pleased that our mobile reception is so good Before sitting down, he heated up an egg-sausage quiche muffin for me (he'll be having one too!)and I'm about as satisfied as can be. Pumpkin (our supervisor) approves of all of these proceedings and is content and totally happy as she sits in her clear cage right next to Steve. All of us really love being on our adventures and Pumpkin adores the non-stop attention she gets during the day. Even when we are away, she has a view of the Great Outdoors in a new place, something she never tires of. Life is Good. :) Yesterday we were so pleased with ourselves because this trip's preparations have been the smoothest yet, even though this trip will also be a full week longer than our last trip. We have our roles down to a pretty exact science and it was nearly effortless to get everything ready and packed. And then, about an hour from home, Steve yelled, "Oh no…I forgot the thumb drive!" I cringed inwardly. Oh no…not the thumb drive. All of our movies. Our shows. At home. We both stared at the three weeks before us, now seemingly devoid of shows to watch in our hourly nightly ritual. Since Pumpkin was a 6-month-old chick, we've spent this precious hour to allow her to bond with us, clean her feathers and settle down for the night before being tucked into her little tent which hangs from the top of her cage. No, we didn't NEED the shows. We could read books but it would be a huge departure from our normal situation. Well, I can guarantee that we'll NEVER forget the thumb drive again, lol. The silly thing is that I had it on our "DON'T FORGET" list but since it's something Steve handles, it slipped my mind to vocally remind him. Oh well…we were annoyed but soon arrived at, "Who cares…it doesn't matter." My but aren't we turning into mature adults these days?! :D (In the past we would have been very upset to the point of the day being basically ruined. How silly! :D) When we got to our campsite, Steve discovered that his phone was getting really fast speeds and we would be able to easily stream shows from Amazon. YAY! So last night we watched a show from Amazon called Bosch, based on the Michael Connelly books which feature the very popular detective, Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch. Steve and I have both read and enjoyed this series of books in audio form and figured the show would be fun to watch. It was! And now we have a new series to enjoy, yay! :) We're not sure how the show-watching situation will go throughout our trip but whatever happens, it will all be just fine! :) Today is set to get pretty warm but hopefully not too hot in the deep forest. We're planning on going on a bike ride and maybe a hike…maybe fishing…we're not sure what else. I'll be tuning in later to let you know what we came up with! --------------- Well, it's been a fun, interesting and frustrating day for us. To give you a clue, right now Steve is watching fishing videos and I only stopped watching with him so I can get my post up! :D Our adventures today began with a totally awesome bike ride along the Deschutes river on a well-tended dirt trail that took us along the bank for a number of miles, sometimes cutting inland a bit but always touching the river again and showing off lovely views. We stopped on many occasions to enjoy the beautiful river. At one point the trail ended and we had a choice to return the way we came or try riding back on roads which would eventually take us back to the park. Had we known the roads were all rough gravel, we would have taken the trail; instead we ended up traveling back on bone-jarring roads. We were finally dumped onto the main road back to our campground and made good time on the asphalt highway. Live and learn! But the first half of our ride was fabulous and we'll likely do that again before we go--we'll make sure to take the correct trail back to camp! After lunch we organized our fishing gear and headed out to the bank of the Deschutes River--literally a two-minute walk from our trailer! This swift-moving river is so pretty and full of potential yummy FISHIES! Could we actually catch a fish today??? Noop. No, nada, not a chance! We did get two casts each though…just before we lost out lovely, shiny lures in hidden snags. BOO! Most of our time was spent trying to get our lines set up to begin with. It's funny because even though I've done a lot of fishing as a kid, it's been 40 YEARS and I essentially remember nothing. We prepared by reading informative website pages and watching intro YouTube videos that explained what we should do but as it turned out, we didn't watch the right ones. "Frustrating" was definitely the word of the day for us. After losing our lures we decided to go back to our RV, have some dinner and then watch videos on everything we were confused about. That was the right answer. After just a few topics we both feel so much better prepared. Just now Steve announced that he knows what he'll be doing for his next attempt and is redoing his line in preparation for tomorrow's attempt! Once I'm done here he's going to show me what he did and explain the setup while we get mine set up. Yay! Well, today's score is FISHIES: 1 and BRIENS: 0. Maybe we can reverse the lead tomorrow and have FISHIES for dinner! :) Today's main picture is the view of the pretty trees stretching up to the sky that I took this morning. I have three insets too…one of them is the other view I got as I stepped outside: the picnic table and view beyond. I've got a picture of our truck and rig at our campsite and finally, a portrait of Steve! :) Last evening when I was getting my macros, Steve was barbequing our steaks and he looked so cute that I told him to "Say Cheese!" and he did! This particular picture turned out so well that Steve was thrilled--he almost never likes his pictures but this one is super! :) Pam, I forgot to mention how much fun it was reading about your fishing history! Funny how the years just drift by from the time we were avid fisher-folk! Well, Steve and I are going to keep trying to figure it out until we snatch some NOMMY FISHIES for our dinners! :) At this point it has been anything but a positive experience but tomorrow is another day and we'll try other methods until we find one that works! :) We're thinking about you…CHANNEL YOUR FISHIE-CATCHING LUCK please!! *BIG HUGS*

Today's the day! *bounces up and down in excitement* We're going RV camping again!! This will be our longest trip yet, a full 21 days of adventures! We'll be checking out a few of Oregon's central state parks this time around with locations on both rivers and lakes, in forest and high-desert settings. Our starting point will be in an area we're familiar with, though we haven't been at the exact location before. LaPine State Park is near both Sunriver and Bend, Oregon, nestled in deep forest and hugging the popular Deschutes River. We stayed at Sunriver for my birthday last September and had a fantastic time mountain bike riding and hiking while we were there. Criss-crossed with nearly countless multi-experience bike and hike trails, it would take many weeks to traverse them all (During winter the whole area is packed with ski-bunnies!). The LaPine/Sunriver/Bend area was the first place we thought of for our next trip, though it turned out that we couldn't stay as long as we'd hoped. Due to extreme popularity and proximity to the flourishing town of Bend, we had to be satisfied with only 3 nights here for this trip (with a single night's stop off at the end of our trip). In the future we'll make reservations well in advance so we can stay for a week next time! We're really happy that we get to spend several days here though, and can't wait to explore this area again! Since we won't be leaving until about 1pm today (check-in is at 4pm and it only takes a couple of hours to get to LaPine), I'm preparing as much of my post early because I have some time now.I'm betting that it will be very late when I post tonight so I'm taking advantage of this opportunity now. Another change for this trip is that we've got a friend of ours staying at our place while we're gone since it will be three weeks away and we'd like to make sure our frogs and snake are cared for. It will be a win-win because he'll get the chance to hang out at our rural home with access to great cycling (a favorite activity of his) and we'll have peace of mind! ------------- We're here!! And oh my goodness It's absolutely gorgeous in this pine fores!t Our site is marvelous and spacious too. We pulled into LaPine State Campground at about 4pm and got settled by around 6 or so. Dinner was melt-in-your-mouth ribeye steaks with our nommy faux-tato salad...soooo yummy!! Lots of birds all over the place and there are CHIPPERS here! An adorable chipmunk ran over to our site and Steve tossed a bbq-pork rind at him...a second later the little guy was racing away with his prize--SO CUTE! I hope I'll get pictures while we're here! I'm too rushed to write much more today except to say that we're delighted by this wonderful campground and can't wait to go for a bike ride tomorrow and check this stunning park out! I had enough time to step outside our RV and take some macros. This cluster of dead pine leaves caught my eye and turned out looking a little bit like a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree…or maybe a brown Tribble? :D No other pictures tonight, I'm out of time! Pam, I hope all is well with you, wish you were here! :) *BIG HUGS* Explored on 6/10/19; highest placement, #3.

(+1 inset!) Oh my, it's been another crazy day…it's just amazing how the hours just disappear. I got up at 6:45am this morning and I am just now sitting down to relax for a couple of minutes before dinner and more running around. Today I did a lot of cooking and meal preparation for our upcoming trip. I simply don't know how the hours drain away but after all is said and done, we now have 15 breakfast egg, onion, cheese and sausage muffins, a couple of quarts of faux-tato salad (made with cauliflower...it's 10x better than potato!), and a bunch of other things are sorted out and ready to go. Whew! The best part is having Steve try each of my creations and then wanting to eat them all! :) I'm bummed that I haven't had time to visit contacts on ipernity or leave comments. It's frustrating but time is so short that I don't even have time to work on my pictures. A shame. I haven't been able to process very many images from our past trip but what are you going to do when life is throwing a million tasks at you? I do apologize for not visiting—I feel guilty when so many have stopped by to say hi and I've not been able to reciprocate. I'm not sure what I can do about this problem...I can barely comment when we're away on our trips and when I get home I'm swamped with a million things to do. I would love some advice from you busy folks who manage to fit commenting into your day! This is also Saturday, and that means Saturday Self Challenge! When I read what the topic was a few days ago, I wasn't sure that I'd be able to get out for pictures of a subject for "Statues and Monuments". However, as luck would have it, Steve and I went out a couple of days ago and there was enough time for a picture of a particular statue I loved. In downtown Medford we have the Ginger Rogers theater—she lived here for all of her later life! Outside the theater is a square called Vogel Plaza. It's nothing special, though it's been used for protests and demonstrations through the years. The one thing that does make it special in my eyes is the awesome sculpture located on the far side of the square from the theater. There sits a bronze gentleman who is pondering his next chess move. Opposite to him is an empty bronze chair which tempts anyone nearby to sit in it! The artwork is fabulous with awesome details, an obvious understanding of proper anatomy and of course, a brilliant idea and execution. I asked Steve to pose for me so I could have a fun picture to share—I couldn't be happier with the wonderful mirror image he created for me! I also have an inset today...it's ME sitting in the empty bronze chair back in 2013! What fun! :) Pam, do you like to play chess? I love it but chess is a game which takes such a long time to play. I participated in online matches for a while but eventually I grew weary...I just don't have the time to contemplate all of the moves and look forward to the following possibilities, etc. It is a great intellectual pastime though! And my father—with his math-bent genius IQ—taught me as a kid and heh...beat me all the way up until he passed away at age 87. What a mind. Playing chess with my father made me feel like I was a cornered mouse being toyed with by a cat who likes to play with its food! LOLOL...well, I think it was nice that the smarts I got from my parents is all of the creative sort! Hope your day was a good one my dear! *BIG HUGS* Explored on 6/9/19; highest placement, #1.

(+1 inset!) (please view large for the best impression!) :D What a day! Finally I have a moment to sit down and it's after 8pm! Sheesh! So much to write though, so let me get this new novel written! :D The excitement of today began last night, actually. Every evening we watch an hour of a movie or an episode brought to us via Netflix. Night before last we'd finished watching the first season of what turned out to be a fantastic sci-fi show called "The Expanse." We'd need to start something new except...I had a plan. We're leaving on our next RV adventure in a few days and I'd been dropping hints about fishing but Steve apparently wasn't tuning in. Fact is, for all but the past couple of months of our relationship, Steve has been totally uninterested in fishing. He had an issue with it, but primarily with folks who catch and release because he thinks it's horribly cruel (I agree). Those who fish and actually eat the fish or catch to sell the fish are fine but because he loves fish (as divers and self-appointed ambassadors to the sea, we both love and respect marine life), the idea of catching, killing, cleaning and eating a fish was totally out of the question. I respected his feelings on the subject and didn't try to change his mind. We both feel that it's a person's right to choose not to do something they don't like. However, that being said...I love fishing! What fun it is! Throughout my teen years until I was about 16 or so, I went fishing almost every weekend up at our summer cabin. The resort community where our family's cabin resided put on a couple of fishing contests every year, and every single year I'd invariably with first or second place in several categories—Biggest Bluegill, Most Bluegill Caught, Biggest Catfish, Most Catfish Caught, and sometimes I'd get lucky and catch a winning Carp too. My brothers also fished (except my oldest brother, he couldn't care less about fishing!) and both Brian and Scott vied for the top place in the Bass and Trout categories. Once we stopped going up to the cabin, I stopped fishing and life went on. I never thought about it. When I met Steve, it was fun telling him about my fishing history and it was ok to me that he didn't like the idea. I'd had my day in the sun with angling and was content without it. But a funny thing happened. We got an RV. We began going on camping trips. And everywhere we went, we saw folks fishing and going out in boats. I didn't say anything about it...but one day out of the blue, Steve said to me, "You know, I think I might want to change my mind about fishing." We talked about our feelings regarding fish and he thought that maybe he could handle killing a fish and ultimately eating it. I was amazed because it's a big step to get to that point. In fact, even though we love eating poultry, beef and pork, we absolutely could not raise these animals, have them killed and then eat them. We are very cognizant of the origin of every bite we eat but we love these animals too much to kill and eat livestock that we actually know. It's too close. Fish are different. They are different enough that even though they do have a variable amount of intelligence, it's not a hard task to distance yourself from feeling destroyed over the thought. I have killed plenty of fish in my young days of fishing and even though it's not fun, it can be done quickly and humanely and then you have a meal to eat! Which brings me to an admission: when I fished as a teen, I never ever ate my catches! (My parents did!) At that age, the only fish I'd eat was tuna from a can, mixed with plenty of mayonnaise and made into a sandwich or casserole. We all know that canned tuna really isn't like a normal "fishy" fish, and that's the only reason I'd eat it. Other than a bit of catfish sometimes in my 30's, I wouldn't eat fish for years until I met Steve. My ex tried to get me to eat raw fish in sushi but his attempts to shame me into it weren't exactly a technique that would have a chance of working. Then I met Steve. Soon after we met he took me to his favorite sushi restaurant and had me try hamachi. To my utter disbelief, I *LOVED* it. Sushi soon became my favorite food and at the same time, Steve took me to seafood restaurants and introduced me to different kinds of fish that I almost always loved. These days we have sushi on special occasions and we will pick up a lovely steelhead trout about once a month. We adore fish and are hopeless trout junkies. Bass is lovely too but too pricey usually, as are most of our favorites. Which brings us back to camping in our RV and our next adventure. We'll be staying at several lakes for up to 5 days each and I couldn't stop thinking about fishing and what Steve had said. However, I wasn't making a big enough noise apparently. So last night, instead of watching Netflix, I suggested we watch a series of videos made by the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife. They explained everything you'd need to know about how to catch trout, including what to buy, how to get set up and even exact techniques. Steve loved the idea so much that we not only watched the entire series last night, we got up early this morning and went all over the place to look at fishing gear! We are now the proud owners of two new poles, really nice reels and everything we need to go trout fishing on our trip!! HOORAY!!! We are so excited! The idea of catching our yummy trout dinners has us bouncing up and down! I am so happy that Steve is excited too. We can't wait to try out this new fun activity together! :) Ok, today's photo is another view of the amazing sunset that Steve and I photographed when we were in Coo's Bay. It was the first picture I took as we arrived on the beach and I loved the way the sun was shining through the trees. I am also including an inset, which is an archive picture I posted years ago when I had my older camera. Steve and I went to Ashland, about 40 miles south of us, to photograph the splendor of autumn at Lithia Park. I found this amazing mosaic artwork as we entered the park and just loved the detail. It's a trout! How perfect to share for today! :) Pam, do you like to go fishing? It really is such fun and so exciting. I can't wait to catch and cook our own fish...what about you? Is that something you've ever tried? Anyway, my thoughts are on you right now...and I'm hoping you'd doing well today! *BIG HUGS*!!! Explored on 6/8/19; highest placement, #1.

(+2 insets!) (please view large so you can actually see me!) :D Steve and I have been so busy since we got back from our trip a week ago. We've been working around the house cleaning up, preparing for our next trip and doing errands, all of which have taken my time from processing pictures. However, the past couple of days have been a lot more relaxed so I've been able to focus on a few folders that were really important to me. Specifically, I wanted to make sure I attacked the pictures I took at Jedediah Smith State Park. This lovely place was the first stop on our Oregon Coast trip--though it's not actually on the coast itself but instead a mere five miles inland. Within Jedediah are a number of specific groves, one of them being the magnificent and popular Stout Grove. That was where we decided to enjoy Jedediah's wonderful redwood forest. Stout Grove was awesome. Although it rained before and after our visit, for some lucky reason the downpour stopped about 15 minutes after we arrived and started up again as we headed out a couple of hours later. What are the odds? I would say that they were in our favor because throughout our trip we were blessed by this happening over and over again. We dearly appreciated the amazing luck we had and made the most of our rain-free opportunities! We hiked on lovely trails covered in pine-needles, making our passage a silent one. Far above us we could hear birds twittering and sometimes we'd see one fly by and land on a branch just out of our view. We admired the incredibly lush ferns that were absolutely everywhere, as well as the flowers and other plants along the way. The smell of a redwood forest is rich and instantly recognizable and I reveled in the aroma I knew so well as a kid up at our summer cabin that was nestled in a redwood forest too! Here and there, immense toppled trees lay on the mossy floor, slowly turning into the earth below them. The forest was deeply shadowed and felt very reverent and special. Talking in low tones, we passed only a few other people, all of whom were as awe-struck as we were; they too recognized and honored this ancient forest and its rare trees. We wanted to find the most famous giant of this grove, "The Stout Tree". It was named after Frank D. Stout, a lumberman whose wife donated the tract of land which is the home of Stout Grove. This incredible behemoth is one of the tallest trees in the world at 340 feet and 16 feet in diameter. It is the tallest tree in Stout grove and when we found ourselves standing before The Stout Tree, it literally took our breath away. My picture today was actually taken by my husband, and shows me standing in front of the marvelous Stout Tree. (Since I'd just taken a picture of him in front of another tree and also some other places, he didn't care about having his photo taken and really wanted to take a picture of me in front of it!) :D How convenient that there's a fence here…since after all, today is the day I post my picture for Happy Fence Friday! :D I have also included a fence picture I took within Stout Grove, as well as a picture I took of Steve in front of another truly massive Redwood. Aren't these trees just amazing?! :) (I'll be showing lots of redwood tree pictures in coming days but I don't want to drown you in them all at once!) Pam, I can't remember if you mentioned visiting a redwood forest while you were in California…I think you might have told me you'd gotten to visit Muir Woods? What a place. It's just nutty there, so many incredible beauties to see. What I love about these trees is that they really let you know how small and insignificant you are! Also, it seems that the older the tree, the more I feel their spirits, so walking among these giants is like communing with family that I deeply respect and love. If only we knew how to communicate with them but they're just so different. Maybe someday someone will figure out how to do it. What I would pay to hear their stories. BTW, I've been really enjoying our chats and you've been on my mind so much today! *BIG, BIG HUGS TO YOU MY DEAR!* Explored on 6/7/19; highest placement, #2.

(+2 insets!) (please view large for a much better view and impact!) Boy, it's amazing how memories blend together and start to fade so quickly. Steve and I have been home for less than a week but I find that remembering specific details on this past trip is becoming a rather muddled affair in many cases. This is EXACTLY why I have been so fastidious about writing everything down. That way we have our memories safe in both written and photographic forms. It's just so nice to go back and relive memories through written accounts. By reading and looking at pictures, more memories come bubbling up to the surface. I just love that. One of the places that we stayed along the Oregon coastline was an RV park near Coo's Bay. Via AllTrails.com, we found a wonderful hike to go on and discovered that we could actually get to the trailhead by walking three miles along a path that led directly from our campground! How cool is that?! :D The Sunset Beach to Cape Arago trail led us through verdant, lush and flower-filled forest which was the home to many happy and twittering birds. Every once in a while we would come upon a side trail that would take us out to a coastal view. Each time we were rewarded by incredible beautiful rocky coastlines and crashing waves that mesmerized us. Because we had to tack on six miles onto the official hike of 8.5 miles, the overall distance was too long for us to complete--and we also got a late start--but we didn't mind turning back before we reached Cape Arago. Every moment was so rewarding to us and this hike would be one of our favorite highlights of the trip! Today I am sharing a series of pictures I captured on our hike. A prominent feature we saw when we got coastal peeks was the attractive Arago Lighthouse. Both of us took lots of pictures whenever we got the opportunity. My main picture shows how far out the lighthouse is on its peninsula and shows the lovely landscape and watery vista all around. I am also sharing a couple of other views--one is a closer view and the other one shows the rugged coastline as well. I hope you enjoy the show! :) Pam, I see that you are a lighthouse fan too! I was delighted to discover that you love them so much, in fact, that you painted one as part of a Christmas card for your husband ! That's just so cool! What a marvelous design and a perfect idea. Red and white are often the color of light houses so that couldn't be better. Nice job, and what a treat to enjoy! Here's hoping that your day has been a good one! :)

(+2 insets) (view large for the best detail!) It was so pretty this morning with the sun shining brightly and so lovely to be outside as the world was waking up around me. Well, ok--to be honest, when I begin my walk at an early time like today it's 7:30am and the sunrise ship has already sailed away two hours before! But I'm sorry, 5:30am is officially "0-dark-hundred" and that is no time for a sane person to be getting up! At least, not in my mind, anyway! Heh...I'd consider myself a "morning person" now but that only goes so far! Steve and I have been so busy working on the property and prepping for our trip that I've had to neglect my pictures from our last trip. However, today things were much more relaxed so I took the opportunity to get some images finished from our lovely visit to Stout Grove, in Jedediah Smith State Park. This lovely park is nestled in a huge forest of old-growth redwood trees. These magnificent trees include the largest and tallest trees in the world! They only live along a narrow strip in northern California to southern Oregon and are quite the magnificent sight. (I'll be sharing pictures of the redwoods in another post) :) The forest here was also brimming with fern species and I went totally hog-wild with my photography the moment we got out of the car. You may know that I'm a hopeless junkie for ferns, especially when the fronds are unfurling...they are so unbelievably cool to me. :) And so, today's presentation is all about some of the lovely ferns I photographed! The main picture is a close-up of an unfurling Sword Fern and the insets show two other pictures of this super cool species, including their "elephantine" unfurling fronds and a fun shallow dof art shot! I hope you enjoy the show! Explored on 6/5/19; highest placement, #4.

(+1 inset) I don't know what it's like where you live, but in southern Oregon the weather seems to change from comfortable to "blasting inferno" in a span of what feels like just a few days. It seems like yesterday when it was too cold to go out for my walks without needing to warm my hands and feet when I got back inside. Now the days are often reaching 90 degrees outside and soon our lovely green meadows will be dry and brown again. Ah well, 'tis the way of things, right? That being said, fire season is just around the corner and we must clean up our property to help ensure that our home is safe. We know all-too-well about the reality of fires here. You may remember me mentioning that a few years back a squirrel ran up our power pole, managed to get itself electrocuted, fell into the grass and started a fire which quickly ate our tool shop and everything in it. As part of the fire wolfed down our shop, the rest of it raced up our hillside, eating every bush and tree in its path. Our house was saved and we had insurance to cover the damage but my heart aches from the loss of the trees on the hill. It is our hope to keep the rest of our property safe from future fires so clean-up is mandatory. A few days ago, Steve went around the house with both our powerful DR mower and the "Beast", a heavy-duty wheeled string mower. Yesterday he put the flail mower on our tractor and spent hours working on one side of our property. Today he went around the other side, taking down everything to near-dirt level. He still has a bit more to do but we feel a lot better about the condition of our property now. As for me, I spent the morning raking up all the dried grass and weeds that Steve cut down the other day. Once bagged, I marched up to the top of our septic leech field hill and added the contents to the place I reserve for lawn trimmings. It makes me laugh that the plants there are so lush and happy…they really like all of the stuff that I dump there! While I've been going about my day, I've been thinking about Pam and Marie-claire and I've also been thinking about people who I've lost in my life over the years. Some people meant a great deal to me, even though I never met them. That list just goes on and on. One person who died not too long ago was Leonard Nimoy, a man who I respected and admired very much. My family used to watch Star Trek every night at dinner and it became quite the tradition. Through the years I learned more about Nimoy and thought he was a wonderful person--someone I would have dearly loved to have met. Today is Macro Monday with the theme of "Hands". I thought a fingerprint would be fun to share (see my inset for that one!) but then I couldn't resist making Spock's famous Vulcan greeting because it's so much fun and it makes me think of Leonard. Then it hit me--that it was the perfect picture for the day. If you do not know, the greeting goes along with the saying, "live long and prosper," with a reply of "peace and long life." In fact, Nimoy used the real Jewish blessing which looks the same, to create this Vulcan gesture. My picture today is a salute to my leading ladies, Pam and Marie-claire! (I had fun processing this image to be sort of sci-fi and hopefully interesting to look at!) (By the way, if you would like to know more about this gesture, visit the following link: Wiki: Vulcan Salute ) Pam, you have been in my thoughts all day long and I hope that your bumps and bruises are healing…left-side neglect really sucks. :( I'm sending love and *HUGGGGGGGSSSSS* over the airwaves my dear! Explored on 6/4/19; highest placement, #2.

(This is not the most up-beat post, my apologies) Today has been lovely outside, a bit too warm but pretty. But in my heart I am feeling very sad and unhappy ever since I learned about Marie-claire last night. It's got me thinking about my mortality and Steve too, has been feeling low. He doesn't know Marie-claire but I told him what a special person she is and how important she is to the ipernity community. Oddly enough, Steve read a post on his favorite idle-time website, "Imgur" that affected him very deeply, for a reason I'll explain. The post was about a guy who had an online gaming friend. One day that buddy gave him all of his in-game stuff and said that he was very sick with cancer and had to stop playing their game. After a few weeks without his friend logging on, he couldn't bear to play the game anymore because it made him too sad. He still checks in from time to time...last time he looked, his friend hadn't been online for over 700 days... This story hit home with Steve because we used to have a very dear friend who we met while playing World of Warcraft. So many adventures, so much fun...our very best experiences playing any online game involved our friend and his wife. Later Steve and our friend discovered they both loved another game, World of Tanks. They spent many hours playing that game together and developed a very close bond. About a year ago, our friend got brain cancer and even though he fought very hard, he couldn't beat it. The whole time though, Steve kept in touch, calling and giving what support he could. One day, our friend's wife let us know that he was gone. It was such a hard time for us because we loved him so much and felt incredibly sad for his wife who we care deeply for as well. Steve still grieves deeply for his lost friend, as do I. We miss him terribly and think about him all the time. It's just so hard to believe that he's gone. That Imgur post affected Steve deeply because he still plays World of Tanks and our friend's character is visible every time he logs in. It's been about 700 days since he logged on. Steve mourns his lost friend and sadly, my warm hugs cannot bring him back. :( It is amazing to us that so many people discount online relationships as inferior to "real" in-person relationships. I for one, can tell you that my very best friends (other than Steve, of course) are ALL online. Today I am missing Marie-claire and I am very worried and sad about her. She is my friend and I want her to be well and happy and posting pictures like crazy as she is so well-known to do. My picture today is, again, a duel dedication to both my dear friend Pam and also to Marie-claire. I am having a problem knowing what to do so that I can show proper support to each of my friends. I am hoping that they will not mind if I change my project name to join them together, like this pair of flowers that I am posting today. I don't know how else to do this. :( (Pam has let me know that she is honored to have Marie-claire added in my daily dedication) :) Pammy, I'm so glad you enjoyed my poppy pictures...it's such a bummer that none of your poppy seeds survived to give you flowers! Maybe it's like the Moonflowers and me...I have tried and tried and tried to get them to grow for me but they just won't! It seems that some flowers just aren't meant to grow in certain places, even when the habitats seem to be the same. It is a fact that I've planted zillions of different wildflowers and almost NONE ever sprout. Our properties seem to be inhospitable to most flowers, and yet False Sunnies are what grow for both of us and mean the most of all! *THINKING WARM THOUGHTS OF YOU MY DEAR!* Explored on 6/3/19; highest placement, #5.

(+6 insets!) (view large for a more hypnotizing view!) :D This picture is also dedicated to our dear friend on ipernity, Marie-claire Gallet . She is ill with a recurrence of cancer and I am hoping for a fast and successful recovery! Today I looked outside and it was just SO BEAUTIFUL! The warm sun coming up over the hill made everything it touched erupt with light and I knew I just HAD to take my camera out with me on my morning walk. Also, I just couldn't take the PRESSURE ANYMORE! Pressure you ask? What pressure? Stepping outside, my eyes were immediately drawn to a glorious patch of poppies which were positively glowing in the early sunshine. It's almost as if every one of those blossoms was singing a siren's song out into the heavens and I could hear every note! It didn't matter that I have countless unprocessed poppy pictures in my archives. I simply could not resist another day of their overwhelming gorgeousness and beaconing calls. I was immediately swept away into a dream of photography, surrendering to the luscious beauties posing before me. Their flamenco-like petal-dresses swayed and danced in the breeze, offered in so many lovely colors and combinations. I was not the only one hypnotized by their grandeur. Bees of all kinds buzzed and crawled drunkenly over the flowers in droves, stumbling over one another, completely out of their minds with desire. How familiar this scene was to me, I thought with a big smile on my face, and I watched them joyfully while I took pictures. I learned how poppies affected bees back in 2014 when I planted a garden for my first time. I scattered countless poppy seeds in the beds to be sure that if nothing else sprouted, at least I'd have poppies. Sprout they did…hundreds of plants all over the beds with so many flowers that I simply couldn't believe my eyes! For months, every morning would be another show with new blooms. And, as I walked to the garden, the sound of bees preceded me, getting louder and louder as I finally entered the garden. The bees were EVERYWHERE! Even though I wasn't worried about them, I soon discovered that I might as well be invisible because they couldn't care less about me. And what a wonderful feeling, to know that the seeds I planted grew into flowers which were feeding all those bees. To this day, every time I see bees falling all over themselves at poppies that I had something to do with…it makes me feel overjoyed. :) Oh yeah…did you know it's Saturday? Specifically SATURDAY SELF-CHALLENGE! And today's challenge is "Shadows". Ok, so when I first saw the theme I immediately thought about the cool shadows I see on our window blinds and walls when the sun shines through the trees. I do love shadows. In fact, they stop me in my tracks so I can appreciate them! But today my initial idea got tossed out the moment I was bewitched this morning by the poppies. Even as I was being magnetically drawn to those glowing blossoms I could see the shadows through their translucent petals. Shadows? I'll give you shadows! My main picture is called "Angel with Wings," and when I saw this poppy I couldn't help but say out loud, "OOOOOH, LOOK AT THE ANGEL WINGS!! I got one picture that also showed the shadow of a bee crawling around between the "wings" but I thought this picture was better without the distraction. I have six insets to share as well, and you'll see a bee in flight in two of them! I really had to force myself to stop processing pictures…I got so many lovely images that I want to share but I think this is enough! :D Pam, remember when we went in on poppy seeds together?! That was such fun! I still have poppies reseeding themselves from 2014! What about you? Did yours reseed too I hope? What wonderful flowers they are. Sending my love and *HUGGGGZZZZZ!!!* Explored on 6/1/19; highest placement, #1.