Janet Brien's photos with the keyword: festive

(+1 inset) Just like any child the world over, Pumpkin woke up at 5am this Christmas morning and entered my fluffy, comfortable dream. "Peep!" I kept on sleeping, but wondered what that odd sound played in my narrative. Who knows was I was dreaming about but I could surely say that the next announcement woke me up. "Burble-burble-burble-burble…PEEP!" I cringed when I saw the time. "Peep-PEEP!" Nope. I wasn’t going to answer. Without shame, I pretended I didn't hear her. However, she knew it was Christmas and there was no stopping that little beaky of hers from chiming in another "Peep!" every 5 or 10 minutes. *whimper* I felt as one with all parents on the West Coast right now…all of us trying in vain to get our children to allow us another few moments to sleep. At least my child wasn't running all over the house and sneaking peeks at the presents Santa brought! Memories of joyful Christmas mornings as a child brought a smile to my face. However, I wasn't going to get up at 5am. Nor would I arise at 6am or even 6:30am, thank you very much! Pumpkin finally lapsed her "snooze" feature to 15 minute intervals and eventually I dragged my bedraggled corpse out of bed at 6:45am. I stumbled, zombie-like, into the bathroom to start the day. Once I was up, of course, all was well but I certainly wore a pair of very heavy-lidded eyes to begin with! As predicted yesterday, this morning wasn't rainy and it wasn't terribly cold either. As I started my walk, I watched the sun lighten the sky and colors appeared. My present from Mother Nature was a spectacular sunrise full of lemon, orange, purple, blue and magenta. All against lovely cloud and fog formations that whispered around and over the Upper Table Rock in the distance. (See my inset!) The lovely show continued well past the end of my walk, and Steve would go on to mention the beauty of this day. Colors bounced off the clouds. Fog crawled up and down the valley, socking in our property and then falling back again to reveal the valley beyond. Wisps and tendrils of mist created delicate lines into the sky like a diaphanous curtain. It was wondrous. The birds gave me their present too. Early off on my walk I heard the resident turkeys down in the woods making themselves heard and I enjoyed every note. I heard a pair of acorn woodpeckers calling back and forth to each other. Many little song birds--finches, sparrows and juncos--twittered in nearby trees and flew together from tree to tree. As I started my last lap I looked up and was overjoyed to see the flock of turkeys near our shop. I stopped for a moment to listen to their lovely contact trills and purrs, smiling happily. They pecked at the dirt, relaxed and comfortable as they wandered towards the hillside. I resumed my walk, hoping I'd see them when I returned back up the hill. I didn't see them at first but I did hear them and watched as they appeared from the rear of our shop. Quietly I padded up the hill, knowing they hadn't seen me. They wandered up the side of the hill just on the other side of some thick brush next to me. I stood, totally captivated. For the first time I was very close to them as they were vocalizing their beautiful, intimate purrs and trills. Such soft notes was like sweet conversation among a loving family. It was so wonderful to hear them cooing so sweetly, and blissful moments passed as I drank it all in. The flock climbed up the steep hill and disturbed a trio of mule deer does. They trotted away and stopped to turn and stare at me. They could see me, but the turkeys hadn't, or if they could, were far enough away now that they weren't bothered. I heard some deep flapping and tried to spot the birds through the trees. One of the turkeys was putting on some sort of wing-flapping display, and with that, all of the turkeys began making a lot more noise. In fact, they were making such a ruckus I tried to record the racket on my phone--to no avail, unfortunately. The flock was obscured by trees but it sounded like they were having a turkey convention up there! No alarm "gobble-gobbles" but all kinds of noisy calls…it was completely crazy! After a while I crept back down the hill to the house, thoroughly delighted by the amazing Christmas present I'd been given by Mother Nature. I am so happy!! Today's picture is another holiday card! I thought it would be perfect because today is Christmas here in the United States. It also gives me the opportunity to share another picture from my "Birds in the Snow" folder! I spent some time looking through the hundreds of pictures and found lots of really neat shots. I'd set up our 100-300mm lens so I could take multiple pictures in succession, a technique which I have a love-hate relationship with. I love the many choices you get this way but it also means an absolute GLUT of pictures and you must look through them. UGH! The most horrible thing of all was that I discovered that I hadn't processed a single picture from that photo shoot. What a shame, but now I am sharing the second picture. YAY! :) Pam, I hope you had a very merry Christmas! I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you enjoying ipernity more these days. I know you'd like to be 100% better but gosh, you're doing so well! Let's hope you keep seeing more and more improvement…you sure do deserve it. Many, many great big *HUGGGGGGSSSSSS*!!! Explored on 12/26/18, highest placement, #5.

(originally posted in 2018 on Christmas Eve) It's Christmas Eve here in southern Oregon! If it was cold like it was a couple of days ago, snow would be falling heavily right now. Instead it's raining hard and has been since I got up at my usual crack of dawn. It's a bummer because I was hoping for a white Christmas but it's not going to happen. And, even though tomorrow will be cold enough for snow, the day will be clear so we are out of luck...phooey! Oh well! The rain clouds held back the lightening sky so it was almost dark enough for a flashlight when I stepped out for my daily walk. Splashing down the driveway I peered around for possible stray cats and dogs falling from the clouds—boy was it coming down! The noise on my umbrella was so loud that I couldn't have my usual internal conversation about thoughts for the day. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to just walk along and look through the pouring rain and into the forest and meadow. Actually, it was quite Zen. No distractions, just Being. Very peaceful. After about an hour the rain finally let up and I put my umbrella on the porch. It was light out now and the world seemed like it was happy to take a break from the relentless deluge. I listened to my podcasts and enjoyed myself. On my last lap, I was walking up our hill when I noticed an odd filament on the road. Something about it was really strange and I kneeled down to take a closer look. It looked like a 1.5-foot/45.72cm piece of really thin wire coated in a creamy brown color. "Well, that's weird..." I thought to myself. "What is that?" I wondered if Steve dropped an odd piece of wire on the road, or maybe it was a stripped root of some kind. It moved. In a combination of horror and excitement I yelled, "WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?!! IT'S ALIVE!" I stared in absolute disbelief at the strange filament that was ever so slowly coiling and waving around on the road. As I stared, the weeks spent studying invertebrates in my Zoology class a zillion years ago came hurtling into my head. "WOAH!! DUDES!! IT'S A WORM!!!" I could hardly believe I was doing this, but I reached down and ever-so-gently picked it up. It was like holding the thinnest snake I'd ever handled, but I managed to sort of drape it over my fingers as I would a snake. At which point it slid off and landed on the road again. I tried again. This time it didn't slip off and I held it up to my face to get a really close look. Which was its front end? Hmm...one end was a bit squared off, and I guessed it might have actually been longer at some point because it appeared to be cut off there. The other end looked like an extremely miniature version of an earthworm's head. I exclaimed in delight, "SO COOL!" Suddenly, I had a mission. Carrying my umbrella in one hand and my bizarre wormy buddy in the other, I made my way hastily up our hill. Steve needed to see this! It will blow him away! As luck would have it, Steve was walking out to greet me as I neared the house. "STEVE! I FOUND THE WIERDEST THING EVER!! LOOK!!!" He came over and I held out my hand so he could see the strange creature. Suitably impressed and fascinated, Steve pointed out its shortened back end. We both wondered how long it might have been originally. 1.5-foot/45.72cm seemed awfully long already. Kinda creepy. I walked over to the meadow and gently placed it on the dirt. Part of me was totally grossed-out, but I was really happy to find such a strange animal on our property. I wondered what kind of worm it was. However, one thing I knew about worms is that there are a LOT of them. We're talking over a MILLION. The odds of me identifying exactly which one seemed unlikely but with that Earthworm head, I thought I might have a chance. To my great surprise, it only took about five minutes to discover what it was--a Horsehair Worm ! (And they are in the same family as Earthworms!) And, though they are normally as long as 14"/35.56cm, some be 6.5 feet/2 meters!! UGH! The good news is that adults don't eat. Only the larvae are parasitic and go after insects. Oh dear, I hope I haven't disgusted everyone! Please forgive me...wildlife of all kinds fascinates me so I hope you haven't lost your lunch on account of my unusual animal discovery! Today's picture is a minimalist snowy holiday card! A few years ago it was snowing and I set up our 100-300mm lens in our doorway and took pictures of the birds that visited our feeders. This darling is an Oregon Junco and is among my favorite birds. Did you notice how huge and fluffy it is?! AHHHHH!!! SO CUTE!!! :D Pam, I hope that this Christmas Eve finds you doing as well as can be and better than you have been doing. Every little step forward is progress, no matter how small. I hope that my healing energy finds its way to you and gives you a burst of energy! Thinking of you always! Explored on 12/25/18, highest placement, #1.

This is my other alternate for today, some little plastic hearts laid on on a mirror. Simple and fun! :)

I was originally planning to make this my 365 picture by adding a heart border that I photographed today, but Pumpkin was the perfect choice, so this is my alternate! This is a Valentine's balloon that I saw in Celebrity Pets, and I knew it would look nice with an added texture. What fun! :) Texture by Jill Black , thank you so much! Thanks to Stephanie Calhoun for being an endless inspiration for adding texture to some of my pictures!!

The other day when Steve and I were in Celebrity Pets, I saw a cute Valentine's balloon, which I thought would make the perfect Valentine's card and also my pick of the day if I added a border. However, when I got up this morning, I saw the image in my mind of our darling parrot, Pumpkin, cuddled up in one of our red blankets and knew that was what I'd do! With the help of Steve doing the cuddling, I got three pictures and they were all wonderful, but this was my favorite! If you're wondering about the hearts, this is how I did it! I have lots of little paper punches in different shapes, including a heart. I found some cardboard in our recycling with glossy red paper on it and punched out about a dozen hearts. This morning I lined them up on white cardstock and used a book to make sure they were straight. Then I took a picture overhead. I opened the file in Photoshop, selected the hearts and pasted them onto their own layer in my image of Pumpkin. I duplicated them until they lined the entire length of the image. I then used some of the "FX special effects filters to create the embossed appearance. Finally, I created a black layer underneath, duplicated the layers to make a top and bottom border, added the off-white rule, and presto! Pretty hearts for my holiday picture! Laozi or Lao Tzu; also romanized as Lao Tse, Lao Tu, Lao-Tsu, Laotze, Laosi, Laocius, and other variations) (fl. 6th century BCE) was a philosopher of ancient China, best known as the author of the Tao Te Ching (often simply referred to as Laozi). His association with the Tào Té Chīng has led him to be traditionally considered the founder of philosophical Taoism (pronounced as "Daoism"). He is also revered as a deity in most religious forms of Taoist philosophy, which often refers to Laozi as Taishang Laojun, or "One of the Three Pure Ones". Wkipedia: Lao Tzu