Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: Sunflowers

This afternoon, 23 September 2019, I made a last-minute dash to the Saskatoon Farm, after seeing the very unpleasant weather forecast that is about to hit us. A couple of days of rain followed by a few days of SNOW. These colourful images should have waited till our world turns white, but just the thought of seeing snow was enough to make me long for colour - and lots of it! Also, I thought I had better post something other than fungi, though I have so many more photos of them that I need to edit and upload. The sun was supposed to shine today, along with some cloud, but it turned out to be an overcast afternoon with poor light for photos. Better than snow, any day. This interesting place is maybe a 20-minute drive SE from the southern edge of Calgary. You can collect your own Saskatoon berries in season, look around their outside green houses, and their inside gift shop full of unusual things, and buy special baking, jams, teas and so on. They also have a restaurant that offers great food. www.saskatoonfarm.com/ As usual, I wandered round the grounds with my camera, catching two of the dogs, a chicken, as well as flowers. Many of the latter are on their last legs, but there is still some colour to be enjoyed. I never return home with an empty memory card when I visit this place.

Yesterday afternoon, 3 September 2019, was spent surrounded by colourful garden flowers. Knowing that it is not unusual for us to get snow in September, I knew I just had to go and capture some cheery colour before fall arrived and it was too late. That included Sunflowers, which are always a favourite. Just one orange one among the many yellow, and I could only see it from the back. A little gang of American Goldfinches was making the most of the Sunflower seeds.

It feels quite strange to be able to post any photos, but it sure feels good : ) After being without a computer for four days, I collected my old and new machines and, to my horror, discovered that there was not a single one of my thousands of photos on my new computer! The word "deleted" flashed through my mind and it wasn't till later yesterday that I was finally able to check my old computer to see if my photos were still on it. Relief flooded through me and I could physically feel my stress level plunge, lol. It took one and a half days of crawling under my computer table to plug and unplug the ever-growing tangle of cords to reach the point where I could actually use my old computer. What a nightmare! To say that I am not impressed with the service I got from the store this week is an understatement. Six years ago, the same people had done such a great job of transferring all the data from an old to a new computer, which is why I went back to them. However, now that the weekend is over and the store will be open again, I have to phone them and ask why they didn't transfer all my images. Tomorrow, I have minor surgery, so all this was supposed to have been done by now, so that I could spend my recovery time editing photos, learning Windows 7, etc.. I knew I would not be able to take or collect the heavy, awkward to carry hard drives or be bending and stretching under my desk for a while, so I am really annoyed, to say the least. For now, though, I am SO relieved that I was finally able to get the new monitor hooked up to the old computer, so that it works. Of course, someone who knows everything about computers would have solved all this many hours sooner : ) Normally, Maximilian Sunflowers grow further east in Canada, but these particular ones were growing in the Frank Lake area, SE of Calgary, on 3 September 2011. I don't know of any other location, so was happy to see and photograph these. A nice image for a -23C (windchill -30C) day today.

This looks a little strange to me - maybe I should have cropped a bit off the bottom? This was taken from inside one of the wonderful little buildings on Jim Coutts' incredible homestead, south of Calgary and west of Nanton. Each year now, he invites us down there for a few hours and I enjoy every moment I'm there. His gardens are amazing, including a carefully laid out Natural Grasses section - a few feet square for each of many different grass species. His flower gardens leave me breathless : ) Jim is very interested in returning his homestead land back to native grassland. He is very knowledgeable about nature and certainly does his "homework". After visiting his homestead, he took us for a long hike on someone's private property to botanize the area - wonderful rolling hills in the Porcupine Hills area, of which I posted a photo two days ago.