Shadow Shot of Hand
Took this last week in my backyard. The plan was to photograph the strawberry leaves, as some are now bright red, but I ended up playing hand shadows against the fence. Visit Hey Harriet for more Shadow Shots.
photography
Yellow Fading Snapdragons
We had our first snow fall last night (really a sprinkling), and now my snapdragons are really fading.
Goodbye, colorful yellow and pink flowers that look like little bubbles. Come back in the spring. And bring the rudbeckia with you.
For more yellow photos, visit Mellow Yellow Monday:
Weekly Review with Iris
I decided to head this post with an iris from spring, because everything outside is brown or gray. Though my parsley is still bright green.
On My Blog
A quiet week on my blog: I plan to publish on Sunday a post on illustrators, some famous, some you can access now via blog, Twitter, website or Flickr.
Elsewhere in the Blogosphere
- Jewish Blog Carnivals: Batya has reported that Blog Carnival isn’t forwarding links. To participate in Haveil Haveilim, send links to shilohmuse at gmail dot com (today only). If you have a recipe for Kosher Cooking Carnival, send links to shira at seymourpr dot com. If you are a Jewish photo blogger, please send links to jpixcarnival at gmail dot com (you have until December 24).
- Jew Wishes is back to writing book reviews. Here’s one: Letters to My Father, by William Styron – letters written by Styron to his father, William C. Styron, Sr.
- Record Numbers of Turkish Jews Moving to Israel
- G6 asks some interesting questions about blogging and writing to your audience.
- I wrote a post on how to make fancy colored boxes in CSS – feel free to ask questions on my tech blog.
Doors and Windows of Allaire
We visited Allaire State Park back in early November. Here are some of the doors and windows of that pretty park. The above building in the historical village was closed, but many were open.
Strictly speaking, this is not a door or a window, but it is OPEN – so it’s like a gateway to the bakery. I enhanced the saturation of the colors in Photoshop.
We were able to visit the original home of the Allaire family. As I said on a previous post, we were not allowed to photograph inside, but here’s the doorway to that interesting home. It was said to still be inhabited by a descendant of the original Allaire founder in the 1950’s, and that 1950’s owner kept a horse in his kitchen. Eccentric.
This was a vertical photo, so I increased the canvas size to make it horizontal, and then I used the clone stamp tool and the blur tool to get the main part of the photo to extend a bit into the side areas.
What is that white board that looks like a door but is curiously up too high to be a door? Where there once steps there? I didn’t notice this until today, when I was looking through these photos. Does that happen to you; do you find mysteries in your photos that you didn’t recognize when you were on the scene?
These are windows in the train of the Pine Creek Railroad, which is next to the Historical Village. The train ride just goes around in circles, but we did get to see some deer as we circled about.
For more windows and doors, visit Window Views (hosted by Mary the Teach):
Red Foliage of New Jersey
Most all the leaves are now brown. Above is a multi-colored branch from East Jersey Olde Towne in Piscataway, taken two weeks ago.
My oak hydrangea (photographed last week) is even redder than it was a few weeks ago. What color.
For more photos with red, visit Ruby Tuesday:
East Jersey Olde Towne
New Jersey has many old-fashioned villages, and East Jersey Olde Towne in Piscataway is in biking distance of our home. So my husband and middle son biked out there last week, and my daughter and I came later by car.
Since this is a post for Ruby Tuesday, I focused on photos with a bit of red. There’s the schoolhouse. All of the buildings were moved to this spot from elsewhere in Central New Jersey.
We had fun in the one-room school house, with its pretty red gingham curtains.
Throughout the buildings there are a lot of fake place settings, showing how food might have looked or been served. The buildings are from a variety of periods in New Jersey history.
This sign, with its red border, says the “In the 1970’s, the Indian Queen Tavern was relocated from New Brunswick to East Jersey Olde Town in Piscataway. In 2003, archaeologists uncovered artifacts from the original site of the tavern in New Brunswick.” (On display were a toothbrush, a comb, a shaving mug and a chamber pot.)
On our way out, I photographed this colorful bush, with its red fall foliage display.
For more photos with red, visit Ruby Tuesday:
Today’s Flowers: Rudbeckia and Rose
I love rudbeckia; I have many rudbeckia posted on this blog. Tattered and worn but still beautiful, a few yellow black-eyed susans still grace my front yard.
This pale pink rose was the last one to be seen on my rose bush in the backyard in October.
For more flowers, visit Today’s Flowers:
Signs of Times: Seasonal Shifts
Here’s a leaf of my bald cypress, photo taken this November.
The same bald cypress tree was photographed in July, with a gray catbird enjoying the branches.
My oak leaf hydrangea is almost all red.
It was much greener in October.
One neighbor’s tall maple was displaying yellow leaves in October.
Here’s the same tree, back in January 2009. I looked an hour ago, and the tree is almost bare again, soon to look as it did in January.
For more Nature Notes or Signs of the Times, visit Rambling Woods.
Thursday Challenge: Welcoming the Shabbat Bride
When I think of songs that warm my soul, the songs of Shabbat come immediately to mind and heart. Lecha Dodi is sung on Friday nights – the song is a welcoming of the “Sabbath Bride.” Lecha Dodi was written in the 16th century by Rabbi Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz. I rather like this untraditional rendition of the song on YouTube.
Thursday Challenge theme is MUSIC (Guitar, Playing an Instrument, Things that make sounds, iPods, Sheet Music, Noisy Things,…).
Leaves of Autumn 2009
More October 2009 leaves. Now you see them, outside you don’t, except on a few late-turning trees. Do I like taking fall foliage more than photographing flowers? Hard to say, but the time does flee quickly for the foliage. Flowers generally last longer, except for my climbing roses which are only bursting in bloom for two weeks of June.