Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitary
A malfunctioning computer and camera have been making the photo challenges more challenging than I care to take on. But, since the next challenge hasn’t been posted yet I’m posting for the first time by e-mail my late Solitary photo – crossing my fingers and here it goes…
Weekly Photo Challenge: Near and Far
Near, Far… it’s all relative, right?
This is Jane sleeping on the far side of the room looking though the keyhole in the door near the camera…
Near and far, yes?
Yes.
Thanks for coming with me on that one.
And I know what you are thinking.
You are thinking this would be so much better with a bit of Jane’s face.
It wasn’t.
Curled sleeping baby hands in sunlight – good.
Parts of sleeping baby face through crib bars – surprisingly creepy.
Crib bars are not good for the complexion.
You can see a few more Near and Far keyhole pictures (arguably more interesting ones since they involve things like faces) I’ve taken in the past in Good News… Bad News… and Sweet Sisters.
In my children’s world putting clothes on wrong is soooo funny.
Putting your underwear on your head hilarious:
There are also many things wrong with my picture, but my flash and I still sort of hate each other – some days you get what you get!
Today I was all set to take a picture for the weekly photo challenge. The word was “growth” and I had packed up the three girls and the two dogs and schlepped out to some public land to go for a walk in the drizzle and take photos. I had ideas, I had plans, I did not have my camera.
So instead I’d like to share a few quotable Clara moments from the day:
Clara’s response to a new pair of jeans: “These impressive!”
Clara’s response to me asking what she was dumping out of a small purple bowl and into my wire garbage can in my bedroom: “My pee!”
Clara’s response to me asking why she peed in a small purple bowl in her playing room and then carried it into my bedroom to dump into a wire basket: “I just wanted to.”
Clara’s response to me suggesting that sitting down on the wet trail to take off her wet pants (and shoes) was not a good idea as it would get her underwear wet: “That OK I just be naked.”
The only other person we saw on the trails response to seeing us walking toward him and his dog: Taking a long detour around the trail into the tall wet grass.
If she’s not a growing challenge I don’t know what is!
If you’d like to browse a selection of blogs written by people who actually bring their cameras with them when taking pictures head over to weekly photo challenge: growth on The Daily Post.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Purple
Not being a big purple fan, I had a hard time getting excited about this week’s challenge. But a challenge is a challenge so I gathered up my camera, my oldest daughter for a designated purple finder, tried to keep in mind a few tips from Rick Diffley’s Photography blog and headed to the neighbor’s CSA farm looking for purple. Ivy and I found more purple than I expected (young sumac stems, who knew?) but this purple cabbage was our favorite!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside
I have a native cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum) in my yard. This plant and I have the perfect sort of plant-gardener relationship – the one where I ignore it and it grows and thrives. This year the drought has not been kind to it and it’s a bit smaller than normal. The foot diameter patch is only four to five feet tall instead of having closer to a two foot circle with over six foot flowers. All the way up the giant stem cups are formed at the base of the leaves, after a rain (or a dewy night) the insides of these cups fill with water. Then these little pockets of water draw all sorts of insects, birds and sometimes even a small frog or two. I can always count on watching our resident goldfinches flitting in and out of the patch, getting a drink as soon as the plant shoots up in the spring and later eating the seeds from the yellow flowers.
Now I’ve got to end this post and get back to my usual fare of swearing kids, sleeping dogs, and piles of laundry before I start writing like a gardening catalog and leave you with some sappy line like:
“Pick up one of these easy keepers for that troublesome wet spot in your yard today!”
Weekly Photo Challenge: Dreaming
This is the normally green view out over our pastures. 
We are all dreaming of rain!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Movement 
While my own self imposed photo challenge rule states that I must take the picture after I find out the challenge, I broke that rule this week.
So I made a new rule.
New Rule:
I will always take a picture after I find out the challenge, unless the theme is movement and two days before it was announced I took Trip down to the water for the express purpose of getting a photo that showed him moving through the water.
I love making the rules.
Behind the Willows 