I love to take photos of places I go and things I see. Here is a collection of photos that I have selected to represent the month.
The last of the purple sage as it grows on the side of the hill and spills over into the yard. This is when it is at its most brilliant. It does not have the same scent as those sage brushes found in the Sierra Nevadas, but you can get a good whiff of this if you stick your nose into the bush. It may look silly, but the scent is very nice.
After a few years of chasing these elusive birds, I finally manged to get a lot of photos of this one magpie who had taken up a sentinel position on the fence post. He was guarding something he wanted to eat, and I was stalking him from around trees and the corner of the cabin.
Finally, a magpie photo I could be proud of. He is also now a cross stitch pattern.
After spending several months squawking and flocking, the geese finally decided to get down to the business of making more little geese. While you can only see a couple of these little ones, there were a dozen or better in this brood.
There were more baby geese than there were ducks this year. This family stopped by long enough to swim around the pond, poke in the ground for goodies and then sail on down the stream to other great adventures.
Vacation took me to the Tulipfest this year. I spent a few days wandering around Washington State looking at all the beautiful flowers. Of course, I also made it to Seattle where I enjoyed a coffee at the original Starbucks, and I went to the top of the Space Needle. I ate at Ivars on the pier, and I wandered through the Jimi Hendrix museum. It was an overcast day, so the photos from the top of the needle were not as exciting as I would have like them to be; instead, there were a lot of photos of the cloud draped sound.
Regardless, it was a fun trip, and I enjoyed the flowers and the visit. My flower photos are for sale on my website.
Spring in the fields. These little calves were playing in the pasture next to the cabin. There were at least a dozen of these little ones playing with each other and pestering their mothers. They were all peacefully standing along the fence line when I walked over to take their photos, but they saw Blu and the stampede was on. I never did get a good photo of them, and since they grow so quickly, they are all bigger now. They tend to lose their cuteness the older they get. Kinda like the rest of us. Another group of calves and another spring has come and gone.
This winter, the snow was deep, and we had a bit of an issue getting in and out, but there is always a plus when dealing with nature. Like this scene from the pond. Yes, there is a pond under that white expanse in front of the aspen trees. They set on the bank, as you can see from my home page. The wind was so fierce out of the northeast that the pond was completely flat and smooth. In fact, if you did not know that there was a pond there, you would have missed it. For once, it was not covered in deer tracks, pheasant tracks or any other kind of tracks. I knew it wouldn’t last, so I took the shot while it was available.
For some reason, I did not leave much in February, but we did get a lot of new snow that covered everything. The subzero temperatures kept me inside a lot, and the most exercise I got involved taking the dog outside.
He is happy to play in the snow, so I captured his picture while he waited for me to keep walking with him. I promise that I will get outside in March to get some more photos.
It may not be apparent from here, but between the two pine trees is an area that is called Broken Heart. It is best seen in the winter because the snow fills in the heart. The heart is a meadow on the side of one of the foothills and there is a slight tree line that run through the heart, thereby breaking it in two.
It is not a great photo, and it is made worse when you cannot increase the size of the photo, but there is a very neat heart that has been broken in two sitting between those two pine trees. The peak to the far right is Sacajawea.
One warm day, there were two of these beautiful eagles flying around the cabin. They both landed in a group of cottonwoods along the stream, but one of them decided they needed to go and inspect another group of trees, so he/she took off. I tried to capture the bird in flight, but he was moving away from me.
This is one of the better shots I got. They may have a nest in the trees just at the end of the driveway, but we are not sure yet. If there are babies, I will get their photos.
What once were little ducklings this spring have now turned into squawking, quacking adult mallards that are everywhere. There were at least 50 on this little pond one day.
The broods were plentiful this year, and even those broods with 14 or more managed hold onto 11 of their ducklings. There were at least 6 broods of better than 10 when they started. Many of these little guys were so busy scooting around the pond that I never got them all counted.
Julie L. Cleveland 