My Darlings

This year we were blessed with the birth of our second grandchild, Samantha June Frederick.  With Christmas approaching, I decided to make a slideshow featuring some images of our first granddaughter Susannah, our son Sam, daughter-in-law Jenny and our newbie Samantha.

To my darlings . . . Merry Christmas!

"But I don't like polka dots. This dress is for babies!"

Our 4 years old Susannah thinks she's just about grown.  Now all of the usual exclamations like "Oh, that's so cute" or "Come on over here, baby" send her into teacher mode where she lets us know that the word "cute" is for babies.  She is not a baby.  She is 4 years old. 

In her opinion, her Easter dress was cute.  It is pink with white polka dots and it's cute.  Cute is for babies.  She did not want her picture taken while wearing the cute dress.  After much persuasion, she put on a smiley face, her new almost high-heeled wedge sandals and her cute Easter dress.  She quickly wanted out of the model business to go play.   I finally convinced her to let me make more pictures (since I need 25 or more to be sure that half a dozen or so are keepers).

After a lot of funny faces, weird poses and typical stick-your-tongue-out-at-the-photographer shenanigans, Susannah stepped up for some super shots when I told her that I'd do what I could to get her picture on a magazine cover.  WHAT had I just promised her?  WAS I out of my mind?  WILL I stop at nothing to get a few good pictures for all of us to show our friends and anyone else who will stay still long enough for me to whip out my little photo book?

So here ya go.  Take a look at our Easter photo session.

Parrot Mountain and Gardens

My two sisters, mother and I try to get away every few months or so for a little trip.  We love the Great Smoky Mountains, so this is where we usually go.  We knew before we left that both Cades Cove Motor Trail and Roaring Fork roads would be closed.  Janice did some internet searching and planned for us to visit Parrot Mountain and Gardens in Pigeon Forge.  She chose well!  We had a great time walking among the many birds, watching an entertaining bird show, feeding & petting the birds and photographing them!

And just to show that I was there, I'll share this picture that Janice made.  The parrot's name is Baby.  When Janice took the picture, Baby had just said, "Can I bite your neck?"

By my expression you can see that I'm both alarmed and entertained!

Happily we departed Parrot Mountain and Gardens without any bites and poop free!

Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark

On Sunday, February 28, 2010, Janice and I joined other members of the North Alabama Photographers Guild for a photo walk through the old plant where years ago pig iron was made.  The property is packed with photography opportunities.  There are huge steel pipes, iron furnaces, dark & wet tunnels, turbines, and all sorts of equipment. 

See for Yourself

Texture is everywhere.  We found plenty of rust, metal, bricks, concrete, nuts, bolts, chains, hooks and even a few sculptures.

Dennis Calvert aka lightpainter provided us with the opportunity to shoot some very interesting images in some very dark places.  For Janice and me, it was our first time to make long exposure lightpainting photos.  Janice's orb is MUCH better than mine. 



FIRE IN THE PIT

VORTEX FROM HELL

A big thanks to my sister Janice Wagnon for inviting me to come along with her on this photography walk.  I met members of the North Alabama Photographers Guild, experienced some new photography opportunities and had fun that lasted all week as I processed my images and viewed the images of those who attended. 

Happy Birthday, Susannah

Susannah was born on February 15, 2006.  Time spent with her is full of discovery as she puts the pieces of life together.  When she awakened on her birthday morning, she ran to the mirror to see how much she had grown and reminded us throughout the day that she is four now.

What a day!

Wordle

Just discovered this site called Wordle when I visited ShadowHouse Creations. It was fun to see the wordy creations that could be made from words already present in my blog!

Visit http://www.wordle.net/

Word collage created by Wordle

I didn't have to sign in, just selected the create option.  There are several ways to create a wordle.  I chose to copy and paste my blog URL and submitted.  After the collage was created, I selected the font, colors and layout that I liked.  I wanted to place the wordle on this blog, but there didn't seem to be a direct way to do it.  After a little investigating, I found a suggestion to print screen.  Eureka!   I opened it in Paint and saved the image as a jpg in my pictures folder.  Next, I opened the image in Photoshop Elements to crop the print screen part away from the image.

As stated on the Wordle website, the words most often used in your blog or entry will have prominence in the collage. 

Thanks to SkeletalMess at ShadowHouse Creations for the introduction to WORDLE.NET

Pine Warbler

Cutest little puff ball.  I love birds.  I love watching and photographing birds.  I don't know all their names.  It's the same for me in the human world, too, especially with actors.  I have a good many favorites, but I could not tell you their names.  For me, it just doesn't matter. 

I do want to learn the birds' names, though.  So here we have a Pine Warbler.  I thought it was an American Goldfinch.  My only basis for my decision was that it's yellow and has some dark wings.  After consulting with my flickr friends and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology , it was evident that my finch is a warbler.

I hope you'll take the time to visit this link.  You'll see beautiful pine warbler images and read a fascinating story.

CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT CHIRP

Snow in Rollingwood

Many of us in Northeast Alabama just roll our eyes when an exurberant weather forecaster tells us about the snow headed our way. As odd as it seems, middle to southern Alabama usually gets more snow than we do, if it snows at all, because of the moisture coming up from the Gulf of Mexico.

Again we rolled our eyes with the news of the approaching snow. It was predicted that the middle to southern regions of our state would get 3 to 5 inches and areas north of Birmingham would get 1 to 2 inches.

I didn't make the pilgrimage to the grocery store for milk, eggs and bread. I didn't get my hopes up.

February 12, 2010 was a delightfully snowy day with accumulation of about 3 inches.

So nice to be spared the disappointment.

So fun to feel the crunch of snow under my feet and see my part of the world wrapped beautifully in a fluffy white blanket.

 

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