Hi all! Another post from Hawaii. Not quite as many pictures, so hopefully it's okay. (Here's the one from Kuai.)

  Angelfish - in an aquarium. Sorry, no underwater camera for me. I did do some snorkelling off another island, though.

  Waterfall. Did a little bit of climbing to get that view. It was fun. We swam in the pool of a similar one in the same area.

 Ocean. Of course I took several pictures of the ocean on each island. It's so.. blue.

 Flower and  leaves. I posted a similar picture of leaves in the last one, mentioning how the light always shines through them so prettily. :)

And lastly, I watched a sunset from start to finish. It was a little lonely, being by myself on the beach, but the sunset was amazing and I loved being able to watch the sun make that final dip from being there to - not.  Sunset1  Sunset2  Sunset3  Sunset4  Sunset5  Sunset6. :)

took these pictures the other day. I think I am about an hour and a half early for the once in 24 hour post. Hope that is OK

Hey fellas, time for lunch  lt 1 

 never saw this plant before and those seed pods looked so interesting so Andy picked one off for me. Next morning the pod had opened. Planted the seeds so now we will see what happens next if anything, lt 2 

The weather has been brutal, as I know many of you can relate to, so I've been trying out some indoor photography, basicllay what ever I can find.

  party 

 condensation 

 pickled 

I haven't done one of these in a while  what is it ???

And here is a late one for the challenge (that was a tough one Dee!). My son brought home some blue light sticks from his camping trip  glow stick 

I'd appreciate any comments. I like to take these kind of photos sometimes, just to try and improve my photography.

Have a great night :  )

Sorry to interrupt your program, folks. we'll get you back to it in just a moment. it seems, we have some breaking news here on the farm.

this just in from the gossip fence.....chickie ladies one, two, and three swear it's true....they're clucking that they heard it from chickie lady four..."it's here, it's here!" she cackled!

....finally after all the waiting, all the fussing, all the anticipation, i can confirm, it is true...it is here.

what is it?

why, it's the $500.00 egg. that's right the $500.00 egg.

you see, when i went into the "chicken business" my husband complained, as he dutifully built the chicken mansion for me, that he figures my first egg is gonna cost him $500 bucks.

well, don't tell him, but, he was just about right in his figuring.

but, in my eyes....it's beautiful. and without further adieu.....here is the $500.00 egg.

...and just to put it into proportion, here it is compared to the store bought eggs.

isn't it just darling?

and...

now, for the darker side of farming. we followed this trailer seven miles into town the other day. how many cows can you count?

....and an extra 10 points if you can guess where they were headed?

well, that concludes this emergency poultry post and now we'll return to our regularly scheduled program..."How the Rooster Crows"

Hello everyone.  In the garden I found this insect having a great old time eating the leaves on one of my plants.  Darn my pics aren't showing up on  list of my photos.  I will be back later when I figure this out.

I am really enjoying the dragon fly pics.  We don't get many varieties where I live.

Snowflake.

We spent the day wandering about San Francisco, a beautiful city with some very strange residents and also a lot of nice people who live on very steep streets and must have the leg muscles of mountain goats.

One of our first stops was the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. We even had tea near this lovely statue, because that's what you're supposed to do in a tea garden. I guess.

I really liked this tree and the more I looked at it, the more I liked its delightfully twisted nature. It reminds me of something you might see in the Enchanted Forest enroute to Oz.

We then headed to Grace Cathedral, where I wanted to see that big stained glass window, while June wanted to see the labyrinth.

Then we talked down the hill to Chinatown to look for a spot to have lunch. The menu here looked pretty good, and the food was delicious, although we were the only non-Chinese people in the place.

Hiii. Yesterday, my cat actually ventured out of the bedroom onto the landing at the top of the stairs. This is a big deal for him, as he is totally scared of our other cat, Heidi, who relentlessly beats him up every chance she gets. That's why he lives upstairs, because of Heidi, and usually he is happy to stay up there. When I saw him on the landing yesterday, I thought, document it, and got my camera. These aren't the best shots in terms of focus, and I know it...I didn't have anything to brace myself on to steady my hands/arms...but these are the best i got out of what I shot. To my amazement, Spaz actually came down a whole step, even. That's progress for him. I think while I was shooting, he was on the lookout for Heidi, who actually didn't appear, for once...not that Spaz ever really relaxed, lol. But hey, progress, not perfection. I'm proud of him.

Spaz b&w    Spaz on landing   Spaz on 1st step

It was warm (ok, HOT) the other day, so I went to the local garden.  The flamingo were enjoying their surroundings, and now that the flowers are growing up, they can hide a little bit.

We had a bad wind/rain storm last week, some of the plantings weren't in the best shape, but these lilies looked good.  And so did these

This head of grass caught my eye, monochromatic green.

I, also, liked this flower, and how the shadow mimicked each other.

Whilst I was down in Sorrento for the wedding, I took the opportunity to make a trip to the crater of Mt. Vesuvius. To get there you catch a bus from Pompeii to the base of Mt. Vesuvius. From the base there you get into a big 4 wheel drive off road bus and you slowly wind your way up the slopes towards the crater. The bus goes as far as it can and then you have to walk the final 20-30 minutes along the trail to the crater. If you are unfit, it can be a bit taxing, but taking it slow and steady and stopping to admire the views periodically along the way will get you there! At the top you get a short talk by the guides about the geology and history of the crater. It is still active today but is monitored scientifically very closely. There is only one or two spots where steam vents can be seen coming out of the crater's edge. The rim is 1050m above sea level, so it's pretty cool up there!

 Bus To Vesuvius 

 View South 

 Rim Pathway 

 Crater 1 

 Crater 2 

 Crater Steam 

 View To Naples 

today it was a bit cooler here because of cloud cover so Andy and I went out to the firing range  frt 4   frt 1  and met up with our friends Dave and Danny  frt 2  by the way you know the expression you can't judge a book by it's cover well this applies to Danny (the one with the beard). What a gentleman and so well read.

me  shooting my 44-40 cowboy gun  frt 3  and me shooting Danny's AR-15 frt 5  No Andy does not shoot but indulges me because I have been shooting since I was little.

Because it's all I have to take pictures of without attempting to find time to drive somewhere and then guarantee I have the energy to forge the heat after driving there.  "Just tune in, turn off, drop out, drop in, switch off, switch on and explode."

1     2     3

That concludes my foray with my camera until maybe this weekend :-D

Here are some photos from the wedding I went to in Positano, Italy. The wedding reception was held on a cliff top in Sorrento overlooking the Bay of Naples. Absolutely stunning location. Watching the sun slowly set was beautiful.

 Reception 1 

 Reception 2 

 Reception Sunset 

 Reception 3 

 Reception 4 

 Reception 5 

 Reception 6 

We hit the road early and stopped early at the Point Cabrillo lighthouse, which wasn't open yet, so we had to drive down the sidewalk/hiking path to get this shot. Some of the hiking people were not happy about that, but then I wasn't happy about them not being happy about it, so we're even. Sort of. ;-)

Then we headed on down the California coast, just one astounding scene after another, ho-hum. However, let me be perfectly clear on this, there were absolutely no ho's and definitely no humming going on whatsoever.

One of the spots I really wanted to see was the Point Arena lighthouse, and the view I wanted to see was this one.

I also really liked this tree there. It looks like it's seen some interesting weather. I'm not sure what the little gazebo out there on the edge of the cliff is for, perhaps a spot for the virgins to have one last dance to a nice swing tune before being heaved off the cliff to appease the earthquake/landslide/brushfire/housingcrunch gods.

And then, after many unendingly twisty roads, suddenly we arrived back at civilization. Or the approximation of civilization that is San Francisco in the horrendous knot of horn-honking traffic which resulted from our unwittingly arriving at the exact same day as the annual gay pride parade.

One of the adventures on this summer's trip was a ride aboard the Durango to Silverton narrow gauge railroad.  This is a steam train that makes the 45 minute drive between the two cities into an all day round trip.  Photography aboard was a bit of a challenge because the tracks are rough and there is a lot of side-to-side motion to go along with the forward motion.  Still, the trip was a blast and the mountain scenery gorgeous.  The tracks follow the course of the Animas River -- sometimes alongside it and sometimes above it.

Old 481

The Animas River near Durango

Along the Mountain Side

Above the Animas River

Along the Animas River

Another Along the River

If you have the chance, the trip is well worth it.

I got inspired by Dub with his shots of those big trees so went out to snap a picture of our big trees here in our part of the world.     a joshua tree  bt 1  a cholla tree cactus  bt 2  along the way I saw some birds  bt 3 

a raven on a power pole  bt 4  a meeting of some great minds  bt 6  As some of you know ravens are scavengers so if this would upset you please don't look.  bt 5 

I just got back from attending "Burro Days" in Fairplay, CO.  It was a really fun trip, full of beautiful scenery, fun activities, and history.

Here are a few of the highlights of the main event - the pack burro races.  The short route was 15 miles, the long route 29 miles - both looping up a mountain and returning to the starting point.  The only 'rule' is that you cannot ride your donkey - pushing, pulling, swearing at, bribing, and pleading are permitted.  There were donkeys of every size and color - and humans of both genders and all ages.

 Race_start 

 I_fell_in_love with little Jasper!

 Two_big_boys 

 Friendly_competition 

 Happy_Team 

Same team, 15 miles later  Not_so_happy_team 

And at the end of 29 miles, just yards from the Finish, a  Dead_heat 

(to be continued...)

--Pat

So, I went to Hawaii for two weeks (technically my sixteenth birthday present, as well as the family summer vacation). We spent three days on Kuai, three days on Maui, three days on Hilo side of Hawaii, three days on Kona side of Hawaii, and two days on Oahu. Over the course of those two weeks, I took 4,475 pictures. I narrowed it down to 1,316 pictures that I liked enough to put on Facebook. I narrowed that down to 76 that I'm going to try to post on here. Eek! I wasn't sure which few to pick, so I'll just post some of my favourites, I guess. There are probably some I should post but didn't or shouldn't post but did. Oh well.

Here are the ones from Kuai:

 flying1.JPG   flying2.JPG I was fortunate enough to have a window seat for the five hour flight. I took a fair amount of pictures out that window. Miles and miles of clouds and water. It was pretty cool. :)

 Palm tree. Had to have that shot, of course.  Pretty leaf - there were these plants all over the place and I always thought the sun shined through them so beautifully.  Hibiscus 1 &  Hibiscus 2.   Tree 1 &  Tree 2 - another plant that was always hit by the sun beautifully.

 Gecko guy 1 &  gecko guy 2. He was so tiny, hiding in the hibiscus plant!

Some general views:  beach,  field,  lake,  trail. (The trail is where I got 38 bug-bites. Eek.)

The next few were all shot from a helicopter over Kuai. Kuai is such a beautiful island (my favourite), so the helicopter ride was absolutely worth it.  Waterfall.  Rain cloud.  Fields.  Double rainbow.  Single rainbow. I loved seeing the double rainbow, and the pilot moved in a way that the single rainbow actually formed the whole circle (couldn't get a photo of that). For some reason I like the single rainbow picture, even though you can see the scratches and rain on the window. I like that. It adds more interest, or something. Of course, your own opinion can and probably will differ. But it grew on me.

And lastly,  sunset1 and  sunset2.

If you actually looked at all those pictures, I applaud you! Any and all comments are much appreciated. :) The other islands will come in future posts.

It's 80 + deg. out. My camera is in for repair.

So what am I doing?

Working on this year's  Christmas Card