An autumn walk

Today was a glorious autumn day, even the resident mob was out enjoying the sunshine! It was a perfect day for a walk around Gisborne, and it was lovely to see the trees turning colour. The pinoaks were just stunning, and the other trees in yellow and green provided a wonderful backdrop. Truly a photographer's dream, and our town at it's very best!
Lots of people and dogs were out and about, enjoying the sunshine. Met one intrepid dog owner walking her three "oodles", a 'spoodle' (spaniel-poodle cross), a labradoodle (labrador-poodle cross), and another oodle of which I can't remember the provenance.

I walked along the creek, which was pretty overgrown, although the "Friends of Jackson's Creek" apparently do some cleaning up there. Saw ducks, and I must go back when the sun is shining on the waterlilies and capture some of the flowers.

Found some trees with yellow fruit, not sure what they are, but they provide nice colour too.

Finally, I drove up to St. Andrews, which looked gorgeous with the late afternoon sun on the sandstone, and the colourful foliage in front. Indeed an hour well spent!

Weekly Challenge: Ball

Ok, so no dog to throw a ball for, no fur balls from the cat - what's left? And no, I'm not being rude! Aha! Here's my friend Chris and I having a BALL! We dressed up in our Bollywood outfits and gave our version of Bollywood dancing. Yay!

Red moon rising

Yesterday there was an eclipse of the moon. My camera didn't exactly rise to the occasion, and it was fairly cloudy. So I edited quite heavily on Picasa and came up with this rather gloomy shot. I found a new website called 'blingee' and it's quite fun once you figure out how it works. I thought a raven would look ok here and added this 'stamp' to my photo. Eat your heart out, Edgar Allen!

Weekly challenge: CANINE

Well, that was a pretty easy one this week. I was thinking about canines, both teeth and animals, and opted for this close-up of Claude. Dogs have such soulful eyes, don't you think?!

Week 12 challenge: FREE

We love all the birds visiting our place. We get the transient ones, the ones that visit regularly, and those that stay. The arrival of the black yellow-tailed cockatoo is always heralded by their loud screech. They look so graceful gliding across the paddocks, and keep our shrubs nicely trimmed. Nothing is as free as a bird!

Dog's breakfast

Somehow, my blog settings have been totally muddled up! I can live with it at the moment, but it's not ideal. I need to reset the template settings somehow, but not sure how to do that. Anyway, it taught me not to fiddle with these things. It didn't help when the whole background went black for a few days. I wish I understood more about computers, and how to fix things. Maybe I should do a quick IT degree.... ooops, no forget that...

Week 10 challenge: STAR

A friend and I played around with night shots a while ago. We set up our tripods and took different shots of the stars. Then we set our cameras for looooong exposures and went and had a cuppa. When we came back, this is what I got. I tweaked the photo minimally with autofocus and saturation, and while it shows the progression of stars across the sky, there was an unexpected 'shadow' of a human form (if you want to be fanciful) among the stars! Is somebody watching us???

Weekly challenge: SIZE

This week's word stumped me somewhat. I tried to think of something that was impressive in its size (big or small). I remembered this old black bear at Parc Omega in Canada; he was surely the biggest, baddest bear in the valley! He was HUGE, could have done with a stint on "Biggest Loser". I guess they have to eat themselves silly for hibernation, but this was the height of summer! Still, an impressive sight - and size!

Facebook magic

Some years ago, I noticed that people were posting their quilts on quilt group pages, complete with kitty! I thought that was a neat idea, and thought other might also like to look at quilts and kittehs. And so, "Quilting Cats" was founded. I thought we'd maybe have a couple of dozen members at most, but the page took off and yesterday we hit the 500 members mark! Not only have we gained so many new, interesting cat lovers and quilt addicts, but most of them have actually stayed with us over the years! As these things do, interest has waxed and waned, but currently the group is really going strong and bringing lots of people lots of fun.We've seen fantastic quilts, met interesting people, magnificent cats (and the occasional d-o-g), laughed out loud at some of these felines' antics, and cried when they went over the Rainbow Bridge. The group is always the first thing I look at every morning, to see if anybody has posted anything. I love looking at all the photos on Sunday mornings and choosing the banner kitteh of the week. We keep the group closed, friendly, safe (we have young members), and free of advertising (although the posting of gorgeous cat fabrics is ok). I often curse Facebook for one thing or another, but I wouldn't want to lose this group, it's brought me so much joy and contact with nice people. We make everybody welcome, if you have an interest in kittehs and quilts and are happy to share stories and photos. Now looking forward to 1000 members - as one member said "Think big!". Indeed!

Weekly Challenge: Happy

This week's challenge is 'Happy'. There never was a happier dog than Raff, our Samoyed. He always greeted us with a big smile, a wet nose and a swish of his feathery tail. He seemed to have a twinkle in his eye, that seemed to say: "What mischief can we get up to today?". Tummyrubs would make him smile even more. He made us very happy. Went over the Rainbow Bridge many years ago.

Perception

I was in town yesterday, just out for a lunch with Wayne (Maha Restaurant - highly recommended!).
We were in Bond Street, just off Flinders Lane, and had this excellent view of the Eureka Tower. It's not often one gets an unobstructed view of the city's tallest building.

 In keeping with the architectural theme, I like patterns on buildings (must be the quilter thing!), and this one looked pretty good to me. I liked the way the light played on the glass and reflected the blue sky.

Closeup of the windows. I wonder what it looks like from the inside.

City art. Conversation :
Me: "Oh, look at the bird!"
DH (looks up): "What bird?"
Me (points): "That bird!"
DH (confused): "Can't see it!"
Me (rolls eyes): "That big, white, bird across the road!"
DH: "Ah! I was looking for a real bird."

Perception is everything.

Weekly Challenge: FAST

This one was another tricky one! Then I thought of these little guys, and they're the fastest thing on four legs around here! This one's just skipping, but in full flight they're a streak in the landscape. Mr. Fox would have his work cut out to catch Mr. Hare on the hoof...or the paw!

Weekly CHallenge: FLOW

I always wanted to know how to photograph flowing water with a 'soft' focus. Finally, on a hike in Alaska, our photographer guide showed us. First, adjust your ISO level if necessary. Ours was a fairly overcast day, and this was in the murky forest, so we adjusted the light to about 400 ISO. Then you set your camera on 'Tv', then set the time to approx 1/13th of a second (or slower). Use a tripod or make sure your camera is held very still while shooting. Et voila! Soft flow.

Weekly challenge: OPEN

In Greek mythology, Zeus gave Pandora (the first woman) a box with the instructions never to open it. Naturally, Pandora opened it and unleashed evil into the world. The only thing left in the box was Hope.
Sometimes, things are better left unopened.
"Open" immediately reminded me of this old tale, and I remembered a recent gift, which I opened with great anticipation. This Pandora's box contained only delightful things. Choose your boxes wisely!

Knit one, drop one.....ooops!

I'm in the mood for knitting. I've found some beautiful wool (Lincraft and our supermarket, believe it or not), and am looking for easy patterns. I've been knitting a few of these so-called 'potato-chip' scarves. I guess they do look a little like Pringles, and they are quite addictive. The one in the photo is made with some wool I found at Rose Cottage in Ballan.
Just found a pattern for a 'squiggly scarf', so I'll try that next. Perhaps I can make a few and sell them on Etsy.
Lincraft has some gorgeous wool, I like the textured wool, especially with alternating colours. I'm looking forward to our local quilt shop getting in some yarns. I also like to use the scarf pins. Found some really nice ones on ebay, made from bone, wood, and other materials such as paua shell (Javacentric).
YouTube has some good instructions for different knitted articles. What did we do without YouTube??

Week 4: Instantaneous!

Mmm, that WAS a tricky one! Took me a while to come up with something.
In the end, it was one of my favourite pastimes that inspired me - photography! A photograph is an instantaneous thing, especially since digital photography has arrived. It captures an instant in time - often less than fractions of a second. Before and after the shutter clicks, everything is different again.
That instant can last for generations, in a dusty photo album or appear and disappear in seconds, on the web, in the cloud. It can be history, evidence, proof, memory, art, conversation starter...whatever the need. The instant will never come again.

Cool clouds

Once again one of my favourite subjects - clouds.

Week 3: BRIGHT

This week's challenge is BRIGHT. The first thought that popped into my head was the old Van Morrison song "Bright side of the road", which always makes me smile.
Then I remembered this day in New York, where the sunset lit up one side of the street, while the other was in darkness. The reflections off the buildings were bright and beautiful, all shining gold and copper.

Inspiration

I'm joining a 52 Week Blog Photo Challenge on Alsha's Space, and the word of the week is INSPIRATION.

I chose this photograph to represent Inspiration, because what inspires me as a photographer, quilter, artist, and person is nature. There is infinite variety in nature, and no matter how often you look at the same thing, it is always different and new, no matter if it is a leaf or a tree or an animal. Nature is there for us to be interpreted in whatever ways we choose. Which is why it is so important to respect and preserve nature in all its forms, from pond slime to an elephant.

I look forward to all the other challenge entries each week - they, too will inspire me!

The heat is on!

The new year is already flying by, and summer has well and truly arrived with a bang! According to research, southeastern Australia is getting twice as many hot spells these days than in previous decades. Three days already over 40C this month, and there are at least 6 weeks of summer to go!
Thankfully we've had a new cooling system installed earlier, so Pretzel, DH, and yours truly are living in cool comfort.
Visitors to the paddock are all looking for shelter and water. White cheeked honey eaters have been visiting, and the local roos love the green grass along the sewer line, and the shade beneath the trees. Rosellas are hoping for more fruit from the apple trees, and the hares lie low in the high grass, trying to catch a breeze.
I've put a few water containers out for the animals, but I think they're avoiding them at the moment. Still, some animals might use them at night.

 This kangaroo mum and youngster have been visiting for a while. They belong to a mob of about a dozen that hang out a few paddocks across amid a stand of pines. Now that we haven't any dogs to scare them off, they come closer to the house.
It's nice to see the hares around too. I was worried one of them had lost its mate, as there was some roadkill a couple of weeks ago. But the other day there were 3 hares in their usual spot, a female and two males vying for her attention. There was quite a bit of rumpy-pumpy going on right in front of my kitchen window! When the female had enough, she turned on the male and boxed him around the - very long - ears! Quite funny.
Must save for a really long lens to capture the visitors in more detail.