Joys Of Living In The "Country"

Although we don't live in the true "country" we consider where we live to be very much like it. We're close to the water on one side, yet at the end of our dead end street is a forest area. So we have the best of both worlds and you never know what you'll see! 2 summers ago there were 2 deer running down the middle of our rd and of course by the time I realized what I was actually seeing, they were gone - yesterday morning, this little guy was hanging around the bird feeder while his/her friend was in our backyard trying to figure out how to get through our fence!! I admit, I'm not a morning person, but this time of the yr makes me think different - the birds, the wildlife - it's pretty neat!

Puppy Love!!!

Some more pics of our pups. Buddy is the smaller of the 2. They're the same breed (Bullweiller which is American Bulldog & Rottie) but their parents are opposite. Riley's mom is the Rottie and Bud's was an American Bulldog. You'd think they're siblings, but they aren't! They're a yr apart and SO different. Bud's HIGH energy where Riley, well, you can see here, likes to just chill!

The bottom 2 pics are of Buddy and Maggie, our neighbors dog. These 2 have been inseparable since she was brought home! They have dug hole after hole under the fence to the pt we've given up. Maggie comes when Bud calls her! LOL! It's too cute. He sits and waits for her to come out and then under the fence she comes and off they go. She's an American Bulldog. He's introduced her to his pool and they both love it and have a blast!

Our Backyard Fountain

Keith bought this last yr and it suits our home perfectly. It's rustic looking and just such a neat piece. I thought it would be fun to see what I could do with it as far as what kind of shots I could get in. I did some fun editing in PSE9 and this is what I came up with! Kinda neat!

Another lily from my kid's for Mother's Day. This one is just gorgeous and such a beautiful color. Thank you, Andrew and Ashleigh!!

Mother's Day Lilies

Hello!! I've been playing in PSE9 and having some fun. This is one of the lilies my kid's got me for Mother's Day. I think my favorite editing is the "reflection". Also, have a peek HERE to see what we found in our front tree!

Spring Babies!

Yesterday, late afternoon, we were heading out and I saw some commotion in our front tree and had to have a peek!! Look what was peeking back at me!! How cute are these spring babes??? Now lets just hope they remain good little squirrels and not get destructive! She had a litter (I think it's a litter?) last year as well and was so fun to watch mommy teaching her babes how to do everything. Now we get to observe her again!

Purple Finches at Algonquin

Here's some purple finches that we seen at Algonquin. They're really pretty birds. I did a reflection of the one above in my PSE program. If you haven't seen it, click HERE to see my first moose sighting!

My Very First Moose Sighting!

Good morning! This past wknd I went on a "Spring Moose Tour" to Algonquin park with my mom. She's a nature photographer and thought this would be something fun to do together. I have never been to Algonquin nor I had I ever set eyes on a moose in the wild. So, this was a great opportunity for me! Unfortunately, it rained all day, but we had a great time and did manage a few shots. I was getting a little discouraged because we knew the moose were there, there had been sightings, but we still hadn't seen one by 3pm. So we went for a walk and then decided to back track one more time and guess what! I saw my very first moose!! As we were getting out of the van, he went into the forest, but I watched and it looked like he was going to come back out and sure enough, he did. He's running across the rd, so my picture is a little blurry, but I am super happy that I caught it and was able to see such an amazing (and huge!) animal!! I look fwd to doing this again next spring!

After The Rain

Here's a couple pics I took the other day after it rained. You could see the mist coming off the roof of our neighbors garage and the others are just, as you can see, chickadee's enjoying the feeder. I took a course at Henry's a couple weeks ago, so just starting to play with shutter speeds, apertures etc.