The Cormorant, the Dragonfly, and the Bee: January 2016

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Fun with Trains

Seniors have all the fun. Here are pictures I took at the Holyoke Senior Center of their wonderful train setup (still under construction).

I'm happy to say that it was my own dad's train set (well, mine too) that inspired the Senior Center to begin a long term project for the seniors to work on creating a train installation to be enjoyed by all.

My father-in-law, the handsome man pictured in the final picture below, was instrumental in getting whatever train pieces we could salvage from the basement of my old house to the Holyoke Senior Center.

Much of what you see in the pictures below is newly created by train group members. They built a mountain, modeled after Mount Tom, and added a full N-gauge track above one section of the main HO scale setup. The photos below show the wonderful detail in the N scale portion of the train installation. Al, the other handsome man pictured below, did much of the work on the mountain. Well done!

Tiny Jurassic Park

Rounding the Corner

Wheee!

Wild Ride in the Mountains

Master Artist Al Applying Some Refinements

The Ferris Wheel is Busy Today

Real Scraps from the Real Metal Scrap Place in Holyoke

N Scale Nature

Extremely Realistic Looking Fake Rocks

Going Up?

HO Scale in the Foreground

Proud Al - the Master Train Artist

Father-in-Law Bob Enjoying the Trains

Monday, January 18, 2016

Winter in Tucson

Here are some photos of Tucson, Arizona, taken near the end of December.

Flowers Gone By in a Colorful Planter

Prickly Pear tea is made from Purple Prickly Pear cactus, shown below.

Purple Prickly Pear Cactus

Towering Saguaro

Many of the following photos are taken in Agua Caliente Park.

Oasis in the Desert 1

Oasis in the Desert 2

Palm Shade

Oasis in the Desert 3

At a Small Horse Farm Near the Park

This Roadrunner was literally running in the road at Sabino Canyon.

Roadrunner Doing the Proper Thing

The Three Amigos

Classic AZ

Saguaro Missile Ready for Takeoff

Through the Trees

Spiky Color

Duck Face

Fast Wings

Female American Wigeon

You've heard the expression: "If it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, ..."? Well an American Coot looks and acts like a duck, but this bird is not a duck.

American Coot 1

American Coot 2

Patterns in Nature

Still doing some catchup blogging here. This collection reflects a few different photo outings.

This is a miniature horse I passed during a walk in a neighborhood with which I was not familiar. The horse was a welcome surprise. I had not anticipated passing any farm animals on this particular stroll.
This is taken with my Nexus 5x cell camera.

Miniature Horse

These next three sunset shots were taken - you will not believe this - from the parking lot at Trader Joe's. I stepped out from grocery shopping and was greeted with this amazing orange sky. These are taken w/my Nexus 5x. Need I mention it was even better in person? At least you get an idea from the photos.

Memorable Sunset 1

Memorable Sunset 2

Memorable Sunset 3

While also a sunset, the following is taken on a different day with my Olympus and 12-40mm lens. The sky's purple color felt soothing.

Late Light

These next two are different crops of the same photo.

Against the Sky 1

Against the Sky 2

Leaf Texture and Color

This is Ranger. He's my sister-in-law and husband's dog. He's a Catahoula. He's looking at something important.

Eye of Ranger

Eye of Gargoyle at Ranger's House

Afternoon Buds

Wood Grain 1

Wood Grain 2

Wet Leaves Show Their Stuff

I take great joy in photographing ordinary things in such a way as to encourage us to take notice. On a cold dreary November day I was motivated to capture the beauty of leaves lying on our deck. The mostly flat surfaces were ideal for macro lens photos because I didn't have to "fight" against the extremely narrow depth of field. I was rewarded with a fairly large portion of each photo being in focus, compared to the more standard macro result of only a tiny sliver of depth of field being in focus.

Not only that, the leaves revealed themselves to be marvelously intricate. And the water drops acted as magnifiers to study their surface.

Enjoy!

Yellow Leaf with Morning Dew

Yellow Leaf with Morning Dew 2

Morning Dew Leaf Collage

Fork in the Leaf

Bloody Leaf 1

Blood Leaf 2

Green Yellow Leaf with Morning Dew

Drops on Veins

Nature's Parabola

(Pardon the math reference; I couldn't help myself. For those that are still confused, the red leaf in the above photo forms an open parabola to the right, containing a lovely dew drop along with all else to the right.)

This next photo is a different crop from the original photo used above!

Yellow Brown Leaf with Magnifiers

Dew Drops Make Leaf Veins 3D