photos of angels, birch seeds, hemlock cones

It was a gorgeous day, in both a thoroughly enjoyable yet disorientingly disturbing way.
We begin with Miss Lady, in a rare moment of sitting still enough for a portrait.

The light blobs: I’m sure there is a scientific reason for the phenomenon that occurs when I shoot into the sun, but can we all agree that they’re Maggie’s angels?

The obsession with yellow birch seeds continues. Here we see that the trident-shaped thingies are attached to the heart-shaped seeds. But what I love about this is the two aren’t joined together the way I thought they were. I thought the heart shapes would sit directly on top of the tridents. Apparently not. All I can see is that this is a section of a catkin that’s falling apart. I need to find a catkin that hasn’t completely blown up. Probably too late for this year.
Have I mentioned that the beaver pond’s main dam is gone? They’ve built another, closer to the road. Here’s the currently-drained part.

Not shown: the feral bathtub that lives at the edge of the pond, plotting revenge against whoever dumped it into the burn pile.
As promised, hemlock cones.

(Blurry, sorry.)

And upside-down, for the view. These are tiny. (Relative to your Typical Pine Cone.) Easily less than an inch long.


Forsythia blooming on December 3rd. See what I mean about the gorgeous weather? It’s confusing everyone. Now is the time to shut down and get some rest for the year – not pump out flowers. Go to sleep, sweet forsythia! It’s bedtime!
Speaking of bedtime, ‘tis mine. Good night!

learning is messy, distinguishing hemlocks from spruces, and tree turds

I took 161 pictures this afternoon, most of which are lousy, but that’s OK. I’ve been playing with the Lumix lately, daring to move beyond the confines of either the Intelligent Auto or the default automatic settings in the mode that allows me to use the macro zoom. Today’s experiments were with the white balance, the ISO setting, and whether or not the flash engages. I didn’t think to mess with the shutter speed. There’s always next time for that.

On a day like today – flat light, overcast, only occasional sun filtered through high clouds – it’s hard to get a decent shot of anything, particularly if the background is snow. I have a zillion underexposed and overexposed shots. But I had fun messing around with the settings, and also observing what the camera would do when I let it decide all of these variables.
Along the way, I refreshed my memory on the difference between hemlocks, balsam firs, and white spruces. I shouldn’t be a tease: I haven’t found a balsam fir. But hemlock and white spruce?  Yes, ma’am, we have those.

First up, hemlock. We’re up in the woods.

An adorable baby hemlock. Scraggly, but optimistic.


Flat needles, green on top…


…with racing stripes on the bottom. Also?


Those little stalks at the base of each needle mean that when you find a twig that has no needles…


…it’s bumpy. And this is an example of a crap photo.

Another excellent thing about hemlocks is their fantastically cute cones, but I didn’t see any today, so just put that on your wish list and the Universe will provide.

Incidentally, if this were balsam fir, you’d have the same flat needles with racing stripes on the bottom. But the leaves would come straight out from the twig with no leaf stalk (which is called “sessile”), and that means a twig with no needles would be smooth. Plus, balsam firs smell awesome.

White spruce, on the other hand. Spruce needles are not flat – they’ve got maybe four or so sides.  If you’re not sure you can see it for yourself, try rolling a needle between your fingers. If you can roll it, it’s a spruce. 

White spruce needles look blue-ish green, which I realize doesn’t seem to be the case in this picture, but trust me.

It’s a good year for the white spruce. Lots of cones. Naturally, from a distance, these look like tree turds.


A good day is one where you come home looking like this.