Photo a Day 104 - Weekend Reflections

Last Saturday's photography class took us to the Festival Theatre in Adelaide where I was taken by this sculpture fashioned in stainles steel I think.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Weekend Reflections".

Photo a Day 103 - Floral Friday

Oh dear, such a long time since I have posted.  But I haven't been wasting my time. I have been going to photography events in an effort to improve my skills and get my camera off "auto".  Not sure whether there is any improvement yet, but I am having fun doing it.

I have also been spending my time compiling photo books online - a new obsession (as if I needed a new one!)  I have so many photos stashed away in boxes that never see the light of day - and so many stored on my computer that no one sees except me, that I decided to actually make proper books of them. So far the books have been a great success, so I will persevere.

So, here are some of my latest efforts in the floral area. I love this old fashioned perennial - Felicia amelloides  or  Blue Marguerite.

Simple and sweet.

Such an easy plant to grow and so forgiving of neglect.

Liz Needle  -  linking with Floral Friday Fotos

Photo a Day 102 - Floral Friday

It has been very cold and now wet up here and not conducive to getting out and looking for photo opportunities. Much easier and more comfortable to sit by the fire!!

However, I did get out last Saturday to a photography class where we focussed on macro and here are some of my shots. Still a lot to learn,but am reasonably happy with the results.

 This water lily took my eye and I got some nice reflections from the pool.

We call this Busy Lizzie  -  purists would call it Impatiens

This one is a salvia from my garden.

And my magnolias are just starting to flower, although the wind got to this one.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Floral Friday Fotos"  and  "Today's Flowers".

Photo a Day 101 - Violets are Blue

My violets are just beginning to flower. Since childhood they have been my favourite flowers. I can remember we used to be able to buy posies of violets from the green grocers for less than a shilling and we loved to give them to Mum as a surprise.

I had a littlr garden as a child and it was always full of violets and primroses and smelled so gorgeous in the mornings and evenings.  Now I have violets and primroses growing in my garden. The primroses are holding their own, but the violets are growing wild under all the shrubs. They remind me of my childhood.

 

 

Liz Needle  -  Linking for "Floral Friday Fotos"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo a Day 100 - The Grass is Greener

My post for Friday Greens  this week is one I have shown before, but it tickles my fancy so I thought it worth repeating. Living in the Adelaide Hills, we are prone to summer bushfires, so the government in its wisdom had initiated a tree lopping program to ensure that all trees are trimmed so that they are a ceratin distance from electricity cables.

Now I don't have a real problem with this rule, but I have huge problems with the contractors who perform this task. They employ men who have no idea about trees and how to prune them, who have no interest in the trees they are pruning and so consequently do a terrible job and ruin trees. They also enter private properties and make no effort to contact the owners about what they intend to do.

We have repeatedly requested that they come to the house before they commence any trimming so that we know what is going on. This they have failed to do.

Imagine our delight when we looked out of the window one spring day to discover that they had driven across our front paddock and got themselves bogged up to the axles in the mud. They actually tried to drive across a mud flat and into a creek bed. If they had come to the door they would have been told about the mud and been given an alternative route.

Some hours later, with the help of several more vehicles, they were extricated from the mud and drove off very red-faced.

One might have supposed that the very greenness of the soft ground, the presence of the creek and dam and the bog plants growing through the paddock  would have been a clue to the state of the paddock!!

Interestingly since then, they always come to the door to let us know what they will be doing on the property.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Friday Greens".

Photo a Day 99 - Rubbish Tuesday

A couple of weeks ago I posted a shot of an old tractor.  This old dray was also in the same display.  What a shame it is falling apart. I'm not sure what it would have been used for, but I imagine it would have needed quite a team to pull it.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Rubbish Tuesday".

Photo a Day 98 - Trees

Our Eucalypt trees have a wonderful way of re-inventing themselves. They can be cut down, burnt out but as long as there is a stump they will magically come to life again.  This old tree was growing in a dry creekbed way up in the north of South Australia in our beautiful Flinders ranges.

And in close up you can see some of the trauma this old girl has suffered.  Hmm.  Are trees girls or boys?  I wonder how old this one is.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "NF's Trees and Bushes"

Photo a Day 97 - Our World Tuesday

More shots from my visit to the zoo. One of the useful things I learnt in the photography course was how to make the cages disappear  -  not that I really wanted them to disappear for these shots.

These girls looked so regal and  unconcerned. 

This pretty little girl posed beautifully for the camera.

It almost looks like this has been photoshopped. The head just doesn't seem to fit with the body!

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Our World Tuesday".

Photo a Day 96 - Reflections at the Zoo

Last weekend I spent a wonderful day at the Zoo brushing up my photography skills. This is one of the shots I took and quite by accident it has some reflections in it.

These two fellows were having a great time swinging around from tree to tree before they decided to take a break.

Liz Needle  -  linking with Weekend Reflections

Photo a Day 95 - Trees

Looking through my photos for a tree to feature, it dawned on my that this particular tree has featured a lot in my shots.  Not because it is a particularly lovely tree, but because it makes a nice frame for the sky on the boundary of our farm.

The tree is a Eucalyptus of unknown variety.

Spring day

Autumn fog

Evening

Yellow Sunset

Multi-coloured sunset

Brilliant sunset

Amazing how many different skies we get. No two are ever the same, but the tree is a constant.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "NF's Trees and Bushes"

Photo a Day 94 - last of Autumn

The last Autumn leaves are leaving the trees - and making a mess on the lawns. Just a few shots for Ruby Tuesday before we bid farewell to Autumn - my favourite season.

I spotted this lovely little tree in a local garden as I drove past. The sun was shining through the leaves and the colour as superb.

This one is from my garden - one of my several persimmon trees

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Ruby Tuesday".

Photo a Day 93 - The Dance

This week's theme of Boys, Gilrs and dances left me at a bit of a loss.  My sepia collection doesn't contain any old "dance" photos, because my mother, coming from a strict German Lutheran family was not allowed to attend dances as a girl. Dancing was considered to be against the beliefs of the church!

Of course as soon as she finished her teacher training and moved away from home, all that stuff went by the by and as a pretty, single female teacher in a country town, she made up for the strictness of her upbringing. But, that's another story.

But the theme did bring to mind my own girlhood and the dances and balls I was able to attend. The first introduction to the attractions of the country dance was often the "Deb Ball" or the "Junior Deb Ball".

Then would come the Country Dances or the Church Dances held monthly - usually each town would hold a monthly dance so there was always a dance to go to somewhere each week.  I remember the best thing about country dances was the amazing supper that the local ladies would put on.

I remember going to church dances with my friends - no one actually went with a boy!  Dolled up to the nines, the girls would seat themselves on one side of the hall and the boys on the other, eying off the opportunities. And how very spruced up the boys looked in their suits and ties and short back and sides haircuts.

If a girl was lucky, she might actually get to dance with a boy, but more often than not she spent her time with a girlfriend, talking about the boys she fancied and hoping that "he " would notice her.

while the boys got on with the more important side of the dance

Occasionally one of the girls would get lucky and meet the boy she would eventually marry.

Simple fun times and lovely memories to look back on.


Liz Needle  -  linking with "Sepia Saturday".

Photo a Day 92 - Critters

Today I am featuring my two favourite critters. "Ollie" my Jack Russell and "Alfie" a Jack Russell X Chihuahua X every stray dog in Lenswood!!


Alfie is looking extremely well groomed here. He has just been clipped. He is normally a scruff.

Ollie is a 6 year old pure bred jack Russell. We got him when he was 4 months old. His previous owners sold him on because he was driving their Rottweiler mad. He rode home on my lap and ever since then I have belonged to him. He likes the rest of the family, but I am his!!! He is handsome, super intelligent, moody, sulky, at times aggressive, takes offence easily, jealous, obsessive  but loyal and loving.

Alfie is the product of a rough hair Jack Russell father and a Chihuahu X Jack Russell mother (we suspect that his father is also the father of his mother! Incest in Lenswood!!).

He is two years old, funny, endearing, loving, cuddly, cute, sweet natured, greedy, omnivorous(and that includes socks, sticks, dish cloths, pper etc) and extremely lacking in intelligence.  But hey, who need brains when you have everyone completely wrapped around your little finger.

And he was the cutest puppy.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Saturday Critters" and  "Camera Critters".

Photo a Day 91 - Today's Flowers

Not a lot flowering in the garden at the moment apart from camellias, but there are a few flowering plants  still hanging on. I have several varieties of Osteospermum, but this one is my favourite.

Osteospermum is more commonly called African Daisy and hailed originally from South Africa. Today most of the varieties are hybrids as is this one below. They are semi hardy perennials though often treated purely as annuals. I have plants in my garden that have survived several winters and others that have died out at the first sign of cold. However they propogate easily and often self propogate. Probably the one most people are familiar with is the white variety with blue/purple centre. 

This darker one makes a stunning show in full flower.

Liz Needle  -  Linking with "Today's Flowers".

Photo a Day 90 - Green flowers

Just felt a little guilty when I typed the title for this post. My Photo a Day has fallen well behind. Good intentions and all that. I really must try a little harder.

A week or so back I posted some shots of my pretty pink windflowers. Now the petals have fallen and I am left with a sea of green seed pods, but they suit Friday Greens" so here they are.

Then this half opened banksia caught my eye and I couldn't choose which one to use - so I have posted them both for "Floral Friday Fotos" as well.

Liz Needle  -  linking with  "Friday Greens" and "Floral Friday Fotos"

Photo a Day 89 - Fences

Oh dear, slipped again. Haven't posted for quite a while. No excuse except it's so cold amd miserable that I've been curled up by the fire except when I'm working at school.  Time to catch up. At the moment I am sitting in front of my computer wrapped in a rug while the rest of the family is sitting in front of a cosy wood fire in the lounge.  I am freezing!

Foggy morning the other day and I woke up at dawn and couldn't get back to sleep.  So I rugged up and took my cmera for a walk arounf the garden. I love being out in the garden in the fog.

This shot of the front paddock with the pines in the background looked just right for Tex's "Good Fences" and for "NFs Trees and Bushes

There's a tiny bit of fence in this shot of the dam which is slowly beginning to get a bit of runoff.

And no fence near this Eucalyptus, but I love this old tree. It's slowly losing branches and dying back, but it is pretty ancient and really struggled  before we turned the cow paddock into a garden 40 years ago.

I think this tree merits an entry in NFs Trees and Bushes meme.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Good Fences"

Photo a Day 88 - Reflection

I didn't realise when I took this shot that I had captured a reflection - I thought I was taking a duck. However it turned out quite nicely and it seems to suit this meme. I rather like the colour combination here.

Liz Needle  -  linking with "Weekend Reflections".