Willy-Nilly Friday Five: 52 Weeks of Blue…

Week 1 – I have been kind of directionless with my photography since I finished my 365 Project on Flickr.  So late last year, I decided I would take up another project but not one quite so intense.  I decided that a 52 Week Project would be a more reasonable idea.  That means that I would pick a theme and take a photo using that theme at least once a week.  I thought about it for a while and came up with a few ideas:  black & white, square format, up-close, food, texture, coffee, numbers & letters and so on.  But what I decided on was simply the color blue.  Blue is my favorite color but when I took a look at my Flickr photostream, I realized that I had almost no blue in it.  That made me think that coming up with 52 Weeks of Blue would be a challenge.  I was right about that.

This is the one I decided on for Week 1:

But I rejected these:

Week 2 – I decided not to put too many parameters on the project other than that blue has to be a main color of the subject of the photo.  In other words, I can’t consider using a picture of a red house with the blue sky as the background as my Blue Shot.  But if the house were blue and the sky red, that would work.

This was the only one I liked for Week 2:

Week 3 – Something I also thought about was that there are many shades of blue.  Most likely, some things I consider to be blue, someone else may think of as green or purple or even grey.  A Google search revealed that there are actually sixty-five shades of blue with names, but I’m not going to try to capture a different blue every week.  I’m not that anal.  I decided that if it looks blue to me that will be good enough for me.  I’m going with my own interpretation of blue.

Here's the one for Week 3:

But I rejected this one.  Do you think the trim on this house is blue?

Week 4 – I got off to a pretty good start because we were traveling and there were blue buildings and signs there for the taking.  But once we returned home, it definitely got harder.  We’ve had some blue skies, but the snow has covered a lot of the blue stuff around here.  But not to be discouraged, I got some of my blue things from around the house and took pictures of them.   I have a lot of blue things.  I even have a cobalt blue bottle that I can’t bear to recycle because of the way the sun hits it in the morning.  But I sure don’t want to use all of my blue things up at the beginning of the project.

Here's Week 4:

But I considered this:

Week 5 – So now I am almost a tenth done with the 52 Weeks of Blue.  With my last 52 week project (52 Weeks of Purple Monkey) I was one week short.  I just couldn’t figure out that 52^nd thing to do with my Purple Monkey.  Surely there are enough blue things lying around so that I will be a success this time.  We’ll see.

This is it for Week 5 and yes, that bigger blue bottle is a gem in my book, but I might just keep the smaller one, too.  That blue is heavenly to me.

Linking up to Tanya's Willy-Nilly Friday Five!

Oranges and Apples...

I’m sitting here very grateful that we have power.  We are currently about half-way through the  nor’easter that was predicted for coastal eastern United States and, boy, do we have us some snow.  But, here in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, the winds that were predicted haven’t arrived yet, so the power remains on.  It’s very cold out, making the snow light and fluffy, not that I’ve tested it yet.  But, I will tell you from much past experience, the light and fluffy beats the heavy, wet stuff any day of the week.

One of my Facebook friends asked if this weather has made me miss Florida yet.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I like visiting Florida, particularly the area where we just were in the northern panhandle, but I’m not, nor will I ever be, someone who would be comfortable living in Florida.

  This is no criticism of the Sunshine State, it’s more a statement of what I like and who I am.  And while this crazy, winter weather can certainly make one miserable for a time, it will pass a lot quicker than the hot, summer days in Florida pass.  They have a misery all their own, in my book.  And I would miss  seeing a winter snowfall now and then.  Of course, I'm not talking blizzard here, but the nice, quiet, normal snow that comes with a nice, normal New England winter.

But it’s oranges and apples.  I am a northern, cool weather loving person and that’s just the way it is.  Different strokes for different folks, right?!

But I took a few pictures while we were in Apalachicola at the beginning of the year.  Don’t say you’re surprised.  And I will post a few here today to contrast with what’s going on outside my window.  Okay, it does look a tad bit inviting, I must admit, but there’s no going back except digitally at this point.

Greg does love his oysters from Up the Creek.

Olive doesn't like oysters, but it doesn't keep her from begging.  She is a dog after all.

The weather wasn’t all that great while we were in Florida.  Okay, it was better there than here temperature-wise, but aside from a couple of sunny days in Apalachicola, it was drab, overcast and cool.  Still, you can’t beat a view like this no matter what the weather.

Here are the oranges:

This was taken off the balcony of the condo we rented on Inlet Beach.  The light, fluffy stuff here is sand.

And here are the apples:

This is not sand.

Hey, the juncos seem to be okay with it.

Stay safe, friends, no matter what the weather has in store for you!

Good Cemetery Fences...

We are very fortunate to be out of the deep freeze right now.  My understanding is that in our area of Massachusetts, the temps are topping off around 7 degrees.  We are cozy in northern Florida in our favorite town of Apalachicola where it's supposed to be in the 40s today.

One of my favorite places in Apalachicola is the Chestnut Street Cemetery of Early Apalachicola that dates prior to 1831.  It's a great old southern cemetery with big, majestic trees draped with Spanish moss, tilted gravestones and old rusty fences.  I am concentrating on the fences here today.  If you ever find yourself in these parts, I would recommend a nice walk through this lovely, peaceful, and historic place.

Linking up with Theresa's Good Fences!

Looking back…

‘Tis the time of year to look back at the year that was.  I have gotten into this habit less from nostalgia and more from needing a concise synopsis of the year to answer questions like:  What year did we go to Timbuktu?  and Didn’t Uncle Sid die in 2013?  So, here goes my first six months of 2013…

In January, while I was still recovering from my knee replacement and nursing the worst cold I've had in years, Greg, Olive, the pug, and I took a road trip from Massachusetts to Apalachicola, Florida.  It was a good antidote for what ailed me.

In February, we got hit with Winter Storm Nemo.  When the heck did they start naming the winter storms anyway?  Nemo was a powerful nor’easter that dropped over 20 inches of snow on us.  We’ve lived in New England long enough to not let that kind of thing hold us back for too long, so my daughter Carrie and I planned an overnight trip out to North Adams, Massachusetts, to visit the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MassMoCA) to see Xu Bing’s Phoenix.  In this photo, you can see the scope of the project, which consists of two huge birds made entirely from materials taken from construction sites in urban China, including demolition debris, steel beams, and tools.  But it is difficult to convey the beauty of the work.  If you are interested in seeing Phoenix in more detail, click here.

March came in like a lion for us and stayed lion-like for a while, but I’ll be damned if I can remember if it went out like a lamb.  In any case, we had more snow to contend with...lots more snow.

Spring finally came to us in April and nothing screams SPRING to me more than the forsythia blooming.  But the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15 shocked and saddened us.

While I stayed home and enjoyed the spring in May, Greg took off on his motorcycle and circumnavigated Lake Superior.  I would enjoy circumnavigating Lake Superior, but in an automobile.

June was a major event for me.  I turned 60 and for my birthday, Greg and I went to Norway.  That’s what Greg gets when he asks me what I want for my birthday.  I guess he figured that it was too much to deny an old woman.  We had a fantastic time in that spectacularly beautiful country!  It could well have been the best birthday gift I’ve ever received.  Sorry, I couldn't stop at one photo.

On the Nærøyfjorden

Scenery above the Arctic Circle.

To be continued…

Fence and fence parts…

The sad truth is that I haven’t picked up my camera since I went out to see Carrie in January.  It’s not that I haven’t wanted to, but the weather has been crummy and I have been busy.  I am hoping for a lull in the weather and the action sometime soon so that I can do a little picture taking.

In the meantime, I figured I got enough stuff from the Chestnut Street Cemetery when we were in Apalachicola to post another fence for Friday’s Fences.  So here’s another one along with a few pics of some fence details.

LINKING TO FRIDAY'S FENCES.

Graveyard fence for Friday Fences...

Here are some photos taken at the Chestnut Street Cemetery of Old Apalachicola.  I love these old places and could wander around them for some time without getting bored or running out of ways to take photos of them.  This cemetery was simply lovely.  What a wonderful place to spend eternity.

This is a close up of the detail on the gate above.

Linking to Friday's Fences.

A few more from Apalach...

We really had a nice time in Apalachicola, Florida.  It’s not the Florida most of us are familiar with.  There are no Disney characters, no high rises blocking the view of the water, no chain restaurants (except for a Burger King on the way out of town to the west).  It’s charming.

Here’s the house we stayed in.  We chose this particular house because we could take the dog with us and we loved that wrap-around porch.  Well, we were very pleased with everything about it.  It’s a beautiful place built with a liberal use of “Pecky Cypress” -- boards that are pocked with holes caused by an underwater worm.  It makes for an interesting and unusual interior.  Here’s the link if you would like to see more pics of the place:  http://www.vrbo.com/443440

Apalach supplies 90% of the oysters in Florida.  I am not an oyster fan, but I do like honey.  While we were there we learned that the only places in the world to find Tupelo Honey are in Apalachicola and along the Nile River.  We stopped at the Piggly Wiggly and picked up a couple containers as souvenirs.

It’s a good place to hang if you like birds.  We saw untold numbers of pelicans and cormorants along with others we weren’t able to identify.  One day while we were driving along I spotted a Bald Eagle flying overhead.  That was cool!

This isn't a Bald Eagle...it's a Cormorant.

One nice thing for us being in the Florida Panhandle is that my nephew Neil and his wife Winona live near Destin, Florida, which is about two hours west of where we were staying.  Sounds like a long way, but it’s a way longer way from Massachusetts, so we took the time to go to Shorty’s Surfside in Grayton Beach to see Winona and to hear Neil play with his current band, Franko & Fiends.  Great fun! 

If you want to go to an actual beach when you are in Apalach, you need to drive about ten minutes to St. George Island.  We know that the beach is Olive’s Favorite Thing, so we took her over so she could frolic in the waves for a little while.  She’s actually on lead in this photo, but I cloned out the leash.  She wanted to feel free for a change. 

The Life and Times of Olive the Pug: Dog on the Move…

The word “go” makes Olive tilt her head and turn around in circles.  So she was plenty happy, after she saw the bags go into the car, when she discovered she was going along on our trip to Florida.

It took us three days to driving to get to Apalachicola, Florida from Central Massachusetts.  That’s three days of sleeping for a dog.  But once we got there, she perked up plenty.  Here are some of Olive’s favorite things about the trip.

One day, we went on a boat ride and Olive was invited along.  When we got to the dock, we discovered that another dog would be joining us.  This is Cooper.  Cooper and Olive decided immediately that they would be friends and both soon settled down and fell asleep.  It’s important to keep your strength up if you are a dog after all.

Pelican and Cormorant living in harmony on the Apalachicola River.

Three days while we were gone, we had lunch at Up the Creek Raw Bar.  This is truly a special place because dogs are welcome.  Olive charmed the wait staff.  They called her by name and brought her bowls of water making her feel like a VID (very important dog).  Now, Apalachicola is the place to be if you are an oyster lover.  Here’s a sample of the oysters Greg got there.  Olive (and I) didn’t want to try them...maybe it would have been different if they were covered in cheese, which is her (and my) favorite thing.

One day while eating lunch at Up the Creek, we saw a dolphin swim by.  And, of course, we saw loads of pelicans and cormorants.  But the best day was the day Olive got to bark a little at (what I think is) a female broad-tailed grackle.  Life can’t get much better than that.

But with all the excitement, it is necessary for a dog to take a nap now and then so at the end of the week, Olive was happy to once again be loaded into the car for the three day trip home.

Seriously, folks, If you like traveling with your dog, Apalachicola is one very dog-friendly place so take Fido along and give it a try.