Happy New Year All!


     Hopefully I will be keeping up with my picture blog this year.  For the past couple of years I have spent my energies with my brother who had throat cancer.  Sadly he died last April and I have been grieving off and on since and doing only what was needed.  I have taken pictures off and on during this period which I may share later.   A private goal I had was to start or get back  into things in the new year.
  I do not regret spending the time with my brother at all. It was an amazing  opportunity for us to open up with each other and really share thoughts and really communicate.  I have learned so much from my brother and a lot about myself.  I am grateful for his time we had and his willingness to open up to me. 

Ice Castle at Loon Mountain

Last night a friend and I drove up to Loon to snowshoe and view the Ice Castle display at night.  There were "hallways" , a waterfall, and little "rooms".  

Below are 4 pictures from inside the ice castle.  Some of the ice castle had white lights embedded in them and some had lights that changed color from orange, blue, green and purple.  As I understand it, the ice castle will continue to be added to throughout the winter season.

In the picture above, the ice took on a shape of a dog to me.

In the above picture, I was just getting ready to take the shot when 2 people came around the corner.  As soon as they saw my camera and I, they immediately turned around and walked out of sight which gave them a ghostly appearance.  

Early in January, I noticed ice crystals around the edge of this lake and along with it these 2 ducks.
I thought the ice crystals made an interesting design with little puffs of "cotton" throughout.

Dragonfly

One morning in the summer, I discovered this lovely red dragonfly on my clematis.  It stayed there long enough to take several shots.

Flowers growing in my garden:  a variety of Helenium autunale

Big Blue Heron

I love daisys  and lupines... tried to get a shot of a busy bee in one picture.

Thoughts about the blog

Over Christmas I thought I could start up my blog again and did but I find there are too many things on my plate to continue on a consistent basis.  I will return every now and then to post more pictures.

Also I am trying to decide on a different place to post the more of the France pictures and providing a link.  I didn't want to make the France post too cumbersom.

 I am thinking also that perhaps my flower pictures are a little redundant.. I do like Georgia O'keeffe's work, esp her work RE flowers and have attempted to get closeups but realize I am not getting in close enough.  a work in progress as they say.

My brother says that sometimes he feels like he is brilliant or has done something brilliantly and sometimes he feels like he's not.. cannot remember his entire quote.  I'd have to say, I feel the same way.. sometimes things just click and I'm on top of the world and other times I feel like the expression lower than a snakes belly.

 I'm still trying to decide on a camera.. toget a good DSLR .... with good macro lens, telephoto or get a  camera that does it all like the latest lumenex cameras..  Expensive choices.. still thinking.  I need to go down to a good camera store.. and get the feel of these cameras in my hand.. someone told me Hunts in Manchester was a good place.