Author: alejna

Wild rabbit-duck illusion

Last year, as the last of the snow was melting from around our house at the end of March, a blob of lingering snow caught my eye. “It looks like a duck,” I may have thought. On second glance, it looked like a rabbit. And then I realized that I had spotted the rare wild rabbit-duck. The rabbit-duck is most frequently seen in captivity, on display in discussions of optical illusions, visual processing, and perceptual organization. (The rabbit-duck even has a picture book about it. Though that may actually be about the duck-rabbit.)

What say you? Do you see a rabbit? Do you see a duck? Or do you, perhaps, simply see a blob of dirty melting snow?

trying to get my ducks in a row

I’m finding it challenging to get back in the habit of daily blogging. I always want there to be some sort of sense or order to my posts, but life is just too chaotic these days to invest a lot of time and thought. So, instead I will throw in a bunch of rubber ducks.

driftwood (friday foto finder)

The theme for this week’s friday foto finder is “driftwood,” which while rather intriguing as a theme, is also rather specific. My photo archives are not adrift with driftwood. Happily, the theme did bring to mind a spot we sometimes visit in the summer along the Hudson River, where we have admired chunks of driftwood along the river bank.

These photos were all from June of 2013.

To see what other chunks of wood have washed up on others’ shores, pay a visit to the fff blog.

distorted views through ice

Part of what was keeping me busy over the last few months was winter. It was a long hard winter. There was so very much ice and snow. Record-breaking quantities of snow.

I love to take pictures of ice and snow, but I had more than my fill. Today was the first day since the first day of spring when it actually felt a bit like spring. Now that the thaw is under way, I can look back at some of my ice photos without whimpering. As much.

These are some photos I took through our breakfast nook windows. This ice was due to some early stages of ice dams. (I’m sure I’ll have more to say about ice dams.) The ice was really quite beautiful, sparkling in the morning sunlight, bending and molding the grid lines of the screen into curves and whorls.

It’s really quite hard to reconcile this sparkling beauty with the knowledge that it was the herald of thousands of dollars worth of damage to the house.

not so grand reopening

Um. Hi. I’m back. Yes, it’s been a while.

Somehow, after posting every single day for 3 and a half months, I managed to drop the ball, and stop posting entirely for…3 and a half months. On average, that means I’ve put up a post every 2 days for the past 7 months! That sure does sound like a frequent rate of posting.

I’m not really going to get into why I stopped posting so abruptly, or why it took me so long to get back to it. The short story is that my life got too full. There were so many demands on my time and energy that something had to give. I don’t think I would have consciously chosen to put blogging on hold, but somehow, that’s what happened. But I never intended to stop blogging. I miss it.

So, I’m back, and even considering posting daily again. At least for a month. At the very least, I promise to post on days…when I post.

remnants of fall

Even though I have mostly moved on from photos of leaves to photos of snow and ice, it is still officially fall for another 8 days. I wasn’t especially thinking of that when I took these photos in the woods behind my house this afternoon. I was just admiring the way the fern leaves curled and contrasted with the sharp straight lines of the pine needles.

The late afternoon sun also cast some crisp sharp shadows on these crisp leaves.

boughs of holly (friday foto finder: Christmas Decoration)

This week’s friday foto finder theme is “Christmas Decoration.” My own halls remain undecked, but these holly boughs I came across last December would make an attractive decoration. Except all the snow on them would melt and leave puddles in the halls. Does the song specify that the boughs of holly should be free of ice and snow? Because that could be a real mess.

To see what festive arrangements might be decking some other halls, ride your sleigh over to the fff blog.