Tag: flowers

orange ruffles

These ruffly orange flowers caught my eye over the weekend while at a farm for apple picking.

As best I can tell from a quick googling, they are some sort of marigold. (But if anyone knows more specifically what they are, please share!)

fire and water

Today was a wet and rainy day, and once more I found my eyes drawn to the water drops that collected on various plants. At the farm where I went to buy eggs, these bright red and yellow flowers caught my attention, with petals that looked to my eyes like raindrop-covered flames.

an assortment of leaves wearing water drops

After yesterday’s dried out and rather monochromatic leaf images, I figured I’d branch out to some more colorful and much less dry leaves.


Periwinkle leaves (and flowers).


English ivy.


Leaves of a blueberry bush.


Hydrangea leaves.


Fallen oak leaves.

Have I mentioned before that I’m a sucker for water drops? Oh, right. Yup.

a few specimens of stone flora from Dublin

For someone who is not especially fond of flowers, and for someone who has been known to kill off plants in my care, I sure do take a lot of photos of plants and flowers.

I also enjoy taking pictures of buildings, and their interesting details as they catch my eye. It shouldn’t surprise me, therefore, to have discovered that I had amassed a collection of plants and flowers carved from stone that adorned various buildings around Dublin.

All of these were taken in Dublin in May of this year, during my visit there for a conference.

It would have been great if I’d made note of which buildings, or at least which locations, bore these interesting details. Of course, I didn’t.

late summer flowers glowing in the late afternoon sun

To follow up yesterday’s flowers in the rain, today I offer some sunnier fare.


A sunflower and visiting bee from 2 years ago.


Blue and purple wildflowers by Salisbury beach a few weekends ago.


Flame-colored astilbes I saw at the zoo this weekend.

blooming tree in the summer rain

This summer brought its share of rainy days. The Fourth of July turned out to be one such rainy day, leading to many cancelled plans for picnics, barbecues and fireworks. I was in the middle of a frantic work stretch, however, so the rain didn’t much dampen my spirits.

Some friends were kind enough to entertain the kids along with their own kids for the day, while John and I both did work. In the late afternoon, while waiting for my children to be delivered home, I noticed that the sun was trying to break through the clouds, and was lighting the leaves and flowers on the tree next to our front porch.

I grabbed my camera, and stood under the shelter of the porch, and was captivated by the sparkling water drops. (I am such a sucker for water drops.)

Really, I should have also grabbed the tripod, but I didn’t intend it to be an extended photo shoot.

On a side note, I don’t actually know what kind of tree this is. Its deep, dark red blooms appear in early summer. I do like their understated appearance.

O, blogger, where art thou?

Somehow, I managed to let over 2 weeks pass since I last posted. I have been back from Dublin for over a week. It took me a while to readjust to local time, and I spent the week following my return in a bit of a fog. And a bit of a funk.

I didn’t manage to post anything while in Dublin, in large part because the internet connection I had where I stayed was pretty slow. (Okay, pretty agonizingly slow.) While there was a better connection at the conference venue itself, I didn’t tend to bring my laptop with me to the conference. Also, I was generally pretty busy being out and about seeing things, at least when not hunkered down and working and/or conferencing. I did, however, take plenty of photos, which I do hope to share here. (How many times have I said that? Well, I do always hope to.) In any case, the trip was wonderful, and I was charmed by Dublin.

Since I’ve been back, I’ve come close to posting a couple of times, but ran out of either time or steam. Or both.

I’ve been pretty busy since I’ve been back, too, especially the last couple of days. And I’m going to be pushing forward with my degree over the coming months.

Really, these photos have nothing to do thematically with what I’m writing about here, but I wanted to start posting something, and I liked these photos of raindrops on some flowers in my yard that I took last week. These were taken with my iPhone, and I am sometimes amazed at the clarity that its little camera can manage.

So, I’m back home. And back to blogging. (Expect to see some Dublin photos soon!)

signs of spring

After all my moaning and groaning about the way Winter was overstaying its welcome, Spring showed up on our doorstep rather unexpectedly. (Happily, Spring does not need to stay in the guest room, because we usually aren’t prepared for unexpected visitors.) A few days and nights with temps above freezing greatly diminished the snow piles, and on Saturday I saw our first open crocuses.

I may have done a happy dance.

A week earlier, our crocus patch had looked like this:

Little green shoots peeking out tentatively, taking advantage of the snow pile’s recent retreat.

We had some minor setbacks, with Winter trying to muscle back in with a sleet storm on Monday. The crocuses closed up tight.

Is it just me, or do these crocuses look rather irritated?

I’m happy to say that yesterday, Spring came back, and the crocuses and I enjoyed the warm, bright sun.

Today, the temperature even reached as high as 60 degrees! (Only the most stubborn of the snow piles remain, hiding out in the shadows.)

The crocuses and I agreed that today felt like Spring has settled in.