Tag: photos

old thyme photos (friday foto finder: herbs)

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that I am not capable of talking about thyme without making puns.

This week’s friday foto finder challenge is “herbs.” Well, actually, it’s “HERBS.” So maybe I should have tried to finds some Herbs, not herbs. I don’t actually know any Herbs. I did learn that there is a slang meaning of herb (with the h pronounced) that means, more-or-less, “dork.” I don’t know if admitting that I learned that on Urban Dictionary makes me a herb. Let’s pretend not.

Anyhow, I seem to have gotten sidetracked by herbs (h pronounced) while looking for herbs (silent h). I did find some herbs, but not much in the way of an interesting photo. I did remember that I’d gotten some thyme as part of my experience belonging to a CSA in 2007, and tracked down this old photo, which features some thyme hanging out with some veggies. So, we have an old photo of thyme.

Then I vaguely remembered having bought some fresh herbs to use in preparing my Thanksgiving feast. Remarkably, the package of thyme has held up quite well in my refrigerator. I was amused to see that the label says “Infinite.” No wonder it has lasted so well, being infinite thyme. (I never realized I was someone with infinite thyme on my hands. Or in my vegetable drawer.)

But wait! It gets older! When I was checking to see if there was anything interesting of the herbal variety in my spice cabinet, I found this bottle of “Organic Lemon Thyme,” which someone long ago had lovingly labeled with masking tape and bubble letters. This is not actually thyme that I have used, and I didn’t really mean to save it. I liked the bottle, which had been in an apartment I lived in when I was an undergraduate. That was over 20 years ago.

This, my friends, is some old thyme.

To see what other herbs have been dug up, pay a visit to the fff blog. Have some herbs you want to share? There’s still time to play along!

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poissons d’avril

Okay, I took this picture of fish in February, not April. But it’s April now, and I’m pretty sure the fish are still more or less where I left them. (Which was in the Japanese Tea Gardens in Golden Gate Park.) I liked the way this group of koi displayed such a range of colors.

My post title, in case you were wondering, is a reference to the way the first of April is celebrated in France, a sort of fish-themed April Fool’s Day. The main tradition is to put a piece of paper in the shape of a fish on the back of an unsuspecting person, and to shout “poisson d’avril!” (translation: “April fish!”) when the fish is discovered. I kid you not.¹

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¹ I kid you not, but I would totally try to sneak a paper fish onto your back.

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.

daily bloggin’, no foolin’

I have decided to post every day this month, and I am totally not making an April Fool’s Day joke. I considered writing some sort of funny post for today, but I didn’t. I did, however, enjoy playing a few jokes on the kids, who were very excited about the whole thing. This is the breakfast that I had ready for them when they came downstairs:

A wholesome bowl of wooden blocks, with a side of crunchy raw new potatoes, and a glass of fresh-squeezed rainbow loom bands.

This is going to be a busy month for work/school, getting ready for a couple of conferences coming up in May. I have also decided to try a month-long home organization project called The Subtraction Project. The decision to blog daily this month is because I just really want to. I still have a lot of stories I want to get out of my system, and pictures I just want to put out there. (You can expect to see some photos of ice from my extensive collection. And seeing as it looks like the spring weather has arrived, there will probably be flowers.)

The 8-legged butterflies of Nara, Japan

10 years ago, I was lucky enough to go to Japan for a conference. The conference itself was held in Nara, a very old city whose historical monuments are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There I visited Todai-Ji, a temple housing the largest bronze Buddha statue in the world. The large wooden temple also housed a number of other statues and decorations, including these giant butterflies perched on enormous vases. (I don’t remember exactly how big they were, and my photos are unhelpful in terms of offering things for scale, but you can sort of make out some people heads in the lower left corner of the first photo.)

I was particularly intrigued to notice that the butterflies all had 8 legs, rather than the usual 6.

I found that I was quite charmed by them.

I’m just rather sorry that my point-and-shoot camera didn’t do as well with the trick low-light conditions as my current camera does. I will just have to go back to get new photos some day.

This week’s friday foto finder theme was “butterfly.” I have posted on butterflies many times before (including a ThThTh list as well as some of my own photos), but somehow had not yet managed to post these curiosities. To see what other butterflies have been collected, pay a visit to the fff blog.

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cold comfort

Last week’s friday foto finder theme was “comfort.” If you’re out and about walking, it can be a comfort to find a bench to sit on.

Perhaps not, though, if you happen to be walking in New England in winter. Unless your idea of comfort includes having a seriously cold backside.

This bench looks not only cold, but lumpy.

I’ve often thought that fresh fallen snow looks beautifully soft and pillowy. Given enough winter clothing, these chairs might actually be pretty comfortable with their fluffy white cushions….

(This photo was from my archives, taken in December, 2008.)

These snowy cushions, however, are really quite over the top. Literally.¹

This photo was from February, 2011. That was a very long, very snowy, very miserable winter. Even more so than this year. I’m happy to say that after a few days of temperatures well above freezing, our deck is now almost completely clear of snow. Which is good, as we might have more snow on the way this week. (I feel for my friends up in parts of Canada who have not so much of a thaw, and whose decks look still largely like this photo. Take comfort, friends. Spring will surely arrive…some day.)

To see other people getting comfortable with this theme, head on over to the fff blog and set a spell.

¹ I do mean literally literally. Not figuratively.² That snow reaches over the tops of the chairs.
² I received an email from Tumblr recently with the subject line “Your Dashboard is literally on fire.” I found this rather alarming. In case of an actual fire, an email is perhaps not the best means of communication.

Bidding Winter goodbye

Tomorrow is the official first day of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Unfortunately, in the particular part of the Northern Hemisphere where I live, Winter seems not to have gotten that message.

I’ve gone into Boston for meetings the last couple of days, and the snow is all but gone there. Roofs, roads, and ground are free of snow and ice, save for the occasional fist-sized stubborn lump of ice remaining from what once have been a mighty mound.

Not so in my neck of the woods. Here is my front yard:

This is the mound of snow and ice resulting from shoveling out the top of the driveway. This was this morning. It was 20 degrees out.

It’s true that I have really enjoyed looking at and taking pictures of many of the ice and snow formations.

I have many, many photos of ice and snow. Icicles, frost, falling snow. Snow flakes, snow men, snow caves. Sparkling ice in the morning sun. Smooth frozen puddles with embedded bubbles and cracks. Fluffy untrampled snow, and interesting patterns of tracks in the snow. Quite honestly, I am about ready to move on to another subject matter.

Soon, I hope to fill up my phone with images of green shoots and early blooms. Unfortunately , this is where our first crocuses tend to emerge:

There are many things that I like about Winter. One of them is that it eventually ends and gives way to Spring. So, here’s wishing a fond farewell to Winter. (And here’s hoping that Winter gets the message and departs. Before I have to file a restraining order against it.)

Shiny Apple Pi (and some peach pie pi, too)

This week’s friday foto finder theme is “shiny.” I have loads of photos of shiny things in my photo library, but seeing as it’s Pi Day, I coudln’t resist including some pi (and some pie).

Apple pi, on a shiny plate. (The apple is pretty shiny, too.)


A shiny pi server.


Here is this year’s annual Pi Day pie, which was somewhat experimental: a peach blueberry pie with a crust topping in the shape of pi, and filled out with circles of pie crust (each of which had the circumference of roughly 2πr). To see some of the other pi pies from my past, check out my old post, easy as pi.

To see what other shiny bits people are sharing, check out the fff blog.

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