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.
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.
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!)
This first day of May started out chilly and rainy. Happily, it was not raining hard as the kids and I waited for the school bus, so we didn’t need to huddle under an umbrella. As we waited, the water drops on the pine trees along the driveway caught my eye, as they have before. I tried to get some photos with my phone, but in the low light of the dreary day, I could not get the camera to focus where I wanted it. I kept trying for long enough that Phoebe asked, “why do you take so many photos of raindrops on pine needles?” I found myself thinking, “why wouldn’t I?” But I probably said something like, “because they look so cool.”
After the bus came, I had about 45 minutes before I had to leave for an appointment. The plan was to eat breakfast and take a quick shower. Instead, I went back in and got my camera and macro lens set-up, and went back outside. It was raining lightly, and my hair got wet, so I figure this is practically the same as taking a shower.
(While I may not have taken a real shower, I did take quite a few photos.)
It rained today, a little April shower.
I didn’t get any photos of the rain today, but here is a photo from March. I liked the way the drips lined themselves up. (And now I like the way we no longer have snow on the ground. We were away for the weekend, and the last of the snow had departed by the time we returned.)
The drips and drops remind me of the song “Little April Shower,” which I loved as a little girl. We had the record (it must have been a single) and I used to play it over and over on a little plastic record player. I’d do a little dance (not shown). Here is the clip of the song from the Disney movie:
As an adult I have enjoyed the Natalie Merchant version off the album Stay Awake. I can’t believe that even that album is now over 25 years old.
This watery photo is one I fished out of my photo archives from October, 2011. I love the splash of color in the background from the fall foliage, and the splash of … splash from the rain.
As you might guess, this photo was taken when I was a passenger in the car.
I have loads of rain-related photos in my photo library, so it was a tough choice what to post for this week’s friday foto finder theme of rain. Of course, I have already posted rain photos many times, such as:
It would seem that I enjoy taking photos of raindrops, at least as much as I enjoy taking photos of snow. What can I say? Rain drops and rivulets offer such intriguing examples of refraction and distorted reflections.
collecting tokens 