The Queen of Seaford: August 2025

Sunday, August 31, 2025

Photo-a-Day Week 35

We are already at the end of another week. Many of this week's photos are outdoor-oriented. As the Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds migrate south, we have more visitors at the feeders and more territorial guarding happening. We have had much cooler temperatures, and it is lovely to be outside, enjoying the weather. So, on with the discussion of each photo.

Day 237-

Love how the sunlight hit this tiny bird's chest. She is guarding a feeder to the left of where this metal hummingbird ornament sits. Fiona is always on guard at the sliding glass door, barking at these little jewels.

Hummingbird on hummingbird

I was on the fence about which of the two photos to use. I used the one I did because the sunlight was brighter on it. Here's the 'reject', also a good photo.

Day 238-

We usually have the green Praying Mantis and its egg sacks around. Seeing a native one is a treat. The native mantis is brown, not green. This one was on our sliding glass door. As I was in and out, refilling the hummingbird feeders, I was worried I would disturb it before I got a photo. This was taken outside, with the trees and sky reflected on the glass.

Carolina Mantis

I did try a shot from inside the house. Not very good.

Day 239-

Driving back from the doctor, we drove past this old Wilson factory. I liked making it black and white. But wait, there's another photoshopped element. Check out the photo below the one used.

Closed Factory

Not only had I changed from black and white, but I was able to remove the truck from the front of the building.

Day 240-

On my way inside I walked past the rose bushes and saw the Katydid on the rose bush. Quick snap of the shutter captured it!

Katydid

Day 241-

One might think my garden is filled with insects, and perhaps you may be correct! I like getting photos of these beauties. It almost looks like this is another black and white photo, but it is as it appeared.

Dragonfly

Day 242-

Yes, another black and white offering. The sunlight sparkled on the spider web, and I had hoped that using a black and white filter would help accentuate the sparkle.

Sunlight on Spider Web

The original one for your viewing. Also tried to crop it to show the web closer. I decided that having the fern and downspout in the photo framed it better.

Day 243-

I like this tight little rose bud. The varied colors made me take notice today. It seems the colors red and white were what I was drawn to today as the discarded photo was also a red and white bloom.

Oso Easy Rose

Here is the discarded red and white bloom, a Salvia. Do you see the tiny ant on the left bloom?

This ends another week of the photo a day challenge. Stay tuned, there's more next week.

Sunday, August 24, 2025

Photo-a-Day Week 34

Welcome back for another week's roundup of the photo challenge. Once again, I will include some of the photos that didn't make the cut. Not every day has more than one photo from which to choose. Let's look at this week's photos.

Day 230-

I really love the structure of the Butterfly weed blooms. Asclepias tuberosa is native to our area, and I have it planted in a few areas in my gardens. The one that is doing the best is this one, in a pot on the deck!

Butterfly Weed

I had another photo in mind for this day, but the Butterfly Weed won out. Here's the runner-up- Illicium parviflorum 'Florida Sunshine' was glowing in the front forest. The morning sun was hitting it just right to really highlight its bold yellow foliage.

Day 231-

More dreary days. This photo might look as though I added a black and white filter, but no, it is just as seen! This is a garden ornament windmill in my front garden. While weeding under it on a windy day, I was surprised by the shadows of the spinning arms. On the ground, it looked like a snake was moving through the garden!

Windmill

Another discarded photo- Cypress vine bloom. Love how the white pollen dots the bright red petals.

Day 232-

This time of year, we have lots of dragonflies and damselflies. This one was so tiny, it was hard to get a good photo. This is an Orange Bluet damselfly. Pretty little thing.

Orange Bluet, damselfly

A rejected photo was a Blue Dancer damselfly. Too blurry to use for the photo of the day.

Day 233-

I was at the Charlotte Douglas Airport, and near my gate was a sculpture of an airplane tail. I liked how the light bounced off the floor. Using a black and white filter really accentuated the light and shadows.

Charlotte

Day 234-

This photo was in the Philadelphia Airport, looking out the window as I walked to my gate. The rail transit is another way to get to the airport. A photo taken quickly and not edited. In hindsight, I would have cropped the bottom up a little bit. Oh well.

Transit

Day 235-

On the drive home, I was routed through town; usually, we take a truck route around town. They were resurfacing the truck route, so I had the opportunity to capture a quick shot of some of the downtown area of Clinton, SC. I like how the different storefronts are different colors. (FYI- I was at a stoplight)

Clinton town square

Day 236-

More rain, now more mushrooms. I like observing some of the different mushrooms around the yard. Again, using a black and white filter, bringing the shadows and shapes into view.

Fungi

The unused photo is the photo in color. Which do you prefer?

That's a wrap for this week. Come again next Sunday.

Sunday, August 17, 2025

Photo-a-Day Week 33

Another week has come and gone, and I still haven't shared the discarded photos. I have amassed many of them. My thought now is whether or not to include the chosen photo along with the ones not chosen. Moving forward, I will include them in the weekly round-up of photos. Not every day has a few photos from which to choose.

If you follow along on Facebook with the daily photo-a-day posts, you might have noticed I misnumbered the photos again. Not sure where my head is!! The numbers have been corrected, and I will try to be more careful about the numeral that goes with the photo.

Day 223-

I was gathering items for donation and going through 'treasure boxes' in my closet and I found my Girl Scout sash. After posting it on Facebook, I received several fellow Scouts who also had their sashes. I thought I still had my GS Handbook, but after searching, I couldn't find it. There are a couple of bins that I haven't gone through where it might be, but if it isn't there, I am out of ideas of where it might be. So for now, hope springs eternal that it is somewhere to be found. I will let you know if I find it.

Achievements

photo not chosen- this ant was carrying its dead 'friend' across the driveway, moving quickly. I chose the sash over the ant.

Day 224-

We get a lot of spiders in the landscape in the fall. My girlfriend in NY asked if this was one of the Jojo spiders. I am not sure, I wish I had taken more photos of it to get another view, but I didn't. So for this spider, it will just be listed as a spider.

Spider

photo not chosen- raindrops on a spider web over an Iris. An interesting photo, but, eh, not chosen.

Day 225-

We have had so much rain this month. 10.27" so far and we are only a little past halfway through the month. Our average for August is 3.92". With that rain comes some amazing skies. Clouds always fascinate me,

Strange Skies

photo not chosen- I did crop and adjust the lighting for this photo. What I saw in the sky wasn't as vibrant in the photo.

Day 226-

We were in the parking lot at the grocery store and the truck next to us had HUGE tires. Thought it would make a good photo. Making it black and white added to the depth of the tread.

Tire

photo not chosen- I needed to crop and add the black and white filter. With the tire and the asphalt it doesn't look too different, but the truck is a dark blue.

Day 227-

While walking Fiona during a break from the rain, I noticed this stump that has put forth a lot of new growth with all the rain. Hardwoods will continue to sprout from a stump. Cutting like this is called 'coppicing'. Some trees are coppiced to harvest young wood. Oak, hazel, ash, willow, and chestnut are good trees to coppice. This one is an elm. Not a practice I recommend for the average garden. Pines do not sprout like hardwoods.

Coppiced

No extra photos to consider for this day.

Day 228-

Like I said, lots of rain! I was trying to get the wind and the rain in the photo, but no, just a gray, subdued photo.

Rainy night

Again, no extra photos for this day.

Day 229-

We have lots of Goldenrod coming up in our yard. The sun was just hitting the almost open blooms, and it seemed to glow. I imagine this is Solidago altissima, as it is so tall. Also near the Goldenrod are some Golden Asters. They have not begun to bloom yet.

Goldenrod Aglow

I hope you have enjoyed seeing some of the discarded/rejected photos for the daily offering. There are still a few I want to share in a post that I disregarded from earlier this year. Thanks for reading this week.

Sunday, August 10, 2025

Photo-a-Day Week 32

Week 32 has come to a conclusion. These weeks are zooming by at a rapid speed. This has been a very rainy week. From the forecast, this coming week will also bring a lot of rain. Hoping those who need it will receive some. Our rainfall is well over the average. Time will tell.

Day 216-

As I mentioned last week, Fiona loves to watch the hummingbirds at the feeders. She has been getting pretty wound up, barking at the tiny hummingbirds. She is now sporting her correction collar. It is a collar that I can hit the sound bell, a vibration, or a bit of a shock. I have only ever hit the sound bell. She knows what she should and shouldn't do.

Focused

Day 217-

The rain came down in buckets, and the water droplets were hanging off of everything. I thought it would be a good choice for that day's picture.

Raindrops on Crabapples

Day 218-

This little dog loves to stare at me. Charlie thinks she is trying to herd me, get me to move, take her out to play, or whatever. Who knows what goes on in her head.

"What?"

Day 219-

After the rain, all sorts of fungi have been popping up. These were so little, I almost couldn't find them from one minute to the next. I was outside, tossing the rings and disc for the dogs and I noticed these pink mushrooms. From the moment I noticed them to the next, when I got my cellphone out of my back pocket, I lost them. In the photo below, you see the pine straw needles, dwarfing the mushroom. It wasn't until I looked at my photo that I realized there was dog hair in the picture. Dog hair is everywhere!

Tiny Mushroom with dog hair

Day 220-

Our riding lawn mower needed some fixing, and my husband was busy working on it. Before I jumped in the shower, I asked if he needed anything. He needed another set of hands, so I delayed the shower for a bit. One last thing was to put the cable back into the slot and put a Cotter pin through the hole. Of course, it is above the mowing deck, facing away from us, toward the center of the mower, and is difficult to see. We were successful in completing the task and the mower has a new belt and is back together.

Put the Cotter Pin Where?

Day 221-

While pulling weeds in the front, I noticed a small Green Tree Frog in the Pitcher plant. The shorts I had on did not have pockets, so I didn't have my phone on me. As I was almost done for the day, I finished up my chores for the day, and cleaned up. Once I grabbed my phone and went back out, I was worried it might have moved somewhere else. I first saw the Anole on top and figured the frog was gone. Moving around to the open side of the Pitcher plant, there was the Green Tree Frog, still inside the throat of the plant, and Mr. Anole, sitting on top!

Anole and Green Tree Frog

Day 222-

Don't we all have a bundle of cables and wires? Every device needs its own cord to get charged. I need to move some of the less-often-used ones to the desk in the back room.

Charging Station

I haven't forgotten that I will do a reject photo post. Come back again for more photos.

Sunday, August 3, 2025

Photo-a-Day Week 31

Welcome back to another week's wrap-up for my photo-a-day challenge. I have been toying with the idea of sharing some of the "rejects". Some days I take several potential photos. Keep an eye out for that post coming up. We were in New Jersey on Sunday and then drove home on Monday. If you like quaint beach towns, Cape May is worth checking out. There aren't the high-rise hotels, but Victorian homes with lots of gingerbread details. There are lots of cute shops, and a trolley that you can take for a tour of Cape May. It was an outpost during World War II, and there's a lighthouse you can walk up, 199 steps. We took a Salt Marsh tour that I mentioned in my last post. We stayed in a house on the bay side of the point, and literally had the beach to ourselves. It was a perfect spot for the little ones to explore, build sandcastles, and rescue horseshoe crabs from being stranded at low tide.

Day 209-

We went into Cape May to see some of the shops. As we drove down the street, there was a bicycle shop on the corner. We stopped at the light, quickly got my cell phone camera out, and snapped a photo. After many filter adjustments, I decided to go with the black and white image.

Bicycle Shop

Day 210-

On our drive home I took all sorts of photos of items along the way. The one below was the winner for the day's photo. I guess it is equipment for electrical lines.

Crazy things you see on the road

Day 211-

We have these wildflowers all over our yard. I like to let a good bit of them stay. Their vines tendril around anything in their way to support their growth upward. If it is strangling a shrub or plant I want to keep, I will pull the pea vine off. There are a couple Butterfly Peas native to our area. This one, Spurred Butterfly Pea, Centrosema virginianum, is prevalent in my garden. There is a non-native one, Clitoria ternatea, that is used as a tea to create beautiful purple drinks.

Centrosema virginianum, Spurred Butterfly Pea

Day 212-

As the cold front was working its way through our area, we had some amazing cloud formations. Kind of like the black and white image - makes the clouds stand out.

Flat bottom clouds

Day 213-

I love the shape of the Toad Lily. This one is Tricyrtis formosana 'Gilt Edge'. I also have a white one that is a pass-along plant from my dear friend Julie. The deer like these little blooms, so some years I have fewer than other years.

Gilt Edge Toad lily

Day 214-

We have a sundial in our garden along the driveway. This garden needs a lot of attention. Wildflowers and grasses have overrun the area. A good fall cleanup is in order.

Time Stands Still

Day 215-

This morning we had four hummingbirds fighting over the feeder. There may have been more than four but I am sure there were at least four. This little female was stretching her neck to get a good look over the feeder to see if other hummingbirds would attack! Our Border Collie, Fiona, has been watching this aerial show for the past few days. It is cute except she barks at the birds and gets the German Shepherd involved in the barking, too loud!!!

Stretch that Neck

Thus concludes our weekly wrap-up. Hope you enjoyed a little more insight into the photos. Stay tuned for my post on those that didn't get chosen as the photo of the day.

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