The Queen of Seaford: clouds

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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 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.

Sunday, June 15, 2025

Photo-a-Day Week 24

Welcome to this week's post about the photo a day photos for the past week. If you saw any of my posts on Instagram or Facebook about the Fling, you'll know I want to write about a wonderful community school garden that we visited in Memphis. Stay tuned.

Without further ado, here are last week's photos with a little more information about each.

Day 160-

One evening on the Fling, a handful of us went to Gus's Fried Chicken for dinner. It was supposed to be 6/10th of a mile but after a long day visiting gardens, we were pooped. The walk seemed a lot longer. After dinner, we walked down a different block to get back to our hotel. It was the famous Beale Street. There were neon lights galore and music coming from every establishment. It was certainly a hoppin' place to be.

Beale Street

Day 161-

On our way to the Cooper-Young gardens we went past this decorative crosswalk. I was ready with cell camera in hand as we had driven this route the day (or two?) before and I knew this crosswalk would be coming into view. Yes, from the bus angle it is upside down swimming fish, but fun nonetheless.

Crosswalk

Day 162-

Once home I was looking forward to seeing the full moon. Sometimes I feel like a real "lunatic", the full moon is magical to me. We had a storm earlier in the evening and I wasn't sure a view of the moon would be in the cards for me to get a photo, but the clouds cleared. The moon was higher in the sky but through the trees and with a few clouds, made for a better photo.

Strawberry Moon

Day 163-

A quick walk through the backyard garden brought me to this jelly fungus along the side trail. This is Exidia recisa, a fungus that grows on dead limbs and twigs. We have so many fungi growing on our trees, dead limbs, and stumps, etc. I find them fascinating to see.

Jelly Fungus

Day 164-

Long views of clouds interest me. We have our usual summer storms that pop up in the late afternoon and generally they bring rain, though sometimes they blow by us without a drop. This one dropped about a 1/3 of an inch of rain.

Storm's a'coming

Day 165-

We have lots of frogs in our garden. These little Green Tree Frogs are pretty docile frogs. They don't hop away as soon as they see you, so getting a photo isn't too hard. This one was a really young one, so tiny. The leaf is the foliage of Bletilla striata 'Big Bob' and is just over an inch wide. Eryngium planum 'Blue Glitter' in the foreground is just starting to turn its lovely blue color.

Just hangin' on my leaf

Day 166-

This spring our neighborhood finally came into the current century. Our internet options were slim to none before fiber optics were installed. Many of us were thrilled to get something that was going to give us more than 30-50 Mbps. We stream TV over Wi-Fi, need Wi-Fi for our cell service (dead zone) so if we lose internet, we are without a lot. The line that went over the road at the back gate hung low. Thursday they were working on getting it hung better. It looked good but Friday we were out of internet. It was fixed, we thought, late Friday evening, then Saturday it was out again. While many in the neighborhood are retired, not all are. They work from home and need a good connection. Happy ending, internet restored and we are getting over 350 Mbps, more than enough to watch TV and write this blog post.

Hoping to be Reconnected Soon

Watch for a Fling post or two to pop up this week. It was a wonderful Fling but am glad to be home. I know two dogs, one cat, and a sweet husband missed me.

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