International Faery Day

Rosina, who usually hangs out in my back garden, says, "Don't forget, today is International Faeries Day!  We'll be celebrating all evening and all through the night, until the stars go back to sleep for the day.  Keep your eyes open...you just might see one of us!"

Faeries Friday

"Sometimes Fairy stories may say best what's to be said."  C. S. Lewis  (photo from Pinterest ).  

Sunday Sunlight

I took this back in June of 2008.  It was growing in someone else's garden, but they didn't mind if I took a photo, bless them.

Faeries Friday - Sunflower

This is Sunflower.  I only see her in the summer months, and I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of her very early one morning just before the dawn.  And, wasn't I lucky to have my camera in my hand! ;-)  She quickly flew out the open window and up through the dogwoods just outside my studio.  I suppose she was flying off to the sunflowers in the little meadow just up the mountain slope from my studio.  She helps them to open up in the morning and sings them to sleep in the evening.  She has lots and lots of relatives so the next time you're around a field of sunflowers keep a sharp lookout...you just might see a Sunflower Faery!

Wordless Wednesday - Floating

Dollar Lake

(Alpine Shooting Star, Dollar Lake, elevation 9,288 feet, San Bernardino Mountains, CA)

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike."  John Muir

Dollar Lake is one of my favorite places.  It's hard to get to even though it isn't that far from where I live...if I were a Raven and could fly there.  It's located in the San Gorgonio Wilderness (95,903 acres) nearly at the top of the North Face of Charlton Peak (elevation 10,806 feet) and is a 10 mile hike from the nearest trailhead.  During those 10 miles there is a vertical gain of about 4,000 feet, so it's a pretty steep trail, and the trail isn't much of a trail.  But once I get there...ahhh, complete solitude and an utter lack of human-made sounds, as long as I don't go up there in the summer months.  (At Dollar Lake's elevation summer occurs in July and August).  I usually go by myself and camp for at least three days and it really is a healing experience "to body and soul alike."

Sunday Sunlight

This was taken last May while I was walking on the path that goes around Lake Arrowhead.  The sun had almost set, and I was alone on the path, when I came upon a Dogwood tree that some idiotic, thoughtless person had ripped a lot blossoms from and then just left them there on the ground.  Really, what is wrong with some people?  Oh, right.  I already answered that; they're idiotic and thoughtless.  Anyway, the way it was holding the light caught my attention.  After I photographed it I took it and the other victims home, where they floated in bowls of water for several days.  Every time I looked at them I wondered if the person who ripped them off the tree knew, or cared, about the berries that the center of the blossoms would have turned into this coming Autumn and how many birds might go hungry because those berries weren't there. 

Of course, there are lots of other Dogwood trees in this forest, so, hopefully, no birds will go hungry.  I guess what really got to me was the expression of a total disconnect from, and lack of respect for, Nature.

Faeries Friday

This is my newest Faery.  I don't know her name yet because I didn't want to wake her up from her nap and risk...well, you know. 

Not Again!

The black kitty on the right is Stella when she was a kitten, but her look captures perfectly how I feel.  My computer got the SAME virus that it had a couple of weeks ago.  SCREEEEEEM!!

When I got it back this time, it didn't have all my photos in it where they should be, so I'm hunting through the hard drive, finding them from the list I have on Seagate (thank God/dess I backed everything up).  When I copy them to the proper folder it makes 3 separate copies in a different file.  If I delete even one of these copies, they ALL disappear.  FOREVER! 

So I'm finding that screaming every now and then acts like a pressure release valve.  Plus, it scares the heck out of my husband .... and that always makes me laugh! 

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEM!!!