Ducklings in the Sun

The ducklings in Drumheller fountain were basking in the sunshine this week! They were slumbering together on the duckling ramp the UW puts in the fountain every spring. Aren't they cute?

[I really like the composition on this one below, with the different horizontal stripes broken up by the ducklings (and their own stripes on their eyes and bodies!)]

Then they started waking up

And took a quick dip! With the mother duck keeping an eye on the spectators.

Happy Mother's Day!

The cutest demon bird ever

Exactly what the title of my post says: This is the cutest little demon-looking bird ever. It is an owl, but I don't remember the exact name of it.

Look at the eyes! It is clearly plotting something nefarious.

But he fluffiness factor is totally killing the ability to believe it is evil.

That is the worst kind. They are all cute and fluffy and the evilness sneaks up on you too late!

My Summer So Far....

Okay, so now that I have a bit more time, here is a recap of my summer, as evidence by these pictures! Be warned there is a lot of fun and sarcasm in my personality for this post. I had a lot of fun. I think school is finally getting to me :)

One day, my family woke up and decided to go to the zoo. We have passes because we kind of go crazy about the zoo. So what, we're grown up adults? Never stopped us yet ;) During the penguin feeding, a Great Blue Heron decided to stop by. Such a majestic and HUGE bird!

There was also this classy looking flower-plant by the elephants. The colors look just like the kale from the farmer's market! It makes me happy.

My all time most favorite part of summer are the California poppies. These little kiddos are beautiful from a physical and biological standpoint. When I was in ninth grade, I used to look at all of them in our backyard because they showed dominant, co-dominant, and recessive genes via their color, and I'm kind of obsessed with it. See the orange fading to sunshine yellow? Some of the them are all orange, and some are white! And I think it is so cool that they open and close with the sunrise and sunset!!! Ahhh, okay I'll stop talking about my love affair with these flowers. But just so I can admire their amazingness and beauty, there is this picture above.

A month ago, my mom planted new flowers! This is one of them. I don't remember what it is, but it is so pretty. It sort of reminds me of a lily. I like the seemingly delicate look of the petals. A good flower to give a sweet little girl...

Okay that might have been a slightly weird comment. Sorry. Moving on....

Baby duck! Also called duckling!! I hung out with 3/4 of my old Girl Scout Troop (which was only 4 girls total) at what my city passes for a beach (it is actually a nice one, as far as beaches go). We were sitting on some rocks at the edge of the lake, and this cute little duckling swam by with its [legal?] (does legality apply to ducks?) guardian. We kind of went crazy over its cuteness factor. And discussed other names for baby animals. I had a weird moment when I completely blanked on what a baby dog is called (hint, it isn't doggy). That one goes down in the books for stupid quotes we shouldn't ever repeat :P 

And THIS happened in my house. Yuuup, we are fully capable of producing flowering tropical plants in the Pacific NW. I was fiddling around with the manual a bit here, and this lovely picture happened. Taken at the dead of night (when I finally noticed that something bloomed that wasn't there before. I said we could keep the plants alive, not that we are very aware of them... :P ) with artificial lighting. Looks like it was taken during the day if you ignore the grossly lit wall in the background, eh? 

And on one of our hot (80 degrees F, haha) days, I braved a walk out to this lake near my old high school where I used to sit with The Boyfriend. The Boyfriend suggested I draw a picture of the lake from "our spot" but I couldn't without a picture (Problems of a picky drawer....). So I braved walking on a windy path past scary barking and howling dogs of all sizes and random sketchy guys smoking sort-of-legal substances (i.e. weed) to take this picture and a few others. (Guilt tripping....haha. The Boyfriend better appreciate his drawing when he gets it :P ). A lot of people were out, as evidenced by these kids.

 I liked the resulting framing of the trees and brick detail in this picture. It looks like we are looking through a window into a different scenery.

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So that was my summer so far...how was yours?

Farmer's market

Hello, summer has been so busy, and I've been taking summer classes so I haven't had as much time as I would like to take and post pictures.Gray cement buildings can only be so photogenic :P

But, I finally got out into the sun today on a trip to my neighborhood's farmer's market. I love the variety of produce and array of colors! Here are some pictures of the colors:

I love the colors of kale. You think they are just a bland green when you hear the name. But it turns out to be bleached turquoise with the edges and veins a sneaky shade of purple. The cool frosty color reminds me of winter. I am in love with the look of kale.

Red chili peppers!

Have you ever seen colored carrots? I think they look cute! All the pastel colors running into each other....

old summer photo

Here's a photo I took last year when my family went for a drive down to the ferry docks. As the sun set, it cast beautiful colors and shadows. There is no editing in this picture aside from my name at the bottom!

And there a rose garden lay

As proof of exactly how taken up I have been with my (for once) fun and truly interesting classes (as in architecture and chemistry. The math isn't going so hot today. Maybe that is because I have my final....) I have to admit: I have been totally oblivious to my surroundings. You know, the environment that I pass everyday? Twice? Yup. Stuff happened and changed and prettied up, and I was too distracted to even notice them. 

So you say, maybe it was small, easy to pass up. But no. No it really wasn't. For who could miss the bursts of color amidst the surrounding gray concrete and green hedge-fences? Who could miss all FOUR of these large gardens surrounding Drumheller fountain? Who could possibly not notice all the fragrant smells of the hundreds of different buds opening before our eyes? Who would just walk right past them, a mere foot away from their grabby thorns and NOT NOTICE?

Um, yeah. That would be me.

For two weeks.

Oops.

But I finally came to my senses before my obliviousness got too out of hand ;) And at last on a beautiful sunny day while I wore a pretty sundress and traipsed about my classes, I saw beauty. She was a blanket laid on the ground, sparkling in the sun. Sometimes she waved in the wind, and became dancing colors.

And here are some pictures:

This is the President's Rose garden. All special, hand picked, and sometimes rare roses right in one place at once. The ones that drew me in the most were the variegated roses and the ones with bright colored petals. My favorites for sure were the orange ones. I just love the luminescence they pick up from the light, and how even their shadows look soft and urge you to stroke one.

And when I finally managed to peel myself away from such beauty, I found this nest in a lantern!

In other words, I'm having a wonderful week :)
Despite finals.

Nature's weird creations: Flower edition

Hello, I've been asked to post more pictures recently, so here are some flowers! I'd like to title these: nature's weird creations. Scroll down, and you'll see why. It's so interesting how much flowers vary, and what physical traits nature decides to bestow them with.

This looks like a little compact bouquet of flowers. All ready to be shown off and framed in green! I like how the shadows give the different petals depth.

The texture of these petals, and the creamy white allude to some sort of fancy event for some reason. Don't you want to touch them? I really like the pop of the crisp green bulbs in the center of the flowers--it is a nice contrast and keeps the flowers from being boring. That, and have you seen many four-petal flowers? I think most are 5 or 6.... 

Surprise! These two pictures are the SAME type flower! The only difference is that the one on top is just blooming. Isn't that so strange? I thought it looked like a bow of sorts. I really like the rippled look before it blooms into a regular-ish looking flower.

Also, I didn't notice that the top picture was taken with the flash on (I know, I know, how can you not notice that??) The flash ended up making the edges of the petals a white glow, and a washed out look. Now I remember why I don't use direct flash usually!

Aren't these flowers a sight? It was quite interesting how this one bunch of flowers were so variegated, from white to purple. They remind me of flowers at a wedding.

Also, the white stamens (I think) make the flower take on the essence of a cactus! 

A few pictures revisited...

So I have finally had some down time in my school work, and I turned to flipping through a few folders of my pictures. And then I got the urge to do some black and white photos, but didn't want to go out into the rainy weather (yes, I know it was sunny just last weekend....), so I did what I don't normally do, and altered a few of my pictures on picmonkey (yay free websites!). And here are the results! I'd like to know what you think of them...better? worse?

I paired each one with its original:

Original:

Altered:

The main change here was simple turning the picture black and white. I think it worked well because of the fine detail, but the background got a bit messy. I cropped it to try to remedy that, but am still not entirely happy with the outcome. I'm glad that only the center is in focus though, which helps take the eye away from the back.

Original:

Altered (1):

I majorly boosted the color on this one. I really like how it brought out the green, but still kept the mystic fog. 

Altered (2):

I simply turned the one above black and white, and the boosted color helped make sharper contrasts and detail. I can't tell if I like this one better than the latter, but I definitely like these best out of my alterations in this round.

Original:

Altered:

I boosted the color here as well, which made the purples much deeper and more of a royal purple versus a lilac purple. Then I zoomed in and cropped. I've never zoomed in on a picture before and then cropped it! It give it a more computer-monitor-y feel to it, because I think the colors are too fake and the zoom makes everything a bit blurry. But I think too much detail might have actually made it too busy?

So what do you all think? Which is your favorite? Least favorite?

I actually find these alterations quite calming and fun! haha

The lovely weather outside

It is sunny outside! But as much as I love the sun, I don't love the heat. At all. The grass is always greener on the other side, huh. I'm also getting over a cold, so not many pictures, but I passed these lovely things along my way to class. And I only had my phone with me at the time, so these were all taken with my phone's camera. Enjoy the sun!

Someone planted all these pretty windmills (I actually don't know what they are properly called...) all along the grassy areas of campus. Aren't they so pretty? In the sunlight, they silver would reflect the sunlight, and the grass became a sea of stars.

The buttercups are blooming! I have a lot of good memories from elementary school of picking bouquets of buttercups. I liked how if you held them under your chin, the sunlight would reflect the shimmery yellow onto you.

These puffy flowers made me entirely too happy for no reason. But they look all plush and fuzzy! I hope you enjoy them as much as they made me happy inside, haha.

The weather where I live. But I still love it.

This is the type of weather I live with. It is seriously worth documenting. You'll see why:

This was around noon. Cold, some puffy clouds, but still some blue.

This was at 5pm. The library closed, and I had to walk through this. It was pelting rain, plus some hail, and there was lightning and thunder.

15 minutes later....a complete hail storm.

And then finish off with some more rain.

Later that day, lightning struck the nearby electrical plant, and the entire University lost power for a few hours. I was waiting in line for dinner, and couldn't get food because everything was run on electricity. So what do I do? Call my parents and we picked up my brother for a family dinner! :)

Trip to the Greenhouse with The Boyfriend!

On a particularly bad day, The Boyfriend cheered me up by accompanying me to our school's greenhouse. I had been there many years ago--in middle school(!)--but he had never been before. It was a very fun experience, and we saw many beautiful and cool looking plants. Here is a tiny sample of them. Enjoy!

This cactus (I think) was outside the greenhouse. I like the contrast of the milky gray and the dark tips of the edges. I tried to avoid as much of the green grass in the background, but this is as best as I could get. The other picture was a little too zoomed in for my taste.

Fuzzy cactus! I have a special place in my heart for cacti. Maybe it's the thought that they are so poky yet so cute! Their little armor brings to mind the image of a little kid trying to brandish a weapon to protect himself. So little, and yet so hopeful.

But my goodness, these lily pads are freaky. They have SPIKES on the bottom! It's like those people you meet who you think are nice and innocent, and then they turn out to be all claws and biting. For some reason I only remember these lily pads from the previous time I visited those 8 years ago. It's probably because of the scary spikes...

I'm sure I've seen these fragile little flowers before on cacti. But what is interesting about this picture is the line of spikes hiding on the right. Such an unexpected image...

Isn't it interesting how some cacti have flowers that bloom in a ring around the top? I like this contrast between pink and white.

It looks like a pokemon!

This little guy was growing off the side of another cactus. I'm not sure why the cactus looks different though...

This was in the rain forest section of the greenhouse. What an interesting flower...

The rest of the pictures were form the tropical section.

I like the soft washed out color of this flower coupled with the water droplets. But the background washes it out a little, I think.

The flower of a lily pad. It looks a little creepy...But a beautiful color.

This reminds me of a caterpillar. They are tiny little flowers all bunched together. The Boyfriend thought they were cool looking.

The colors remind me of a more delicate poinsettia  But I find the shape of the right flowers intriguing. They look like origami balloons.

This pink little ball was really unexpected.