Blue Skies, A Beautiful Collie & Blooming Trees

Mr. Gorgeous greets me at my car door when I arrive.

This week finds me recovering from a busy and beautiful three days with my collie buddy. We finally--FINALLY--had some sunny weather and it even got into the 60's on Saturday!

Sugar, an expert wader who hasn't learned to
swim yet, ponders the watery gulf that lies
between her and her stick.

First off, we must of course talk about dogs. Mr. Gorgeous was his usual good-looking and ever-so-slightly stubborn self, insisting on laying in the wet new bark as well as wading straight into the water at the park despite promising that he only wanted off-leash to play with another dog. To be fair, that other dog, a young cutie named Sugar, had been fetching sticks in the water, but she would have happily played with him on dry land if he'd been cooperative!

Frolicking Finley.

Sugar may have been sweet, but she had nothing on Finley, a hilarious Havanese we met at another park. Finley was the embodiment of joy in canine form: jolly, frisky, light-hearted, and playful. I don't often stand around and laugh and laugh with delight while watching a dog frolic in the park, but that was the magic of merry little Finley!

A few photo of His Handsomeness in action...

Mr. Gorgeous goes wading.

Enjoying the rawhide stick I gave him on a sunny afternoon.

Dogs weren't the only animals on the agenda. There's a resident pair of bald eagles that live at the park where we met Finley, which is just down the road from Mr. Gorgeous' house. I sometimes see them and rather more frequently hear them when we're at his place, but it's never worked out for me to photograph them. When an eagle started making a ruckus (they have a sort of stuttering shriek that's a little like the sound of a persistently crying seagull) and I spied it in a tree in the yard next door, I grabbed my camera and went outside. The eagle was gone, but I waited to see if it would return, and was rewarded by the sight of a pair of adolescent bald eagles (they have dark, mottled plumage without the signature white heads and tails) circling and calling to each other over the house. I was thrilled to get both of them in a single photo!

Juvenile bald eagles!

On the other end of the size spectrum, I also had a good time photographing ants. I must confess to having a considerable fondness for them and I'd been idly watching them scurry over the stone-slab bridge where I was sitting enjoying the sunshine when I realized that my macro lens had the magnification to make ant photography possible. The hard part is that the ants move so darn fast, making it difficult to focus on them! This one turned out rather nice.

Hello, ant.

There were also some lovely sky photos to be had during my stay with Mr. Gorgeous. Overall, the weather was sunny, but there were scattered showers and the scattered clouds from which they fell, and the vistas afforded by the lakeside house and neighboring parks are perfect for snapping sky shots, especially when tinged with the colors of sunset!

A rare thunderstorm builds up behind the towers of Seattle.

Delicate pastel layers at sundown.

But from a photographic standpoint, the highlight of my three-day stay with Mr. Gorgeous was the opportunity to get pictures of the blooming spring trees in the sunshine! The cherries and saucer, star, and Kobus magnolias are all in bloom at last! The photos below are just a taste; the full macro feast will be visible on my c.creativity Facebook page in the next few days once I get my images sorted!

A large flowering cherry tree at sunset.

Looking up through a kobus magnolia.

Blue skies and saucer magnolia flowers!

I'm pretty worn out, so it will take a little while, but I'm really hoping to have lots of beautiful spring photos available to view online very soon and some new listings on Etsy to follow!

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