Some more S words

Last time I was regaling you with images of sunny seaside scenes. This week has been an entirely different story: sub zero temperature, snow, sleet, slip, slide, snowplows, shovel, shadows and sunset.

 Sun - the sun was beginning to shine and caught the front of the shrub on the right and the roof of the bird house.

 Shadows - cast long in the trees.

 How much snow? I had crafted my own measuring system last year but only just remembered in time to get it out this week. The first snow was on Monday night into Tuesday and we had about 5".

 Heading South - That's it Sam, the kids and I are all packed and ready to head south to a warmer zone.

I'm staying snug thanks, how about you?

 But in the summer, this will look entirely different.

 Staying tethered?  I was intrigued by this reflection across the snow which seemed to tether the utility box to my neighbors house.

 Saturday's snowstorm was a daytime one and gave us almost 8" of the white stuff.

 Spring blossoms are due on the dogwood in a few more weeks.

 Snow on the north-east elevation.

 Snowy conversations.

Snow removal.

 Snow dog.

Sunset to finish - but here I cheated because this one is from a couple of weeks back.

Okay, the S fun is done. I'm ready for it to resume normal conditions.

Oh, I do Love to be Beside the Seaside

Oh, I do love to be beside the sea!  And right now, the weather outside is frightful - very strong winds and a dropping temperature, currently hovering around 18F/ minus8C - and so I decided to wander back to just a few weeks ago when I was in the Northland region of New Zealand.

 These photos, taken on a days road trip beginning and ending in Onerahi  and going up the coast as far as Matapouri, serve to warm me up.

I was keen to try and photograph the sunrise and sunset each day. This was my first morning and I was ten minutes or so too late for sunrise. But I liked how the low misty cloud hung below the Whangarei Heads.

 Directly out in front of the wonderful holiday apartment we were staying in (Harbour Vista, Onerahi) was this portion of the harbour with a dock (used, at least while we were there, for fishing) with Limestone Island as the backdrop. Every morning, early, there were folk fishing from this dock. I never saw them catch anything but I have to suppose they did as on the incoming tide there was always fishing going on.

 Action on the floating dock.

I wanted to photograph some iconic New Zealand vegetation and, as a native Northlander, cabbage trees and flax bushes fit the criteria perfectly.

 Whenever I return to the country of my birth I always, but always, have to have a fish and chips meal. This trip I splurged and had it more than one time. This lunch, with my sister Cathy and brother-in-law John ranked as the number 1 fish and chip experience for this trip. Eaten at the Parua Bay Hotel on a sunny January day with a cold beverage it was pretty much perfection for me!

 Driving on we stopped at many small, and large, inlets and bays but no longer having access to a good map I regret I cannot identify each and every one correctly.  This was a small inlet I believe at the top end of  Pacific Bay . Maybe if you zoom in you can see the people having fun on a homemade swing hung from the tree just behind the dingy.

 Matapouri Bay was a favorite destination for a day at the beach when we were children. And, as you can see, families still flock here. Yes, on local standards, this beach is crowded!

 Still at Matapouri but looking out towards the Poor Knight Islands (this needs confirmation - where are those maps that I thought I had carefully saved?).

And at the end of the day we returned to our spot in Onerahi overlooking the Whangarei Harbour and Heads.

It is never recommended to take photographs in the full sun of the day - but that is when I was out and about and able to use the camera so that is when most of my photos are taken Being the height of summer the colors are so bright and vivid they really just pop out most all the time.

Thank you to John for the many hours he spent behind the wheel so Cathy and I could indulge in a spot of nostalgia. It was wonderful.

In the Garden in January

First the disclaimer - clearly you will notice that my title for this post does not say "In My Garden in January".  I have just returned from two weeks in New Zealand and my return flight was a bit of a nail biter wondering if my East Coast US airport was going to be open as weather forecasts were preparing all for a huge winter storm. Thankfully, the storm was not  as bad as predicted and my flight landed about ten minutes early as it turned out.

When I go to New Zealand around Christmas time I always look forward to seeing the pohutukawa trees which are in their full bloom of red flowers at that time - often referred to as New Zealand's Christmas tree - but by mid to late January I was too late for that magnificent show by nature. Instead, the way I will recall this trip was by the agapanthus which were all over the place and showing off to the max! Many homes have them growing along the front of their property and you'll be driving along in the open countryside and just come across clumps of them growing beside the road. The photo above was of one of the many I took when I spent an overnight at my sister's home outside of the town of Te Awamutu.

My first stop however was in Palmerston North. I had heard that one way to help with jetlag (I had an 18 hour difference to deal with) was to get outside and walk around in the sunshine as soon as possible in your new location so your body knows there is a new time to deal with. This is a sight in the central Square in Palmerston North as I was taking my jetlag "prescription".

The end of 2014 marked the 100 year anniversary of the outbreak of WWI and the poppy has become a symbol of that war. You have no doubt seen the awesome photographs of the art installation of a sea of poppies in the moat surrounding the Tower of London. In Australia and New Zealand they have been inspired by that sight and are planning some type of installation of their own (I don't know many details) but people everywhere are hard at work crafting poppies. I was in Palmerston North for the 2015 New Zealand Quilt Symposium and they were using the poppy quite a lot in their displays.

I like the rustic look of the fence and my sister's mailbox with the agapanthus. Most of the blooms are blue but here and there, some come out white.

These things practically grow like weeds!  Look how this one has taken root on this tree, in my sister's front garden, where an old branch had broken off years earlier.

Perhaps the goat could add the agapnahtus to it's diet!

Again, I just liked the contrast of the airy big blooms with the rustic fence and abandoned dog kennel and the long dry grass in the background.

Moving on now. The next night I stayed over at my brother-in-law's home in readiness for we three setting off the next morning on a roadtrip north. Before leaving home John had been asked to collect the eggs from the neighbor's chickens (or chooks as they are routinely called in kiwiland). Yes, right in the heart of a neighborhood of smallish (think 1/4 acre) lots is this one with a very elegantly fenced enclosure on the front side lawn where three of these hens wander happily and provide eggs for the owners. I asked John if his two cats were a problem for the hens and he said for the first few days the cats would watch through the fence but then they lost interest.

By the next night we had reached our destination - "Harbour Vista" on the shoreline in Onerahi just outside Whangarei in Northland. We were to stay in a small and delightfully appointed two bedroom ground floor apartment there for three nights. I noticed this wonderful blooming succulent growing in a pot right outside the windows and was amazed at the flowers on it until my sister pointed out they are two different plants growing in the same pot. Nevertheless, I still think it looks really great!

And to prove I was in a different climatic zone these huge lilies were growing right outside in the small patch of garden as well. You can't tell from this photo but the plants are almost 5' tall.

We had decided to do a coastal road trip in the North taking in some of the beaches we remember going to as children but which also included many we had not seen before.  This one was on the last day and was, h'mm, let's see if I remember correctly, was it just beyond Langs Beach or just beyond Mangawai Heads? Of course it is not really a garden either but merely roadside weeds that took my  eye as I scrambled out of the car for "just one more photo of this beautiful coastline".

As I was putting away my camera my eye was suddenly taken by this pukeko hurrying through the grass just by the fence I had been using as my foreground for the previous photo.

And let me finish off with a photo of my own garden in January. Yes, this is the sight I was greeted with when I woke up the next morning (I got in after dark on Tuesday) so you can see why I chose different gardens to show you in my post today.

A Hometown Christmas

 When they light up our Christmas tree on the village green it is the signal for the decorating to begin!

Come take a stroll around with me. Being new to using this camera I still have that beginner's concept of being sure that I'm able to photograph anything. Well, the results aren't entirely perfect and the use of my tripod (which stayed warm alone in the car) would have resulted in more clear images but I had fun trying to document the holiday lights in our town this Christmas. It is actually quite hard to figure out the settings for the camera when you can barely see where the buttons and shutter are, much less use numbingly cold fingers to make the adjustments.

In the Village Center the lamp posts are wrapped with garland and ribbon and the store decorations range from a modest door wreath with a lit tree inside to...

the jeweler who has gone all out this year.

At night it is as though that tree is covered in thousands of glittering sapphires.

 The gazebo wrapped in garland and bows by day transforms to

the sparkle of icicle lights by night.

 The tree doesn't really float as it appeared to in my first photo but the perimeter fence has lights along the top and when it is very dark and you are taking photos at 10.30pm it can look that way.

 The landscaping business has created a masterfully lit advertisement for their services - understated and very elegant. There's a chimney which blocks out a few of the bulbs on the roof ridgeline.

 Away from the center of town homeowners have taken up the lighting challenge also. This one has full on spotlighting to wash the entire front facade along with the candle light in each window and the big wreath.

 With only the one small tree festooned in colored lights this homeowner nevertheless manages to create a splash of wow! I loved how the colors bounced off the paintwork.

Here's a more restrained look; white lights and not too many of them.

This tree just enchanted me. Look how pretty the reflections in the window are.

How dull it will be in January when all these are turned off.

December in my Garden

I have been somewhat absent from post creating of late because of a variety of reasons - poor weather for photo taking being a major one. But yesterday was not too bad so I spent an hour or so looking around my garden. The night before I had been really lucky to catch the sunset in the above photo. I've wondered for quite some time why I can't seem to see good sunsets and finally the penny dropped that my house is somewhat in a dip in the landscape. It has to be a really great one before I can see it from here.

December in the garden does not have a lot going for it unless you look at textures, shapes and monotones. From my upstairs windows I can see some really robust rusty brown leaves hanging on in among these many tall straight trunks.

In the back corner interest has been stripped away. The garden benches have moved inside for the season and the summer perennials have been cut back to release the chaos of leaves trapped in their dried stalks.

On the side, the sweetbay magnolia tree is currently showing a very pretty combination of colors if you tip your head and look up high.

Holly berries on the Nellie Stevens holly tree are not abundant this year. I'm not sure what the Old Farmers Almanac says this portends.

Out front the Korean boxwood planted earlier in the planing season have had a layer of mulch laid down to help them get through this first winter. The island bed in the foreground still has the coneflower seed heads that I like to leave for the birds enjoyment.

The blush pink nandina is living up to it's name.

I had come inside thinking I was done with photo taking when the sun burst out for a few minutes. From an upstairs window the shadows looked interesting and showed up well on the newly "swept up" back yard.

Now it is the "bare bones" time for the landscape I can see a few items that need moving around. My Dad's rain gauge might need bringing in for the season as I'd hate for frozen water in it to expand and burst the metal seams. The white birdhouse I liked so much that came from Amish country in PA was not nearly as well liked by the birds so I may relocate it to see if the birds think it is more attractive with a different aspect. The sundial on the pedestal next to the holly tree has been too shaded for some years now but when I first placed it there the holly tree wasn't much more than 3' high.

The back of the yard has quite an area of woods in a natural shape. We sometimes like to leave produce items out there for the critters. This was a butternut squash from the 2013 vine in front under the nandina that we forgot to eat and it has taken on a really intriguing appearance. A tomato that did not ripen in time has maintained it's shape and the large brown leaf in the front left added a final touch to this Still Life by Nature. It would make great inspiration for a fiber art/quilt piece with those pops of green among the myriad shades of brown.

Last winter the harsh weather killed the big rosemary bush. In the spring I cut it back to the ground intending to pull all the root system out once the flower  volunteers finished blooming. As you can see, I'm still waiting. This little viola is one of the few touches of color left in my garden in this month of December.

Finally, this was last night's sunset - not quite as pretty as the one from Thursday but as there is a large airport in that same direction the vapor trails from the many aircraft do add to the effect.