Bees in the Lavender! Bzzz! Bzzz!

I have a glorious, huge lavender plant right in front of my house. It's so big you cannot get by it without brushing against it. The smell of lavender follows you into the car. These days the bees are humming around it and I've counted more than ten at one time. Here are some photos:

Nothing like photography to take the sting out of eye surgery...

I am back.

I had invasive eye surgery on Tuesday and on Saturday went with my photo club to Brookside Gardens to take photos of the many butterflies.  Brookside has a Wings of Fancy exhibit each year and this was my first visit there.  This was a private, planned club outing and the chief advantage was that we were allowed to have tripods.  When the general public visits, no tripods. 

Naturally, I forgot my tripod.  All the below are handheld.  I'm not proud.  I'm less proud to say that I didn't experiment as much as I should - I mostly set my aperture on 4.0 (for the short DOF) and then either let the camera choose the speed (mostly 1/13, 1/15, 1/20) which made for a lot of fuzzy fotos.  A few times I manually set the shutter speed to 1/125 which made for less fuzzy fotos but a little darker.  Like a dunce I should have unleashed the power of the 7D - it has much better high ISO performance. 

I took about 400 photos, of which I felt 60 were not embarrassing.  I put 20 on flickr, and here below enjoy five of them! 

I haven't visited Meadowlark Gardens in nearly a month and hope to go back next weekend. Stay tuned...

ps.  gotta have at least one Monarch here:

Margaret's Garden

I have been hearing about Margaret's Garden in Reston for two years now, at least. I've never sought it out, which was a mistake. Now that I have the new 7D, I decided to go for a drive and find it. Below are some photos taken both on either midday on a Sunday, or, 830 AM one morning before work.

Countdown to Italy! But now, some flowers

Keeping on track with my "every two weeks at Meadowlark".  I'm not so good on keeping on track with the blog.  We all leave for Italy in two weeks.  Here's hoping the volcano gods are appeased during our time away. 

These photos were taken a week ago.  Enjoy!

Two more weeks.... and a cloud hangs overhead

I'm documenting Meadowlark's spring flowers every two weeks (and surprisingly have made a good show of going there on schedule!) but in the back of my mind this whole time has been "oh boy, we are that much closer to my trip to Italy and Switzerland with my parents". 

Howevuh.  Mother Nature shows her benign and beautiful side in a gentle Washington DC spring...  but her wrath and fury through a volcano in Iceland.  Is she a woman scorned?  Cosmic justice for the UK banking system for bringing Iceland to its knees?  Is it just blind luck that this volcano (Eygasfiugyrugryugreysasouffull - close enough) happens to be under the jet stream?  The ramifications are becoming more dire with each passing day.  The hell with "my little vacation".  This is going to be a European wide (if not global) catastrophe if the planes can't get up in the sky anytime soon.  And I'm not talking about people on vacation, or business travel.  I'm talking about global trade.  The only good thing to come out of this may be that oil prices should drop precipitously after another week goes by. 

At any rate - serenity now.  Enjoy the photos.  Oh yeah - and most of the below are with my BRAND new Canon 7D!  I bought it yesterday.  I have the 24-105 F4L lens on it.

This one was taken with my old Canon 30D using the 35mm F1.4L:

Two more weeks have gone by...

I am making a concerted effort to visit Meadowlark every two weeks to photograph the progress of spring.  Little by little, as the warm days become the norm and not the anomaly, the buds unfurl and blossoms abound.  I visited during my lunch on Friday this time and was surprised to see even more families wandering around than the previous weekends (although I suspect the cherry blossoms have something to do with it!). 

Look at the photos from yesterday, versus two similar scenes from two weeks ago.

For reference, here are the previous blog posts:

http://skywalkerbeth.blogspot.com/2010/03/what-difference-two-weeks-makes.html

http://skywalkerbeth.blogspot.com/2010/03/were-heading-towards-spring-hooray.html

Friday April 2:

Saturday March 20:

And here are a few more from April 2 just for good measure:

From Florida to China and back home again

What a week I had last week.  Family drama.  Broken bones, airplane rides.  Euchre in a hospital room all day while waiting for Dad's hip surgery - with a brief lunch overlooking the beach (literally "over the beach").  Flew home that evening, and back to work the very next day and then the weekend - dinner out with friends and a visit to the National Geographic to see the Terra Cotta Warriors exhibit from China.  Late exhibit - left the National Geographic at almost midnight.  Gotta love living in metro DC!  Sunday was my home day with my kitties.

What a difference two weeks makes!

I visited Meadowlark Gardens again today - two weeks after my last visit - and look what my eyes did spy!  I'm going to make regular visits now to document the progress of the flower gardens.  The day was perfect.  It is in the mid 70s and full sun and I even drove all over with my convertible top down with a straw hat perched on my head.  I sat on one of the benches beside the little lake and watched a hawk making lazy circles above, riding on the gentle wind currents.  Families were out in full force - trains of children, running and shouting; strollers galore.  It is almost too warm today and too soon.  The top floor of my house, as I type this, is 78 degrees:  enervating.  I am tempted to turn the air conditioning on! 

Time off sought and granted: Italy and Switzerland coming right up!

Here are some of the things we will enjoy in late May and early June:

We're heading towards spring! Hooray!

I belong to the Meadowlark Botanical Gardens which is an oasis of calm not far from Washington DC.  I love to wander among the flowers in the spring.  Even in winter, when there are no flowers, it's still a very quiet and peaceful place to visit.  Benches abound, whether high on the hill overlooking the pond or waterside (and one day I really must show up with just a book and a picnic basket).  Trails are everywhere and as a bonus there are elevation changes so you can get a decent workout. 

Here are some photos I took from yesterday.  It's been a full month since the Snowpocalypse and there are still random piles of snow.  This is a testament to how much snow we actually received.  During a normal winter a "snowstorm" would have melted within a week.  Now, a month later, you still see pockets of snow. 

Enjoy the photos.

http://www.nvrpa.org/parks/meadowlark/index.php

Isn't he adorable?

Last July when Mom and I stayed at the beautiful/lovely/gorgeous Hotel sous les Figuiers in St Remy, I saw this little feller below.  Not sure how you tell a female snail from a male snail.  Regardless, he, she or it is quite cute.  Check 'im out. 

The hotel, in case you are interested:  http://www.hotel-charme-provence.com/

We have a winnah!! French Blue.

I belong to the Loudoun Photography Club which has competitions most months.  I finally entered my second competition and won first place!  The category was complementary colors.  Blue and orange are most definitely complementary on the color wheel. 

The below was taken last July in the village of Pernes Les Fontaines in Provence.  It was one of those oppressively hot hot hot days that practically command you to just stay by the pool sipping rose wine.  Instead, Mom and I chose to explore a little bit.  We wandered around this village for a while and were about to turn around to go home when I turned a corner and WHOOMP there it was.  I must have taken 20 photos of this scene from all angles, maybe more.  I selected this one to print.  I'm just tickled pink.  Many thanks to Josh Taylor, the judge.