Garden

The theme thrown out for us this week for our header challenge is Gardens.

My home garden is rather wild.

While the community's Rose Garden is well organized and tame.

 

We enjoyed peeking into this garden in a tiny close along the Royal Mile in Edinburg, Scotland.

 

After our hiking trip in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland, as we traveled back to Edinburg, we visited Hercules' Garden and found it delightful.

 

In Lincoln, UK we visited Dawber Garden.

 

This one includes a small critter which could have joined us a couple of weeks ago.

 

Let's visit the gardens of our other members of this header challenge--the Headbangers--who are linked in my sidebar.

Poster

Mac gave us the theme of posters. I don't often take a picture of a poster and had to think hard of what I might do. I thought of gathering the tools of poster making from my high school art class. Boy were they different from what one uses now.


Scissors, compass, rubber cement, (do they make it any more or was it too sniffable?) special ruler, construction paper, india ink and calligraphic pens and brushes...


Compared to today's computer generated posters it was quite primitive, but the results were pretty amazing at that.


I thought to what posters I might have in my picture files and remembered movie posters. Where had I taken a movie poster?


Guess.

I had to go to Imbd to see what Mel Gibson was starring in in 1998 when this was taken in Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia.  It was "Ransom". I am not sure what the other posters are, but notice for the first time those flyers with the tabs to break off to call someone about what they are selling or renting.


Thanks for the fun my other headbanger friends share each week. Their links are in my sidebar.

Little Critters

I have chosen some of the littlest of critters to share for our header theme of Little Critters.

Water

Our headbanger theme this week is water, proposed by Tom.

For some reason, when I go looking for my best water images in my photo files I go to the desert.

Our daughter's pool

Cormorants at Veterans Oasis Park

Strange creatures live in the water--this tank is at one of the museums--I forget which

I think maybe the reflections are what strikes me when I see wildlife in the waters in parks in Arizona.

Of course, we have plenty of water in the Northwest as well (it's what turns our own deserts to parklands and farmlands.)

Including fantastic waterfalls such as Palouse Falls (in the midst of the desert.)


The other headbangers are linked in my sidebar.

Memory

Memory

I proposed the theme of memory, having no idea what I or any of my headbanger friends might do with it. You can check from the links in the sidebar.

I proposed it because memory--well, memory is a terrible thing to lose, and watching my husband unable to pull up some of the best of memories is heartbreaking.

Memory

The hat.

The hat is in my header because it and its like are a great part of a lot of memories we have shared. The hat was a gift from one of our daughters, and it has graced his head for nearly every winter  adventure since. Other hats are part of other adventures. There are many.

 

Does he remember clean-up at the beach?





...or hiking in Scotland?

Our trips to Alaska?



What about the many visits to the kids in Arizona?

How about the snowshoeing trips to Mt. Rainier?

There's the hat!!!!!


Pictures help him to retrieve some of these memories.
But sometimes they are just out of reach.

Spring

Evidence of Spring in my yard

Texture

Trying to find some texture for our theme this week. The headbangers are all looking for texture in their photos. You can see what they found by following their links in my sidebar.


We have lambs and kids down the road. Usually my neighbor and I are commenting on the number of lambs in late January. This year we were wondering that there were no new offspring. But that changed over the last few weeks as the tiny babes appeared. A good close-up of one of the lambs would be a great texture picture.


But alas, I had to do my close-up in my own yard and here again I am featuring that great harbinger of spring:

 Indoors, some baskets gave a good texture image.

Our Theme this week is Spanish Design

Actually, after checking the other headbangers' blogs, I discovered that our theme for NEXT week is Spanish Design.  Alas, I am stuck posting late as it is and without something handy for looking down. If I had my camera with me I would look down on the messy desk at my office. But I don't. So there it is. At least I am well prepared for next week.




So I searched back to a visit to one of the missions of California which we visited a couple of years ago. It is not one of the original 21 missions founded by Fr. Junipero Serra, but one which came later and is not on the El Camino Real--the King's Highway--but off from it a ways nearby.

The sign tells its story.



The tower is my header.

Oh, I thought I brought the sign with the story of the cactus. If you notice, at the top of the bell tower near the cross a cactus grows. It was planted there by Fr. Peyri to mark the completion of the construction of the mission.


Other headbangers will have already posted their interpretation of Spanish Design. Look for their blogs through the links in my sidebar.

Signs of Spring

What could be more of a sign of spring than the dandelions which adorn my front step?

 

The rose bush nearby has new growth.



And so does the mountain ash.


Other signs of spring are the workers in the fields, vineyards and hopyards.


Check out the other signs of spring found by the other headbangers linked in my sidebar.