Pink

Lots of places I could look for pink images. Pink flowers, the pinkish walls of the Grand Canyon, the color pink when I did the 3 Day walk for Breast Cancer four years in a row.

I decided to go for pink on the mountain.

The mountain at sunset.

Pink Mountain Heather

Magenta Paintbush



The delicate Calypso orchid is about six inches high and can be found in the spring on the forest floor.

More pink light

Subtle Sunsets



Our headbanger theme is pink. The others can be found in their links on my sidebar.

Header Challenge--Nature

I have a bit of a challenge with this challenge. The challenge is not finding a picture to use in my header. The challenge is that I have hundreds--even thousands of images that fit the theme.

 

From this evening's meditation from Fr. James Martin, as he ponders the wonder we had about the world when we were kids:

"Tonight think of something that captivated you today by its beauty or strangeness or mystery. Then thank God for the ability to be amazed."

 

Should I choose one from far, such as this one from India...

 ...or my favorite picture from our trip to Siberia. I have a poster sized copy of the taiga forest on the wall near my desk.

 Should I look closely in my  Scotland files?

 Should I go green?

 ...or zoom in over the sea?

 Do I go north to Alaska?

 ...or south to Arizona?

 Should I look to the skies?

 ...to the treetops?

 to the top?

 ...or the bottom?

 right in close? 

My Headbanger colleagues will have their nature Headers up soon.

Check them out from their links in my sidebar.

What captivated you today?

Diptych

I presented the headbangers group the topic "Diptychs" and this article from the Digital Photography School with lots of lead time, so we should see some very interesting headers this week. I didn't have anything planned in advance when I gave it, but I knew I could combine some pictures from my files to pull together some great ideas and probably get some new shots. Life got in the way in the meantime, but I think while I was working on it I came up with some cool stuff.

The definition of the diptych being two images juxtaposed that tell a story. It might be a contrast, a different perspective...lots of possibilities.

Here are the combinations I put together.

Then and now:

Living in a rural area in the West and traveling frequently by car, we see lots of examples of the old and the new. The windmill on the left is one we saw at the San Tan Regional Park in Arizona, though I could have used a shot from Washington, Oregon, California or possibly Idaho, Utah, or Nevada. Though sometimes still in use to pump water, most of this type of windmill that remain are a relics of history and the early electrification of rural America.

The wind machines on the right are a descendant of the old ones, producing electric power in many parts of the world. These happen to be in South Central Washington. They are in the Goodnoe Hills where wind turbine research took place for many years before the scene shown here became common. We have seen such wind farms in other parts of Washington, in Oregon, and in more than one area of California. We are scheduled for a tour of a wind farm (good Lord willing) this coming weekend and I expect to have some great pictures to share.

Bengiraffe

Giraffes are my favorites. Well, and so are my grandkids. This is Benjie doing his best to be a giraffe at the San Francisco Zoo a couple of years ago. You can see that I did some work on this one to edit in almost the same background, as Benjie's ears and horns were painted on a white wall. Too bad I didn't get him with his tongue out, but the grin is infectious.

Mt. Rainier is infectious, too.

I label my Mt. Rainier blogposts Mountain Madness, because that is what I must have. Can't get enough of it, but unfortunately haven't been there since October. The picture on the left was taken on a hike earlier last year, July if I recall correctly. The other view was about ten years ago when my flight to Arizona took us over the top of the mountain on a relatively clear day. Another grandkid was involved in that as I was a surprise guest at my daughter's baby shower.

Hmm, a diptych of summer and winter in the same location would be excellent as well. Or of the same plants in different stages

Anemone or Pasque Flower

 The one on the left was take mid-July and the one on the right mid-August. (I admit they are not the same plant, but the same kind separated by about a month in time--well in different years.)

From a tiny acorn a mighty oak...

Somehow I think that this one does the best at the part of the definition of the diptych telling a story. And once again a grandson--the youngest, Anthony, who was 3½ at the time we took this last summer. What might he do with those acorns, and if he were to drop them and come back fifteen, twenty, forty years later would he see...?

If this were a triptych I might have put this oak in the middle.

I wonder how long it had been since it was like the acorn in Antosha's hand. (Antosha is a Russian nickname for Anthony.)

 

 

It was a challenging theme. Check out my headbanger friends whose links are in my sidebar. They post anytime up to noon my time on Wednesday.

Orange

Our Headbangers' theme this week, courtesy of Tom, is Orange.

I considered using this
 

or this

 

and I even took this while I was wandering through Hobby Lobby looking for something else. 

 

But the theme is Orange. hmm. Orange.

 

This is ORANGE! 



 

We say good bye for now to Richard and Chris who promise to stop back and say hi once in a while.

We welcome three new Headbangers, well, two new and one returning. Craver Vii is giving us a try. That is what I said last year. "I'll give it a try." Lew has accepted our invitation and posted his challenge header here. Sandy has returned. She may be the Headbanger whose absence made possible my own invitation. Welcome back Sandy.

Beinn Dampf part one

The day after we dripped through Beinn Eighe, we set off from Torridon Village on the banks of Loch Torridon to climb Beinn Dampf.

The trail leads off through a forest of Caledonian Pine past a babbling bubbling stream. As you can see, Elizabeth has doffed her jacket, evidence of the day's warmer temperatures.

As we get farther up, the stream slips into a beautiful waterfall. Unlike Americans, the Scots do not name their waterfalls--even big beautiful ones like the one in the Coire Mhic Feinchair yesterday and this one. Gorgeous!

Looking back, you can see the village of Torridon along the loch. Loch Torridon is a sea loch, so it is subject to tides as you can see here.

But look up the opposite hill. You can see how low the clouds are. Elizabeth will soon be putting that jacket back on.

Beinn Dampf part two will be just in time for SkyWatch Friday.

ABC Wednesday---Z

Coming to the end of another alphabet--Z is always a little more difficult than some of the other letters. I must thank Dina from Jerusalem Daily Photo, whose Zones of Silence post suggested the idea of some other zones to me, the ecological zones of Mt. Rainier National Park.

We start at the lower elevations, with the Forest Zone, where abundant rainfall and melting snowpack from above provide for a lush dense growth of a wide variety of green plants.


Hiking through the old growth forest on a warm day is a cooling experience. Ferns, fungus, mosses, lichens, and a variety of cool weather wildflowers carpet the ground. Nurse logs provide a new base for new saplings.

Critters in the forest include some you might be squeamish about.

So, now lets go up to a higher elevation--the Sub-Alpine Zone. Once the snow melts, the lush meadows are home to a rainbow of wildflowers, starting with these Avalanche Lilies and their companion yellow Glacier Lilies, the first to pop through the snow.

Further up the slope we reach the Alpine Zone--conditions so severe that the few trees are only a few feet tall after a hundred year's growth. The soil is thin and rocky.

The area is similar to Arctic tundra. Growing season is so very short...

So, as you see, are the plants. The variety of lupine that grows in this area has leaves that measure--yes, those are centimeter marks, not inches, on the walking stick. Lupine leaves in the sub-Alpine zone measure three to four inches across.

In the rocky reaches of the Alpine Zone, we saw dozens of pika the other day.


So thank you again, Dina, for suggesting that Z is for Zones. Thank you to Denise for another successful round of ABC Wednesday. Thank you to the team for keeping us going. You will find the other ABC-Z entries listed here.

Forest Reflection

I was preparing this photo for my other blog when I noticed: it is a Weekend Reflection.

Snag

SkyWatch Friday is here.

Snags are an important part of the forest ecosystem. Decaying dead trees provide home to birds, insects, small mammals--sometimes even bears.

ABC Wednesday--T is for

T is for Tiny        Here is a collection of some of the tiny things we saw while hiking this weekend, beginning with the tiny sprouts of the fiddlehead ferns. they looked like copper wires sticking out of the mulch of the forest floor.

And the calypso orchid which stands only about three inches high.

This tiny mushroom was only about two inches, but then we found these unusual fungus, which we were assured are edible. They reminded us a bit of gummy bears. they are less than an inch.

 

None of them matched the tiny mushrooms we saw in the fall a couple of years ago.

Which were eclipsed by some even tinier.

ABC Wednesday coming down to the end of the Sixth Round.

See what else inspires the letter T at the site.