Category Archives: photography

Jul31

Not finding caches but spotting Charlie

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This was indeed a weird day of caching for us. We headed out about 2:15 or so and decided to stop off at an unplanned cache retrieval. I don’t like to do that as I then miss hints. Poor Bri is driving back and worth across a busy road. Finally I see the description where it said ‘permission by chiropractor’-so I then went around the back, spread some branches and it was in the nook of a tree. Whew!

Then our trip kind of went downhill. We did find the Stroud Preserve

and it was pretty, but a bit on the warm side and in the middle of nowhere. I think it was 1/2 mile hike in-all flat,but in the sun.  It did get a bit steep in one spot. We saw this:

Well we were so close, but no cigar. We went near a  tiny deck and there was mucky water to cross-but no thanks. We didn’t know where to go then. We saw a strange box which Brian checked out and he said it was an open container. We were looking for a ammo…

Near the parking lot…I was so ready to get in the a/c

So after that we headed down a few roads and ended up in another wooded area near where my cousins lived at one time. We got out and it was at 125m. We walked to about 30m and again didn’t see the ammo box. The GPS was so jumpy.  We spent a great deal of time at both areas and walked about 1.5 miles today.

We went to a local shopping center to look for yet another cache-the CO is one of those kind will set up a decoy. We looked around a guardrail, which happened to also have bushes nearby and gave up.

There’s a nice pizza place in the shopping center called Brother’s. I was a bit bummed by then. I was happy to get the exercise, but it’s discouraging as I had some new swag to add the those big containers. : (

We got to near the door and a young fellow came out-and before he stepped off the sidewalk I said to him, ‘are you on that tv show?’ I mean he could have been anyone…and he said ‘yes’! I was a bit dumbfounded and said ‘oh so nice to see you’ or something like that and he said ‘thanks’. I’m talking about West Chester, PA native Charlie McDermott who is on the popular (and one of my mom’s favorite shows) ‘The Middle’.

Recognize Axil Heck?

Seeing him boosted my spirits, so thanks for wanting Brother’s pizza tonight, Charlie. : )

After dinner we stopped at a park near where Sean goes to grad school. We headed toward a gazebo and we never had luck with them. Then we looked under it where a stream was-nope. I suggested we look ‘on the other side’ and bingo, found it under a stump. Yes! I left some cute swag-an Olympic #1 winner medal and a bracelet.

I reallly wanted to grab a virtual in front of our county courthouse. We got out and parked, walked across the street and found the statue ‘Glory’ and also who sculpted it. I had to send that info to the CO.

I noticed there was an interesting one a few blocks away. It was near a train station. The cache was a huge metal box and from the photos, there were two caches inside. I was excited. We had to put a combo in the two locks-messed the one up (beginning of north for the one and ‘end’ of west for the other-we were also putting in the beginning of the west). People were saying it’s a bugger to get open. It was getting dark, so we’ll bring a screwdriver (!) next time. It hadn’t been open since the end of May. Can’t wait to go back, but I hope the CO looses the lid a bit.

That was our adventure for the day. Hope to go to my mom’s one of these days. : )

Jul30

Redone photo trio

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I decided to change the look of my trio of little Irene (photographed in 1921). The cardboard was held on with shards of metal and many broke off. These are not studio quality as the back says ‘postcard’. I gingerly lifted the first photo (which happen to be my favorite) and it tore across the side of her face. I was able to line it up and touch it up with a little pencil, but I was not happy I did this to a 91 yr old sweet photo. I was deciding what would look good with these and right away I thought of Tim Holtz. He does some neat ‘steam punk’ type of designs and his alphabet scrapbook paper looked perfect to me. I had to piece it a bit as the frame was longer. I when added a little gold paint to the frame itself to go with the goldtone color in the paper.

From this:

I should have scanned all these first…that’s another day.

Doing some dusting, etc. today. The hubby did vacuuming and laundry.

Jul19

Goldfinch Lunch Break

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Brian happen to catch this hungry Goldfinch couple munching on the forming Zinnia seeds through the backdoor . I had to grab the camera and was happy with these shots. So sweet….

I’m glad they like these as I like to help wildlife.

I saw that the local school district needed a ‘full-time’ instructional assistant for the elementary where Sean went to school. I’m a bit nervous about working full time, I’d like to get my feet wet with part-time. I haven’t worked around kids for several years, but of course I raised a fine fellow.  They only want you to have a high school diploma. The pay is decent too. I dropped off my resume today.

Jul16

Flowers around home

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I decided to share a few photos of my flowers ‘up close’ as the garden long shots aren’t worthy of shares as they are so weedy.  We had wonderful rain Saturday and  also Sunday night. It’s great how things as small as grass blades perk up. Many of plants are from seed too. I love that.

Cosmos from seed just beginning to open

Zinnias-they have been taking a beating-wilting daily (seeds)

If you want flowers that will welcome you from 25 ft away with their amazing scent-plant some Starglazer lilies! The Sweet Bay Magnolia has been scenting the yard on the side of the house nicely too.

The Coleus are hanging in there nicely.

The prolific tomatoes are popping out of the fence. Hope I get these before the deer or groundhogs.

Very nice to have a few gourds on the vine. I am not seeing any pumpkins or watermelons. I was hoping that they would take off in this space. Maybe I’ll be surprised.

So…we geocache usually coming and going from places lately. Today we tried for 4 and found 2 though we were right in the correct spot for all of them. The one was a park in my hometown named after a man my grandfather worked for. : )  We went down a steep path to an open area to see that the coords wanted us to ‘bushwhack’ about 25-30 feet. I was wearing a dress and sandals, so no.  We’ll go back. Then we took my mom to dinner and one was suppose to be behind a Target store. There’s this long metal ‘barrier’, I think so trucks can’t go to the edge of the parking lot. We were right where it was, but it was hot and sunny. We couldn’t find it. We had found one behind a Hooter’s on the way to my mom’s house.

On the way home (I had gotten my hair done too), I asked Brian to stop at the local mall. It lead us to a fire hydrant next to a Kohl’s and lo and behold…Brian found a ‘nano’-the tiniest cache you can find. We didn’t sign the log-too tiny.

I have hid 3 caches now myself. I had trouble getting the 3rd one accepted as the name was for the local businesses near where I put it. A no-no. I changed it. The first person who found it said the box had been opened and the stuff spread all over the ground, even a travel bug! We are thinking a raccoon got into it. It’s not far from the restaurant dumpsters, so maybe. Wow!

Jul14

Lights and Music pt 2

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I got my mom on Wednesday and wanted to treat her to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. I’ve been to the one in Lancaster and found some of the sides a bit salty. This one is halfway between mom and me, so we stopped. Lucky for us we got  the ‘early bird’ special for $7.99 each. We got a 6 oz piece of sirloin, two sides and roll for that. We also got onions and mushrooms-$2 more (each). Very good steak. We like deals like that. I think it’s Monday-Wednesday, but double check. And were the sides salty-the green beans had ham in them and they certainly were.

Yesterday I took mom down to the Habitat resale store and she enjoyed looking at the books for 10 cents each or 10 for $1.00. I only bought 3 books, a stainless steel serving bowl and a Birthday bear. I will buy a bear once in a while if it’s really cute-and it was $1.

We went over to Longwood Gardens around 6:15 or so and Brian came too. We got mom a chair and we headed over to the little cafe. She couldn’t decide what she wanted. I knew I wanted the cream of mushroom soup and I got some cold lo mein which I didn’t care for.  Bri got half a large ham and cheese and mom finally got mac and cheese and a hot dog (from the kid’s menu). I didn’t know she had eaten a Hershey bar until I found the paper left on the sofa! She had eaten it beforehand and I think it killed her already weak appetite.  We all nibbled a chocolate pecan tart.

We then went over to the main Conservatory and saw this:

Well that’s the lovely Conservatory

Part of the Bruce Monro light show exhibit…I’ll have to come back to see the Conservatory when it’s darker outside

They like Proven Winners plants here-that’s a big thumbs up!

The lake lights were starting to look pretty-we saw them a few days ago when it was pitch dark, so neat.

The Italian Water Gardens looked neat at night-sat this on a wall.

They also had CDs made in water lily shapes

I sat this on the side of a life preserver case as the shutter was getting so slow

It was a hike to ‘The Meadows’ to see this display:

These are plastic water bottles!

The last part was really hard to photograph without a tripod-it was the woods to a tree house dotted with lights similar to the lake lights. Someone said it looked like ‘The Wizard of Oz’

I think my mom enjoyed being pushed around! It was about a 2 mile walk.

Brian and I took mom home and we headed to a few geocaches on the 13th. This was after hitting Chick-fil-a. We didn’t know it was free sandwich day if you wore a cow costume! So… I knew where one was as a fellow cacher told me. We got to it and it was basically out in the open. The other one, which we tried to find a few months ago was right were I thought it was. We then went to a ‘new’ one and that was so neat! We were near trash bins-ugh!! A cache would never be on one of them. There was a fence there and I leaned over and saw a wooden thing in the extreme corner. I touched it and it moved-it was so cool-

I was so pleased with myself!

We skipped dinner and headed to the Maria Muldaur concert up in Kennett Square. She is a spunky, sassy and bluesy 68 yr old now. I don’t think she enjoys singing ‘Midnight at the Oasis’ that much, though I think it was her biggest hit. Afterwards she went to a counter to sign her CDs and didn’t act too thrilled with having to do so. I have seen a few other artists smile and thank people-not her. I didn’t buy one. We went for some pizza and had the place to ourselves.

We had a busy week! More heat expected too. My flowers are just shriveling up. : (

Jul6

Nature’s hidden gems

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Some views from new areas (and a couple of already visited) we have just discovered:

Valley Garden Park, Wilmington, DE (above and below) Never been.

Newlin Grist Mill Park, Glen Mills, PA …We were here for a company picnic, Sean and I stopped here for a picnic lunch a few times and Ken and Colleen had their wedding photos taken here.

Harbor area, Atlantic City, NJ (never been-aquarium here and some caches. We also found a great harbor side restaurant). Never been.

Arboretum at Swarthmore College (Penna.) Never been.

Nottingham Park. Been here once and not in this area for fireworks years ago.

Now go and discover some of your own!

Jun28

Early summer 2012

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I’m not that happy with many aspects of my gardens this year. We have one day of rain and then it doesn’t rain for a week or more. We need some nice gentle rain. The earth is dry and hard. I pulled some weeds out a few days ago, but it was pure muscle power. As I said earlier, my lack of mulching didn’t help matters either. My flowers in pots are doing the best.

I happen to be in the new Habitat for Humanity store and they had plants there for $1 a pot. I bought two of the royal purple Petunias and a pale pink. They are blooming profusely!

This Millions of Bells is doing well. Just today it looks a little droopy, so I may have to do a bit of snipping.

And then there are my Lilies. I really love them. They are in with ornamental grasses that are taking over. Also, the deer munched them all to the ground in the winter, but they came back! As soon as it rains, I am getting Brian out there to dig up some of the grasses.

This one is on the side of the house where Vinca vine is taking over.

The Portulaca are very pretty-I have two strawberry jars of it

The container next to this planter had flower seeds planted in it. One side was Poppy seeds and the other Zinnias. The Zinnias are doing well, but the Poppies got lost in grass! I don’t know where it all came from as this container had hot peppers in it last year. I see a sprinkling of Poppies.

I trim this back and it still goes like crazy as when we do have rain, the gutters leak and it get a big drink. I’m not seeing many butterflies on it yet.

I ran and got my camera when I saw this solo Monarch fluttering around

I do grow Milkweed for my butterfly pals

And this was spotted on the road-can you see what it says?

It says ‘I miss being a tree’. : )

Jun25

Blog neglect, vacation stuff

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Since my whirlwind of activity is dying down, I can get down to brass tacks again with blogging. I went and got my mom on Saturday for a two day visit. We all went over to the father-in-law’s house to wish him a Happy 89th Birthday. From the get go, I felt pops was uncomfortable having my mom and me there. Brian and Sean were installing his new a/c (birthday gift) in his room and it was a messy job. Well Bri’s dad starts up about something ‘we need for the house’. I’d rather not say exactly what it is (send me a note if you want to know) and I said we didn’t really need it right now. Well he wouldn’t let it go and got mad at me and left the living room to sit in the family room. He’s living in a 4 bedroom split level. Mom and I were shook up and I took the car down to a local shopping center so pops would simmer down. We never did go back in the house again and never sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to him. I sure was hoping it would make him happy to have a house full of people (well almost), but that didn’t happen. It was going on 6:30 and we had to go out to eat. Too bad pops wasn’t along, but he got so grumpy that it ruined our visit.

So….we were away from early Monday to late Thursday. Our trip didn’t quite go as planned. Monday and Tuesday we were in Virginia Beach and had a nice time.  We got on the road Wednesday to head to Williamsburg, but got in traffic as the tunnel there had a disabled vehicle. We got off at an exit, tried to go another way, but of course they weren’t letting anyone in. We heard it was a 5-9 mile backup, so we decided to go to Norfolk, VA for an hour and see if that changed. We tried to see the historic society, but that was closed and they were painting. We got to see the nice garden and only a few of the buildings there. We passed by the General Douglas MacArthur statue.

Here are a few Norfolk shots:

The city in the late 1880s

The backup never got better, and we had to go to Chincoteague later, so we headed to the Virginia Aquarium in Virginia Beach. It’s a neat one!

Turtles sunning themselves in the entrance area-it was very warm here.

Wow, a Komodo Dragon. He was checking everyone out!

 I like this shot

Menacing sharks

Lion fish

Jelly fish-amazing!

A few more shots from Virginia Beach

The King Neptune statue was amazing and had a cache hidden under it-shhhhhh!

Sean and me under him!

Tuesday I got to met Rachael who I know from cross stitching and Facebook. She is from CA, but lived in Germany for a while, now is in VB as her hubby is working out of Norfolk. We went to the Contemporary Art Museum to see an Andy Warhol exhibit. We couldn’t take photos of the Warhol art, but I did think this glass chandelier was fascinating.

I wish I could meet all of you!

I’ll talk about the last few days of our trip tomorrow.