Spying

I couldn't help myself, lol.

flooding

I promise it wasn't me. I did not cry so much that I flooded several cities and my favorite park.   I have never seen so much water, the Wisconsin River overflowed her banks and made people evacuate.  This little bridge usually only has a small amount of water flowing under, barely enough to mention, yet today, the water covers most of the park.  It's a great day to grab some brightly colored boots and go splashing through puddles!  Or if you prefer, it might be possible to catch some fish from the parking lot.
~ You can see the explanation behind this project by going here or see the all posts in this category by going here.

Iverson Park Owls

April 27, 2007

April 29, 2008

Every April we go to Iverson Park to seek out our friend, the Barred Owl - this year we didn’t make it until May, but we weren’t disappointed.

Not only were we blessed to see the Barred Owl (he wasn't in the mood to pose and flew off), but we also saw this young Great Horned Owl!

He stayed and posed for us for a while.

He’s just a doll!

As he and I were checking each other out. . .

A Bald Eagle flew over.

Then I told him farewell.

Not a striped gopher

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

A few weeks ago (where is the time going?!) I showed you a cute little Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel I found in Iowa. Well, it wasn’t long after that (yes, I‘m that far behind in looking at my photos - but I figure maybe it‘ll help me get through the long winter of limited photo ops), I found some more in our favorite local park.

These squirrels are about the size of our chipmunks but have smaller ears and more stripes. Would you believe they plug up their holes at night? I still like their other name of Federation Squirrels.

A couple of days later, I went back to the park and found several babies popping up out of their holes and just generally being curious. They allowed me to sit and snap at them for a while.

Peek-a-boo!

It’s hard to believe they can run up to 8 mph.

They will start hibernating soon, maybe they already have. They’re one of the longest true hibernators in Wisconsin.

I just love babies!

Introducing my Kids

Originally posted September 5, 2007

We tried our annual photo shoot of the kids a little differently this year in that we just told them to “go over there and be yourselves”. This meant that in order to get a shot like this:


We had to first go through a lot of this:


It had been a few years since we were able to get all four of my kids out at the same time to take photos so I was really happy to see this:


Dennis managed to capture my youngest son’s spirit perfectly and this one will go on the wall.


Haden is 15 and has always loved the outdoors. In the photo he has a crawdad (crayfish) in his hand. He’s had stitches seven times and broken a couple of fingers. He loves to hike, bike, camp and anything that involves outside and bugs or snakes. I once almost lost him because he stopped to watch some ants. He’s all boy all the time!

Shockingly enough, we managed to pry my middle son away from his computer long enough to spend a couple of hours at the park.

Khristiaan as he likes to be called now - it is his first name I just spent the first 15 years of his life calling him by his middle name, Gage. He’ll always be Gator to me. Khris will be 18 this month and is looking for a job, anyone need a hacker? All of his life he has woken up with a smile and when he’s not annoying the crap out of you he’s pretty funny. He was everywhere!



The main reason we went out was to get some photos for Mikal and Amy (We’ll be doing it again in a couple of weeks for Britney and Nick). Hopefully, they like theirs.



Mikal is my oldest son, he’ll be 20 in December. He and Amy have been dating for 3 years and I think they look really cute together. Mikal loves playing with photoshop and loves his Scion TC. He was always my hyper one and maybe a little clumsy. He’ll talk your ear, especially if it has anything to do with computers or Scions.



I keep wondering what Mikal asked for to cause such a look on Amy’s face.



Britney is my oldest, 21, and her little one is now 6 months old. You’ll be seeing more of her in a couple of weeks when we do her family photos. She’s my only girl, my firstborn and the source of every grey hair on my head. Ok, not really. She’s a very protective mama of little Tristan. I thought she was going to give birth to a cow when I suggested we put him in the baby swing, “Does it have germs on it?” I wonder what she’ll do when he takes that first mouthful of dirt, and you know he will.

Most important of all, Tristan had fun at the park.


If you click on any photo in the mosaics you can see the full photo. They got cropped a little weird but I had so many I wanted to share it seemed the best way.

Fun Monday Paths

This week’s Fun Monday assignment is to share our favorite path/walk. Well, probably my favorite area to walk near home would be Iverson Park. You’ve seen the park before if you’ve seen the photos we did of my kids last fall.

These photos were taken Dec 31st, 2006. It looks quite different than when we shot the kids’ photos, doesn’t it?

This bridge is also in Iverson Park and if you cross it, you can follow some animal trails and find Skunk Cabbage:

And maybe my owl friend.

(These were taken last year with my point and shoot)

But Wisconsin is full of great trails just about anywhere you go.

And even though it decided to spit snow (no accumulation thankfully) on us all day on Saturday, I took a few more photos for you with my new 15mm fisheye lens. It was in the low 30s all day, brrr!

And I took one last one Sunday, although I had the macro lens on. We had a semi-sunshiny day in the 50s.

Thanks for the fun assignment, Angela! Hope I didn’t overload you on too many pictures.