July 27th, photo of the day: Jewels

July 27, 2012 by abraalani

Water droplets looked like jewels during a lull between downpours on a recent visit to Port Townsend.

Alphabe-Thursday: G is for Great Views!

July 5, 2012 by abraalani

I failed last week and missed the F link-up, but I posted an F post anyway, you can see it here: F is for Frolicking Friends

And yesterday offered a chance to fulfill today’s G post!

Because the day was beautiful and warm, we decided to hike up to Rattlesnake Ledge. Not a rattlesnake in sight, though that could have been due to the throngs of other hikers filling the trail.

Good Grief, there were a lot of people with the same idea as us! Some of them were plodding along gaddingly, while others ran down the trail.

We were first rewarded near the top with this glimpse of the view:

and even more great views greeted us when we hiked the rest of the two miles to the top.

same image as above but with some antiquing added…which do you like better?

And I couldn’t leave without taking a photo of the gobs of people at the top, our 300 closest friends! ;)

Until next time, goodbye!

Alphabe-Thursday: F is for Frolicking Friends…

July 1, 2012 by abraalani

While visiting my ranger friend Ashley at Redwoods National Park in Northern California recently, we went frolicking in the forests behind her house.

Our socks are over our pants to prevent ticks (*shudder*) from getting to our legs. I think I’m clean, but I still imagine I can feel them crawling…

Alphabe-Thursday: C is for Copious Amounts of Cookies

June 7, 2012 by abraalani

C is for Copious amounts of Cookies because two of my friends’ birthday’s are coming up, so I mixed together a couple batches of cookies to send them. If you know who these friends are, SHHHH don’t tell! ;)

Linking up with Alphabe-Thursday!

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

These are your classic crinkle cookies, I can’t remember where I found my recipe, but it’s similar to this one (though, this isn’t quite the recipe I use, it should be fine. I might post my recipe later, if I feel like it.)

“Healthy” Chocolate Chip Cookies

I got the recipe for these “healthy” chocolate chip cookies from Chocolate Covered Katie, it’s her Best Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, and you can find it HERE. I substituted water for milk and cashews for the mac nuts (didn’t feel like going back to the store).

Cooookies

Cookie Parade

Alphabe-Thursday: B is for bokeh!

May 31, 2012 by abraalani

I saw lots of things that start with B this week, but since my blog is primarily about photography, I decided to get out my homemade bokeh lens cover and my colorful Christmas lights. When I tried the bokeh lens cover on my 18-55mm lens (with only a 3.5 aperture opening) it didn’t work so well. However, with my new 50mm 1.8 lens I thought it was time to try it again!

What do you think of my heart bokeh?

The little guy is a creation of my sister, isn’t she creative?

May 24th, photo of the day: Learning New Things & Alphabe-Thursday: A

May 24, 2012 by abraalani

I was born in the Bay Area, in California, and moved to Medford Oregon when I was 12 years old.

Last November, I moved to the Puget Sound area in Washington. I naively thought that the foliage and such would be similar to that in Southern Oregon, since both are same general region of the Northwest.

I was sorely wrong. While there are some plants that overlap both places, Washington offers a whole slew of new and strange plants for me to learn about.

Among other things, there are two that I’ve encountered in the last two days that particularly caught my attention.

Yesterday, I “learned” about Stinging Nettle. My poor finger. Luckily I had Wikipedia to assure me that it’s only temporarily painful, and harmless.

Stinging Nettle

And today I saw something amazing (Alphabe-Thursday: A – I did it!).

Orange raspberries! Salmonberries!

This was a plant that looked exactly like a typical raspberry bush, but the berries were orange. ORANGE!

Isaac and I thought maybe they were just under-ripe, but even that seemed wrong to me. All unripe raspberries I’ve ever seen were white or green. I touched one – as any curious person would do – and it nearly fell away from the plant into my hand. To me, that means it was ready to be eaten.

I looked at Isaac, who was looking at me apprehensively. I wanted to eat that berry. But I was good.

I bought it home to look up and what it was. If all was well I would give it a go. I didn’t want to die, there in the middle of a little patch of forest.

These are showing up all along all the trails I’ve been on lately, and are a lovely bright orange color.

Such a crazy color to see out in the forest.

Just like a raspberry.

It was delicious. And I’m not dead. It tasted partly like a raspberry, and partly like — something else. I want to say sort of like an orange, but my brain might just be telling me that’s what it tasted like. Perhaps. I’ll have to eat more to be sure.

Alphabe-Thursday: Z is for….

May 18, 2012 by abraalani

Zounds! Z is for whatever you can think of. I couldn’t think of anything readily available to photograph.

The world of Z is your…Zooplankton?

So, whip up a batch of zabaglione to enjoy with some zampone , slip on your zamarra, sit down on your zabuton on the zabra, do a little zambra while listening to someone play a zampogna, while engaged in zenography. And be sure to check out all the Z entries, here:

Alphabe-Thursday: Y is for Yellow

May 10, 2012 by abraalani

I feel a bit like a cheater using “yellow” as my Y word today. I did also see yarrow, and I caught this yawn:

Isaac yawning

just a little yellow

a lot of yellow

yellow with a bit of orange

Linking up with Alphabe-Thursday:

Alphabe-Thursday: The Letter X: Xenomorphic

May 3, 2012 by abraalani

I was sort of dreading this week’s letter, as many participants in Jenny Matlock’s Alphabe-Thursday probably were. I kept thinking words that would work if I was willing to cheat a little; “eXamine” or “eXclaim” and so on.

Luckily though, Isaac and I decided to drive down to Federal Way, a town we hadn’t yet explored, and one that is only about 15 miles away. As we usually do before such an adventure, we Googled the town to see what interesting things it has to offer.

One of the things we decided to check out was the Bonsai Collection, curated by the Weyerhaeuser Company. It’s an interesting place to visit, they have 60 different individual bonsai, in a nicely laid out exhibit garden. The exhibit is mostly all outside, and on rainy days like today it makes it a very soggy experience, but cool nevertheless.

These “trees” are works of art that take years (think three decades or more) to mold into the final product. Many of them have been shaped into certain shapes or styles of bonsai, such as the cascade or semi-cascade bonsai, which is designed to mirror the trees seen clinging to cliff-sides.

And so, my entry into the Alphabe-Thursday collection is this:

Xenomorphic: adjective, meaning: in an unusual form; having a strange form.