Cutting of the Rye

Dandelions at Dusk

 

Rye Field

It looks like tall grass, but its a field of rye almost ready to be cut and chopped for silage(food for cows).

Here’s Mrs. Red-Winged Blackbird---most likely standing guard over her nest.

She looks nothing like her male counterpart and I wonder if she gets tired of having a name that doesn’t describe her at all.

Fieldwork

Field cultivator kicking up dust,

getting ready for more corn planting.

Skywatch

Photo taken last week…

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Admiral Butterfly

There’s been lots of admiral butterflies fluttering around outside lately, but they are difficult to photograph.  Lo and behold, one showed up inside the house the other day and I promptly held an impromptu photo session as it sat on a window:

Yesterday

Yesterday was a bright, sunny day offering a great opportunity for my husband to start planting corn.  This photo was snapped when I went to the field to take him his lunch:  

Also yesterday, my mom was here.  She just got back from a trip to The Netherlands where she got these Delft-themed slippers:

Cats

When I can’t find anything else to take pictures of, I turn to the cats.

This one was dozing on an old tank the other day:

This one was playing hide-and-seek in the junk pile:

And, this one now finds herself busy with a litter of kittens:

Her expression seems to say, “How did I get into THIS situation?!”

Barn Charm

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Prairie Phlox

Yesterday I found some prairie phlox beginning to bloom along the road by our farm.

Dandelions & Clouds

In the foreground is part of our lawn which is bordered by a hayfield beyond.  The other day I mowed the lawn for the first time this spring.  Bye, bye, dandelions!

Shadow Tree

Skywatch

Photo taken mid-morning, a few days ago…

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Old Logos

We have old machinery sitting around here and there waiting patiently to be hauled to the junkyard.  The well-worn logos seem blogworthy.

 

Random Variety

Yesterday my husband sent me on an errand.  Here’s a variety of things I saw along the way:

A pair of lovely flowering trees… 

A cool bridge…

A doorway to an eerie place…

And, an old threshing machine…

The eerie place is in a cemetery.  It is an underground room used long ago to store the bodies of people who died during winter when it was too cold to dig graves.  I once read a newspaper article about it and had always wanted to see it, so yesterday was the day.

Barn Charm

In desperate need of repair, but still standing…

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Trying Textures

Nancy from A Rural Journal has started a new blog containing textures.  I decided to try this one called denim fade:

Here is the original photo:

I took a photo of the side of a barrel and then lightened it and removed a few spots so I could try using it as a texture:

Here’s the barrel texture if you want to save it to use:

 

Here’s how I apply textures using Photoshop Elements 6:

Open the texture photo in PS.  Then open the photo you want to add the texture to.  Drag the texture photo up onto the first photo.  Stretch it to fit.  Over on the right of the PS page, click the button under the word “layers”.  In the box that opens, click “normal”.  Click the “layers” button again and choose “overlay” which will apply the texture.  So far that’s all I know about texturing.

Lilacs

Maple Leaves

Yesterday we had an overcast day after enjoying cloudless skies for most of the week.  On one of those sunny days I snapped this photo of new maple leaves. 

Skywatch

Morning sky from earlier this week…

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Heifers in the Rye

The other day we turned the heifer group out into the nice green rye field:

It was my job to bring them back from the field in the late afternoon.  As you can see, they don’t cooperate very well for photos:

Grackles

This photo was taken through two filters---a dusty window and a window screen. 

Favorite Colors

Blue and green is one of my favorite color combinations. 

Above is an ash tree beginning to leaf out. 

Below is a hard maple tree now in bloom.