Month's End

     Well, here it is the last day of April.  Another month over and done with.  I searched the April file for a photo to use today.  I chose this one from a week or so ago when I happened to spy some snow geese heading north.  This was the only shot I could get of them and I'm including it as it originally turned out, stray tree branches and all.  Its really hard for me to zero in on small, distant, moving things with a camera that doesn't have a viewfinder.  Hopefully, YOU can see the snow geese.

  

Barn Charm

     Here's a drive-by shot from last summer.  The piece of equipment coming out of the barn is part of the barn cleaner.  Gutters behind the cows catch the manure and then I presume it is pushed by paddles into the auger which you see there (that is how our barn cleaner works).  A manure spreader can be parked underneath to catch the manure which would then be hauled to the field for fertilizer.

Visit Bluff Area Daily for this week's Barn Charm.

Another Look

     Oops, I forgot to make a blogpost yesterday that would post automatically early this morning.  That's what I usually do but was too busy relaxing yesterday to remember.  Here's another look at the crocus that bloomed last week.

     We were able to seed oats on Saturday, but now this morning its raining again. We hope to get corn and soybeans planted someday as do all the farmers around here.  Its a rather discouraging spring season so far.

In Time

In time they will be lilacs and I will love their wonderful fragrance!

Yellow-headed Blackbird

A couple days ago my husband hollered for me to bring the camera.  

He had spied a Yellow-headed Blackbird. 

 I had never seen one before except in bird books.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Here's another bird that's been around here lately.  One of the photos I took of it showed the reddish  coloring on its head.  That helped in identifying it as a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.

 

Skywatch

Here's how the sky looked two evenings ago...

Visit Skywatch Friday to see photos from around the world.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Yesterday I was stalking this bird in the yard, 

trying to get photos to identify it with.

 Turns out it is a Yellow-rumped warbler, this next shot showing why it was given that name.

I'm guessing it is only passing through our area while on a springtime journey to somewhere else.

Here's one last look, a rather silly pose...

Last Year At This Time

Look what we had by this time a year ago...

 

       Last year we planted oats on March 16 and started planting corn today, April 24. That I know because of photos I took on those days.  Currently, the trees still have no leaves, there are no wildflowers or lilacs yet, and spring fieldwork has not begun. Amazing how the weather can vary from year to year!

Go Away

Rain, rain, please go away so spring fieldwork can begin!

Barn Charm

This photo was taken last fall.

Visit Bluff Area Daily for this week's Barn Charm.

Another Sky

     Just another sky photo, though a big bird is soaring in the very top of this scene and there are other smaller ones further below.  I didn't know any of them were there when I snapped the camera shutter.

Opening Day

Yesterday, the sun shone bright
and with just enough warmth
to persuade the crocuses to open...finally!

Edited Scene

     This was a morning shot from a few days ago.  Originally, it didn't look quite this striking.  Editing photos is fun and challenging so I tinkered around with this one until it looked adequately cool in my opinion.  I increased the sky color and deepened the contrast until the shed and landscape looked like a silhouette.

A Little Color

     Yesterday I figured out how to add some color to a drab day---take a photo of your John Deere lawnmower being towed to town for its annual tune-up in preparation for another busy season of mowing.  Wear a colorful scarf in case you happen to end up in the photo.

     We had just passed an Amish horse-drawn wagon.  It is hidden behind raindrops there on the shoulder of the road.

Skywatch

Taken a couple days ago...

Visit Skywatch Friday to see photos from around the world.

Waiting

Yesterday it rained all day and today its supposed to do the same.  

The fields wait patiently for spring tillage. 

These zoomed shots were taken a couple days ago.

The zooming results in some blurriness, but I think its kind of cool. 

  

Light and Dark

The evening before last there was a few minutes of unusual lighting---bright landscape backed up by dark sky.

Barn Charm

Here's a drive-by shot from last fall.  I was aiming for the barn so the old-fashioned corn cribs and new-fangled cell phone tower are a bonus.

Visit Bluff Area Daily for this week's Barn Charm.

Robin

The blogosphere probably doesn't need another robin photo, but here's one anyway...

Abstract Barns

     Just now I was sorting through barn photos while waiting for my husband to come in for lunch.  I found this rather poor quality drive-by shot from last year that I couldn't bear to part with and tried out several effects on it.  I kind of like this sort of abstract one...

Yesterday

     Our weather remains cold and rainy.  This photo was taken yesterday, could have been today, hopefully not tomorrow.  I almost deleted it but then decided I liked the way the raindrops are in focus.  They look like they're right there on the computer screen.

Skywatch

Photo taken several days ago...

Visit Skywatch Friday to see photos from around the world.

Yesterday

     Yesterday I had to run an errand which required a road trip of several hours. Before tossing them in the trash I decided to first submit some colorful evidence of the day.  I had to leave early in the morning and it was cold out so of course I needed some hot mocha.  Yum!  At lunchtime, I was hungry, so a fast food meal was consumed.  Yum!   Later in the afternoon, on the way home, I couldn't resist stopping for an ice cream treat.  Yum!  

     Rain fell most of the day, sometimes heavy and with thunder and lightning.  

The windshield wipers got a good workout.  

Many farm fields looked very waterlogged.*

*No motorists were put in danger by the shooting of this drive-by shot by a driver.  There was no oncoming traffic and I aimed the camera out the window without looking.

(I would like to always blog about yesterday, that way I can use the title "Yesterday" and avoid spending time fretting over what title to choose.  That really perplexes me sometimes.)

  

Yesterday

     Yesterday I rode along with my husband to get some machinery parts.  I didn't snap too many drive-by shots because the landscape isn't very scenic right now and most of the barns along the way are ones I've already photographed.  It was nice to see some green in the form of this rye field beginning to grow.  I didn't even realize the photo had also caught the snow still there in the road ditch.

Barn Charm

This drive-by photo was taken a couple months ago.

Visit Bluff Area Daily for this week's Barn Charm.

Crocuses

     We had a nice rain last night 

and in the morning before the raindrops dried 

I quick took some crocus shots 

before the cats wandered through.  

I'm happy with this photo because

 it shows the true color of the crocuses. 

In order to do that, I changed a setting on my camera 

because the crocuses were turning out blue

 when I used the automatic setting.  

Unfortunately, though, the color of the surrounding dirt 

turned out untrue, having orangish highlights 

which are not really there. 

     Don't you hate it when you spend time taking photos and then you open the memory card on the computer and somehow something happens and the photos disappear forever.  That happened to me last evening and I was so sad.  Thank goodness they were only photos I had taken here around the farmyard and not from some special place I had traveled to.  They were simply crocuses and maple buds in the evening light, all of which can probably be photographed again tomorrow, though the cats like to sit on the crocuses and who knows if the evening sunlight and cloud configurations will ever be quite the same.  That's why we bloggers take so many photos and so often.   

     In consolation, I'm posting this shot of wild phlox from early summer 2011.  Its from a wildflower photo album I have on Facebook.  Its possible to upload Facebook photos onto BeFunky for editing, so that's what I did with this one.

Miscellaneous Birds

Here's some recent miscellaneous bird photos.  

This first one is the only time I've ever managed

 to get a half-way decent shot of a female cardinal

 so I put her in the spotlight...

Here's two unidentified gray birds 

being shadowed by a spooky-looking blackbird...

And, lastly, here's an eagle in flight given the cinerama effect

 which is apparently supposed to 

make it look like a scene from a movie... 

Birds in the Treetops

Grackles and blackbirds were in the treetops the other day...

Robins

      Here's some photos taken a couple days ago.  There was a robin get-together going on in the hayfield...

...and in the tree branches...

Killdeer were there, too...

Temperatures remain on the chilly side, but the birds assure us that spring is here.