A few more shots from backyard gardens

 

In my recent post about flower gardens on our property, I neglected to include images of marigolds that are sprucing up what we call our "puppy garden" because the stones within its confines commemorate pets that have been in the family in recent years, including Lee Ann's Molly and Bear, which I've written about before they passed within three months of each other in late 2017 and early 2018.

The puppy garden is what you see in the two photos leading off the post, and the first image below is a close up of the French dwarf marigold you see in the photos above. The second photo below is a shot of another black-eyed-susan plant growing next to the puppy garden (it's not in either picture above) and also right next to the west gate to the vegetable garden behind the detached garage. 

Next in the post is a rust-colored coleus plant that has been on the back deck for a couple months. It's right near where I usually sit, and I enjoy gazing at it when the afternoon light strikes it just right. 

I thought I'd also use this opportunity to present a photo of that vegetable garden (photo below the black-eyed-susans) here as well. Lee Ann and Lea planted a lot of the usuals there and in the vegetable garden beds along the detached garage driveway. But as the photo shows, we've allowed a lot of weeds to grow in the strawberry section (front and front left), and we know there's a cleanout of that looming in the near future. 

Below that is a perspective shot of the beds along the detached garage driveway, which is where we have tomato plants growing. A few closeups of the tomatoes appear below that.       

Above is a mullein, whose leaves are used in various teas. The three photos below are shots of a leafy plant called burdock. Both are in the raised beds along the detached garage driveway.

Afternoon visit from deer in the 'hood

In previous posts here, I think I've alluded to how my new home in Raleigh is situated in a modest rural neighborhood and, most importantly, flanked on two of its sides by wooded areas. So it is not uncommon Lee Ann and I will observe out yard (and, gulp, garages) visited by an assortment of creatures.

There are some of the most obvious -- squirrels, for instance. But we have also come across toads, frogs, snakes, opossum, rabbits, cardinals, hawks, a few stray cats and deer.

Of the latter group, we see hawks and deer most often. The deer, especially, get bold enough to come onto our property to forage when temperature plummet, even though by now they must know there are humans in the house (or at least near the house) on the property. We've unintentionally scared them off from grazing on our grass or bushes when we'd open a door to go outside. Of course, we wouldn't know they had been there until the door is open and we step foot outdoors.

Most of the time, the deer don't visit until very early morning -- dawn -- or late in the afternoon, as it gets dark. But earlier this week, two deer really got bold and elected to graze in our backyard during the middle of the day. So I grabbed my phone camera (and later, my Canon 6D) and shot away through door windows in our living room. These pictures show the deer near the stairs on our deck, along the fence we put up to protect our raised garden beds (to protect against these deer and rabbits, to be precise), in front our puppy memorial garden and next to the modest playground area we developed for the grandchildren to enjoy when they visit.

Most of the time, the deer were foraging; those didn't seem like very interesting pictures. So I present those when they attention was diverted by sound and/or movement. Most of the movements were probably me they might have detected on the other side of the window. But at one of these "at attention" photos -- the two of them near the fence -- was in reaction to a car starting in a neighbor's yard. They spent a good minute or so fixing their gaze in that direction before being satisfied they could return to grazing.

As always, if you want to pull up a larger and sharper version of an image, simply click on the image. This is particularly helpful if you access the blog using a mobile device. If you want to see the full gallery of images and a short video clip, click on the link in this sentence. 

Update on walkway paver project

In my previous post, I mentioned the backyard walkway paver project that Lee Ann and I had been working on recently. Considering that we've made nice progress on it since then, I thought I'd present a few updated pictures.

The lead-off photo above shows the walkway -- between the driveway of our detached garage on the right and the patio at bottom left -- as seen from our deck behind the house. Below is a zoom shot taken from about the same spot on the deck as the one above. 

The walkway as seen from the driveway (above) ... and from the same vantage point (below), but with the deck in the background. This was the same perspective you saw in the picture of me in the previous post. The sack you see on the walkway is sand, which we used to fill the cracks between the pavers. The black bag on the patio contains soil, which we're using to fill the sides of the walkway.

Above and below: Two more views of the walkway. The second below is a closeup of how we chose to end the section close to the patio, where Lee Ann envisions using more of the same pavers to add a few feet extension of the patio to accommodate a combination grill and smoker, which we current store in the main garage which is attached to the house opposite this side of the house. 

Pics from the office window ... Episode 1

The room where my desktop computer is located, and where I work when I process my photos from various shoots, is on the upper level of the house and faces the backyard.

Immediately next to the four office windows overlooking the yard is the slanted roof over the sunroom. The roofs blocks my view of any yard immediately adjacent to the house, but I can see some of the rear yard and all of the wooded area beyond the property line. I also can see our detached garage, and the next-door neighbor's backyard.

Four days ago, while I was working on the computer, a cardinal stopped on the aforementioned roof -- about 10 feet from where I was sitting. I scrambled to get my camera and attach a lens with a long focal range (I chose the Canon 20-700mm f/2.8L). By the time I got back to the desk chair to shoot, the cardinal had disappeared.

I decided to keep the camera ready nearby in case the cardinal returned. It hasn't come back while I've been here, but a thought occurred to me two days ago while I was composing the post about the snow pictures. I happened to look over to my neighbor's backyard and the saw the chair on the hill as shown in the photo leading off the post. I liked its framing by the tree on the left and the neighbor's shed on the right.

The camera was still equipped with the 70-200mm lens, so I grabbed it and took the picture. Then I noticed snow formations on the roof ... and a striking shadow of a tree against the garage roof. And I started firing some more shots. I came back to the original shot -- the neighbor's chair -- and changed the orientation to vertical and focused on the lone leaf remaining on the tree in the foreground.

I got the idea to come back to this idea from time to time -- finding things of interest while looking through the office window --- presuming I won't run out of ideas ... or won't quickly become repetitive. We'll see.

All of the shots in today's post were taken with my Canon 6D and the aforementioned 70-200mm lens. I bracketed exposures for processing images through Photomatix high-dynamic range (HDR) software.

Above: A large sack of garden soil left out in the yard that I used as a marker last month. I'm going to have to remember to drag it into the garage at some point soon.

Above and next five below: Various slices of the sunroom roof and sunlight windows in various snow cover or reflection. The first shot below was intended as an exercise in exploiting depth of field.

The angular shadow of a tree on the side and roof of the detached garage (above), and a second frame to compose just the roof portion below. 

Above: Back to the direction of the original composition (the neighbor's backyard chair this time in the background), changing the orientation to vertical and focusing on the orange leaf from a deciduous tree stuck in the conifer in the foreground.  

Anatomy of a red bud tree in autumn

Last week, Lee Ann suggested I do a photo shoot focusing on the leaves of one tree -- the one in my backyard. She was taken by how striking the leaves looked dangling side by side in order ... and pointed out the heart shape of the leaves.

I'd come close to doing an autumn shoot on just one tree before. It was a few years ago and involved a tree with red leaves in Garfield Park near the arts center that had piqued my interest. But I went on to shoot a few other trees that day before calling it a shoot.

But last Sunday, it was all about the one red bud trees, whose leaves turn yellow, by the way. As it turned out, I liked the closeups and/or cropped versions more than I did the broader view/perspective shots, so that's why you see a lot of closeups in this post. Also, the perspective shots tended to included possibly distracting neighbor property in the background (e.g., fencing, house, garage, etc.), so I'm sure that had something to do with my preference as well. Nevertheless, I did include some of those shots here, too.

One exception to the closeups is the photo leading off the post; there are a few others below, including one of just fallen leaves clustered on the lawn, which I immediately contrasted with a composition of a solitary full leaf -- a bit father away from the tree than the cluster -- and a smaller curled leaf. Finally, I provided a full-view shot of the tree at the very end of this post so you can appreciate what I had to work with ... and what I had to work around.

All of these shots were taken with my Canon 6D equipped with a Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L lens. A full gallery of the red bud tree shoot can be found at my online site at SmugMug.com. As usual, to view a larger and sharper version of a photo, click on it. This is particularly helpful when accessing the blog on a mobile device.