August 25th - Amaryllis in bloom

They bloomed! I've got five! Isn't it pretty?!?!

They actually bloomed days ago, but I'm just getting them posted, now.

August 22nd - Mushrooms

I've been getting these weird mushrooms in my garden lately. They look like this in the early am, then they go all black and goopy and fall over. The gooey black gunk gets all over everything! Ick!
But, apparently, they are beneficial. Or so I've been told. I'll just leave them if they come up again. :P

August 15th - Blackbird

Although you can't see it in this picture, this poor bird has fishing line wrapped around his legs. He could still walk a little, but mostly just hopping. I took this at the aquarium, a few weeks ago. I told the staff about him, but by the time someone came, (which was rather quickly, btw) he had flown up into a tree. :(
Anyway, I actually shot this during the 30 day challenge, but didn't use it because his tail is cut off in the picture. That bugged me. I still really like this one, except the fishing line, of course.

August 8th - Zucchini

I said I'd probably post it when I cooked one of the zucchini's from my plant, and tonight it was my dinner! I fried up two zucchini, two summer squash, two crook-neck squash, and about a dozen mushrooms in some olive oil that had garlic flavor in it, and a tiny bit of chopped onion, salt and pepper. It was fantastic! Yum!

August 5th - Amaryllis

I now have 4 amaryllis sprouts. You can only see 3 here, though. This is the difference between the end of last month and today, only 5 days! It's amazing watching these grow!

July 31st - A New Beginning

I know that, technically, this was a thirty day challenge, but my OCD-like traits wouldn't let me finish yesterday. So, I'm finishing today with a New Beginning.

This is an amaryllis bulb, sprouting out of the ground. I thought they had finished for the year, since they hadn't sprouted in a few months, so I transplanted sunflowers over the bulbs (the green peeking out from behind the red shoot), so hopefully they won't interfere with each other too much. In a few days, I'm gonna have pretty flowers! :)

Good news! I followed some troubleshooting directions in my camera's manual, and it seems to have worked! Keep your fingers crossed for me that my camera keeps working! :) LOL

Thanks all, for the wonderful comments, it was a real gift you gave me! I wish I could have returned the favor, but I'm not very good at that, I'm afraid. I really appreciated the kind remarks. Thank you all very much!

I'm looking forward to another photo challenge, and plan on continuing this photo blog, so stay tuned! :) I probably won't post every single day, but a couple of times a week is my goal!

July 30th - George Carlin

I was on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, today. For about ten minutes! I saw Georges star, and couldn't NOT take a picture of it! :) I got a picture of every name I recognized for the two blocks I was there, but this is the one I wanted to share, since he is so recently departed. :(

I'm home again, now. My camera is still broken. The focus lock works sporadically, and there are only two focus options, instead of the four I'm supposed to have, which is a new problem, today. I fear I will be without a camera soon. At least it made it through the month. I will be forced to use my old 3.3 mp point and shoot. :( I'm very depressed.

However, I made it through the thirty days!!!!! Tomorrow will have a picture, and probably so will many more days after that, because this was great fun! I just wish I had a decent camera to continue with! Oh, well. :P

Thanks for the challenge, everyone! :D

July 29th - Ant Farm

I found an ant farm! Not the kind you can buy in a store, either. :) This is in my husband's aunt's garden. (aunt-in-law?)

I thought it was pretty cool. I'm out of town (in LA) at the moment, so sorry for the cruddy quality of the picture. Also, my camera broke, and is acting quite random! Really annoying!!!!

At least it still takes pictures, even if they are crap.

Anyway, here are the ants and aphids for your viewing pleasure!

July 28th - Cinderella?

I think Cinderella may have visited my garden last night. I didn't know they held balls around here! ;)

July 27th - Dinosaur

Today is my daughter's 6th birthday party. She helped me make her cake. What do you think? Cute, no? :)
Busy day, gotta go. Have a good one, all!

July 26th - Thorns

Just some thorns from my dormant Fuchsia Gooseberry bush. Scary looking, ain't it?! :)

July 25th - Aquarium Triptych

It always seems to be the same fish who are enthralled with the flash on the camera! ;)

Anyway, here's a Cardinal Tetra, the Mystery Snail, and a Zebra Danio.

The tetra is the only one I have. I have 8 other Neon Tetras which are extremely close in looks (the red only covers half the body, but that's the only difference I can see), but I can't find any more Cardinals at the local pet stores. It stinks, because they are a schooling fish and like to be in odd-numbered groups. This one seems to be the leader for the Neons. They're always following him around.

The Zebra danios are annoying, and they nip the other fish's fins. I don't like them, but they're hardy and great for starting a new tank. I have 6. They're from India and all the other fish I have are from South America, so that could be why there is so much contention among the Danios and the other fish. (?) I had to take the betta fish out of the tank because of the Danios and the Guppy's tail fin is starting to get a little nipped, but they're nippers, too. I'm going to leave him in the tank. Mainly because I have no place else to put him. :( The betta is in a bowl, now, though.

They snail I already talked about a few days ago. Anyway, I'm rambling again. Sorry. I'll stop now. :)

For those who are interested, my fish tank is 100 gallons. :)

July 24th - Shorebird

This is a shorebird that is at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I don't know what kind. It sucks how hard it is to take a decent shot there, but I think I did pretty good today. I'm saving the best, though. ;)

July 23rd - Otocinclus

This is an Otocinclus. They are sucker fish, who like algae and swim quickly. They're very hard to catch. Otocinclus, at least the dwarf kind, get to be only about 1 1/2 inches long. This one is probably an inch at the most right now. S/he is sucking on the inside of the tank. I took this shot from the side of the tank looking out the front. The one on the left is him/her. ;) (duh.) S/he's got two reflections, for some reason.

For those who've been wondering: Yes, the plants in my tank are silk plants. I can't stand the plastic kind, and the real ones get mauled by the critters, so I went with fabric. :)

I was going to wait and see if I got a better shot later today, but got bored this morning, so decided to try to photograph the fish again. Eventually, I'll be able to get a shot of the Zebra Danios! They swim just as quickly as the Otocinclus do, but the Otocinclus do tend to stop for a while, occasionally.

I'd also like to get a shot of one of my Neon or Cardinal Tetras, but the flash just makes the colors on them explode and it looks like the pic is blurry when it's not, it's only the reflections shooting every which way.

July 22nd - Hillside

I went to my inlaw's house today, and had to drive by some hills. These are typical California hillsides, always brown. ;)

(They do turn green, sometimes.)

I know it's a tad blurry, but we were driving at the time.

July 21st - Mystery Snail

He's not a mystery, that's just what they're called. Look it up. :) (They're also called apple snails.)

I just got this little guy today, to help clear the tank of algae. Unfortunately, it has become a problem. :(

The last time I had one of these, he grew to darn near fist size! This one is about 1 1/2 inches in length, so far. My daughter picked out a yellow one, but they also come in black. Yellow is easier to see against the black background of the tank.

Yes, I know we're back to my fish tank, I just didn't do anything of interest today, so this is what you all get. Sorry. :)

July 20th - Ed

Today's picture is a portrait of my dad, Ed. I asked him if he minded, and he said, "Hell no!" :)
I like how it turned out. He's a handsome fella, ain't he? ;)

July 19th - Red Minor Tetra

Here's a Red Minor Tetra, from my tank. I finally think I figured out how to photograph my fish! :D

Just in case you're interested: I used my macro filters and turned on the flash. I thought they'd freak out about the flash, but, actually more fish came over to investigate, and they seemed to like it! So weird.

Anyway, isn't s/he just a pretty little thing? :)

I was working on borders again (how else am I gonna learn?), and decided circular borders are way tougher than I expected! I'm really just not all that pleased with what I was able to do. So, I went online (google) and found a porthole to put around the little guy, and I think it turned out great!

July 18th - Bean blossom

This is the blossom that is currently on my mystery bean. I call it a mystery bean, because it is from a bag of soup mix that I sprouted for another photo purpose (jelly bean sprout), but we planted this one and still don't know what kind of bean we'll get from it. I actually have four of these bean sprouts growing, and six pea plants, all from the soup mix. I think this one is a pinto bean.

Anyway, I just thought the delicate little flower was so pretty and wanted to share it, plus I'm playing with the borders again, and I really like this one. I know it's a bit similar to yesterday's, but apparently I really like green! :)

I also like how it resembles a snapdragon.

Please leave comments, I am loving that part of this challenge! ;)

July 17th - Spring Mix

I took a picture of my (crowded) pot of spring mix lettuce this morning so I could practice with borders (Thanks, Cap for the ideas!). I really like how this one turned out. :) A good border can make even a blah picture look snazzy.

The real task, though, is going to be trying to thin these out without killing any. My daughter and I put too many seeds in the pot, obviously. :P