Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Flowers

I thought I took a boatload of pics on my last bike ride, but sadly, all I took was the follow three plus the video that you saw on Father Nature's Corner.

So, here are those three pics:













 And, here are two other miscellaneous flower oriented pics and one ferret pic for you peruse and not really drool over:







(c) 2016 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.


Wednesday, May 18, 2016

I's Can Fall Off A Bike Too!

First off, welcome to Pictures For Smarties, formerly Shooting Suburbia. Believe it or not, the name change was done on a whim, with the whim being the weekly post over at Father Nature's Corner. I originally decided to post these pics over there, so I wrote a snarky comment about it. I liked it so much that I decided right there and then to change the title of my picture blog.

Thus, we start at the beginning, specifically, the 1st bike outing of the season, which took place on 5/14:


Actually, this pic wasn't part of the bike ride. I was out running some errands in my car and I thought it would be a good idea to take the camera along. Sadly, this was the only pic I during the drive.


Mill Pond Park: The Canadian Geese Armada was out in full force that Saturday, styling and profiling for the masses, as well as dropping some serious fertilizer for the masses as well. Oh, the human masses were out in full force that day, mostly doing the fishing thing. So we actually dismounted a couple of times to walk our bike past the peoples.














 


The geese pics are pretty much self explanatory. I played around with the zoom lens feature and considering I was anywhere from fifty to three hundred feet away from them, I think they came out purty good.


For those of you who may have been following me for a short time, it's an annual tradition of mine to have at least one (sometimes two) bike accidents every year, and 2016 was no exception. Roughly a half hour prior to taking this pics, I was on my way to the post office, when I came to a premature stop at the crossing light. Seems that my left shoelace, which I forgot to quadruple knot for bike riding, wrapped itself around my bike pedal.

Skipping to the end, we scrapped our knee and had a strange encounter with a high skool student. Our local high skool tennis team was doing a carwash fundraiser that day, and as this student was walking from one end of the block to the other, he passed by the wreckage of me and the bike and asked quite sincerely, "Hey mister! Wanna get your bike washed?"

Nice to know that chutzpah exists with the younger generation.

(c) 2016 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Doggies!

Can you believe it? Two posts in the month of July on this here blog. I's must be getting ill.

Today's post will feature another batch of photos taken this past July 4th weekend, and as the title suggests, it will feature doggies, specifically the one living here at the house.


The first two are of my mother's/daughter's nutty little chiuahauhau Oreo. Oreo has done an incredibly remarkable job of purging the entire backyard of all possible living creatures.

Birds? gone. Squirrels? ditto. Ducks? beyond a shadow of doubt. Rabbit? Getting there.



 

 The next two are of my mother's dog Lucky. Lucky is alder than dirt (about 18 or so), can't see and suffers from seriously short term memory loss.

As in, I can walk out the door and return fifteen seconds later to be barked at like it was my first time entering the house. In perpetuity.

As you can see, he is just chillin' in the sun.






 I was able to get a bunch of actions shots of Oreo from where I was (zoom lens on the camera) in the yard. In these two, you can see he was starting to go to town with scratching his back on the lawn.

And for those of you who are truly desperate to have music today, I double dog dare you to click on this link.

Father Nature's Corner

(c) 2015 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Butterflies?

Howdy do and welcome fellow suburbanites to my picture blog! I thought for next few months, it would be a good idea to dust out the bunnies and the cobwebs and bring this niche blog back out amongst the living.

Today's fun filled post is about butterflies, specifically, Monarch Butterflies. From I understand, there has been a decline of the Monarch butterfly population in the past few years, and Monarch Watch is a good place to learn how you can help stop the decline.

My town is doing it's part to help with the decline, as I discovered over the July 4th holiday weekened when I went bike riding. I took well over three dozen photos that day, and for today's post, I would like to present a little montage of that Monarch butterfly waystation.


Here is the original sign describing it.


And I decided to get a close up so that you could read what is written on the sign.


The rest of the shots are of the various flower beds that they planted and developed. I will tell you that they did a very good job of reclaiming this land next to the public library and creating a little bit of an open space out of what used to be a couple of houses.


II


III


IV


V


VI


I did not see any butterflies that day, but I did see a few moths. All of these pics were taken on either end of the flowerbeds, as I didn't feel comfortable tying to walk between them. In all of them you can see that they planted all kinds of flowers and other assorted fauna, and in the bottom, you can see a partial pallet of soil and fertilizer for them.


(c) 2015 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

Monday, July 7, 2014

Summer In Connecticut

A little something to brighten up your dreary Monday. Enjoy!















(c) 2014 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

A Walk Through The Park

Ola!

I thought I would dust off this blog and give everyone a treat today. Why? Because about a month ago, I received a b'day present of a slightly used digital video camera. A camera that is 1000 times better than the cheapy Colby camera that I had used for the past few years.

Anyways, today's pictorial will feature pics taken on a picnic I took with the wife on June 20th at Mill Pond Park. Enjoy!

 
 1) This is similar to one that I took a couple of years ago, in which I was laying on my back and looking up. Strangely enough, my wife did ask what I was doing, and strangely enough, I answered.


2} A very distant shot of ducks, even though I used the zoom feature on the camera. As you can see by the algae, it's been wickedly hot and dry this year so far.

 
3} With this shot, I was able to get much closer to the pond (a bench for people to watch and..ahem...feed the geese from was nearby) and thus make better use of the zoom feature.


4} Another shot of the geese from the same area.

 
5} This was taken from the bridge that crosses the waterfall, which was bone dry this particular day. My wife thinks that one of the ducks in this pic used to visit our little pond back in the day before the dogs chased them out.


6} Another duck sunbathing on the rocks. The sad part is that you can usually see these rocks when there has been a distinct lack of rain in the area for an extended period of time.

 
7} Still more ducks. Ducks at the pond are just about the easiest animals to take pictures of.


8} Yup, you guessed it, more ducks. We have a large population of two types of feathered friends: ducks and Canadian geese.

 
9} And still yet more ducks taking their hourly bath at the edge of the waterfall.


10} This was taken with a zoom as I wanted to get a shot of the duck swimming inside the water fountain.


 
11} The water fountain, which was donated by the Newington Garden Club back in the late 70's. There are two of them, one at the northern and the other at the southern end of the pond. They only come out for play when there's been a distinct lack of rain in the area for an extended period of time, thus giving Mother Nature a helping hand in maintaining the minimum water levels.