It's...Halloweenie Time!

I've taken some very unusual holiday pictures over the years during my various strolls around my immediate neighborhood, as well as my own house. Today's post features some of the more abnormal pics that had struck my fancy during my leisurely walks around this wonderful town.

{9/24/24}

1} People put up very strange decorations in the month leading up to Halloween. For example, this lovely spider couldn't decide if they were climbing up to the waterspout, or down to the ground to chill out on the brownish-green grass with his pumpkin friend.

{9/12/24}

2} My muse decided that she had better things to do than to watch over me 24/7/365, because you know, the Hawaiian surf is at an all time high and sun is just sending out some sensuous vibes....anyways, this is my new watch dog...I mean, my new watch skeleton, Bonesy McBones. He ain't got a brain, but he's looking to get back into politics, soo...

{9/9/2024}

3} Saw this dude waiting for either Casey Jones's locomotive or an auto traveling down the road to nowhere. In any event, he was basically chillin' to the sunny vibes of the neighborhood, where maybe, just maybe, this particular parade will entertain him in the meanwhile.

{8/3/24}

4} Not too sure what the main idea was in giving this gnarly looking tree the odd Pickachu face, but here we are. To be honest, I don't really remember what neighborhood I was trudging through when his gnarliness got hold of my short attention span, so there you go. Now that I think about it, the face does remind me of SpongeBob in an odd way. Kind of. A little. Maybe.

{4/20/24}

5} "Come closer my little pretty and let me tell you a story about someone who actually said 'okay' when the operator said, 'I want to talk to you about extending your car warranty.' His empty wallet was never the same. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"

{10/18/23}

6} When a very large pumpkinhead skeleton says, 'respect my authority!', you can bet your sweet bippy that I will respect his authority. Certainly more than Kyle's or Chief Wiggins's authority.

{7/31/2024}

7} I'm including this picture at the end as another example of the Completion Backward Principle, in that retailers want to get a super early jump on the next holiday. As you can tell by the date of the picture, my local Dollar Tree store had Halloweenie schtuff out and on display more than three months prior to the official holiday. Trust me when I say that I have more photographic examples of starting the race three steps from the finish line when it comes to holidays.

I certainly hope that this small traipse through the holiday of pre All Saints Day gave you a small chuckle or two. Have a fantastic week and remember, the world indeed always revolves around you.

(c) 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

We Have Wildlife On Cedar Mountain

Hello to one and all, and after an eight year long hiatus/vacation, we are back to post some fresh content for you to peruse and enjoy. A brief backstory before we get into the meat of the post: since my last post in 2016, I spent those years upping my exercise routine by walking at least 2 3/4 miles per day {minimum 6k steps} per day. I've also taken quite a few pics, just not at the rate during 2010-16. I hope you enjoy the latest version of my picture blog.

We have an abundance of wildlife on our little suburban mountain: some fox, some wild rabbit and some deer, predominately female, with the occasional sighting of a buck and fawns. Today's post will concentrate on our resident deer population.

August 2023 {1}

1} This pic was the best of a mediocre bunch showing a small herd (about 6) of deer grazing in someone's backyard pool area. They were probably making their way from the stream that ran behind the house back to the source up on the mountain top and decided to stop for a snack. I took this pic from the street, as the deer were on private property and I was at maximum zoom.

July 2024 {2}

2} For roughly five hours, we had a fawn/doe just chilling in the shade of our backyard fence, as it was incredibly hot that day (about mid 90's and humid). The deer have, sadly enough, easy access to our backyard, as the fence surrounding our yard is about three feet in height. By the time I had come back home from my walk, the fawn had finished its R&R and returned back to the mountain.

July 2024 {3}

3} This was taken a few days earlier than the previous one, and apparently this doe had decided that I was a safe human, so she allowed me to take three photos from about twenty feet away in the street. In the other two, she is nibbling on the tree ivy before eventually strolling across the street back into the mountain.

I should make everyone aware that Cedar Mountain is basically on the other side of the street that my house borders on. It's a very popular hiking/walking area, although the storms from 2024 have done a bit of interior trail damage.

July 2024 {4}

4} This particular shot was the fawn being kind enough to allow me to take a few photos and a video after I had come to within fifteen feet of walking directly into them. I was finishing one of my walks down the side street and really groovin' to the music on my headphones. Something made me look up and viola!, we were eye to eye, so to speak. Again, she was crossing the street at the bridge to the mountain. 

Overall I have managed to come within fifteen-to-twenty feet of deer twice during my walks, purely by accident. I get so engrossed in what I'm listening to that I end up seeing without really seeing what's ahead of me.

June 2024 {5}

5} For our last pic, we have this nifty one taken, as you can see, from the inside of my house. We have our bird feeder perfectly located so that the birds, squirrels and chipmunks have easy access to the birdseed. This is about as close I've gotten to seeing a doe since taking a series of pics of a doe grazing outside a group home about year ago .

I sincerely hope you enjoyed this brief sampling of the deer population that makes itself known in our neighborhoods from time to time. Have a fantastic and relaxing week.

(c) 2024 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

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.

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.

Summer In Connecticut

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

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

Hiking On Cedar Mountain 2

Continuing on a theme, here is part 2 of my leisure weekend hike up Cedar Mountain.

On this part of the hike I decided to explore a bit of the ridge. Photo's 2 and 3 were taken from a rocky outcrop that gave me the willies while I was hiking up (diagonally) and while I was hiking down (also diagonally, which was very dangerous). In the remaining pics, you can see worn out paths that although were great for walking on, did provide a few places along the way for me to sit and proverbially smell the flowers, or in the case, the trees and the birds. You can also that autumn is indeed taking place on Cedar Mountain.

And while the grade was roughly 7% or more in some places, the downward trek on those paths made it feel like I was walking down a slightly steep hill. So overall to this point, the hike was going very well.

Hiking On Cedar Mountain

Recently I went for a hike up Cedar Mountain and took roughly 20 pics and one video while spending an hour tramping around the mountain. I thought now would be a good time as any to resurrect this blog and share one of my favorite places to get lost within myself. So without further ado, here is Cedar Mountain.

 

 

These pics were taken within the first fifteen minutes of my hike. The first one shows the entrance to Cedar Mountain, which located directly across from the end of my street. The remaining six were taken at various points while I was hiking up the initial 8-9% incline (it eventually grew to about a 11% or so incline the further up I went), either facing towards the street or off to my right as I faced the mountain.

 

Even though the temps were in the hi 60's/lo 70's outside, once I got about ten feet inside the mountain the temp dropped roughly five degrees. The higher I went the chillier it got as even though the sun poked its head through (as you can see in some of those pics), the ratio of shade to sun was about 4 to 1 in favor of the shade.

 

As you can see, autumn hasn't quite taken hold in the mountain yet, but in the coming weeks, maybe it has.