It's...Domesticated Wildlife!

I enjoy taking pictures of all kinds of domesticated animals: dogs, cats, rabbits, ferrets, and birds just to name a few, over the past decade and a half. I find them to be the easiest subjects to photograph, so there's no possible way that you can mess it up. I would like to share a few of my favorite pics with everyone.

circa 2010's

1} This is my very lovely and late cat Holly, who we unfortunately had to put down during the beginning of that nasty old panicky pandemic. I don't quite remember the specific year that I had taken this pic, other than it was during the 2010s and I had posted it previously on this particular blog. This particular pic is the first thing that you see when you visit my main blog I Have Stories!, as I wanted to created a lasting tribute to my favorite pet. Additionally, the spot you see her standing is the spot that her lovely wooden urn now occupies as the window sill was her favorite spot.

circa 2010s

2} This is one of the better group photos of our two Chihuahuas Oreo and Tina, along with the late Lucky, a mixed breed of something and something. While the former are still going somewhat strong in their mid-teens, Lucky sadly passed away a couple of years ago from a combo of old age and unknown medical issues. Let me tell you, this dog was absolutely fearless. For whatever reason known to him, he couldn't walk down the three steps from the deck to the ground, he had to absolutely launch himself from deck to the ground, often partially face-planting the concrete tiles. No matter how many times we would (gently) chastise him, it would go in one ear straight out the other.

10/16/2024

3} Our lovely chihuahuas make an appearance once again, this time in their Halloween sweaters/costume, with Oreo in his lovely Halloween sweater and Tina masquerading as a very lovely bumblebee. Sometimes when you start aging gracefully, you're not as grumpy when presented with a sweater or a costume for your person.

7/20/2023

4} Once again our lovely chihuahuas make an appearance, this time while they're frolicking around the backyard, which was cleared out of any other "interlopers" by Oreo, who simply couldn't stand the thought of any birds, rabbits or squirrels having the temerity to actually visit the backyard to like, you know, chill out. Now in his ye olden age, he's content to bark at the neighbor's dog, who is about 10x his size through the fence. This dog has absolutely no fear whatsoever.

circa 2020s

5} I like to finish up this brief trip down domesticated wildlife memory lane with a pic of my daughter's ferret Bubbles. She's been featured periodically in a few my now dormant blog, but while she was alive, she was a blast to have around the house. The photo above was one of the rare times she was brought outside, because we really didn't have properly sized collar or harness to walk her in. She was quite the curious little animal and she will be sadly missed.

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

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.

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.

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.

Father Nature's Corner

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

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.

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.