and the awesome crescent moon… lookin’ like the cheshire cat smile!!!
🙂
p.s. i love how you can see the outline of the moon, too!
both venus and jupiter will be visible through the end of february! so, make sure to look up! ❤
and don’t forget to get out in nature! it’s so healing!!!
i have some of the best people in my life! thoughtful, genuine, generous people… and i’m so thankful!
for my birthday last year, a dear friend gave me this awesome feather pen and quill ink stamp kit. i have always wanted one! i casually mentioned it to this person, and one day she brought it to me and i just shrieked in excitement! 🙂
i have since written several letters and sent them out to a select few people… it is just so much fun! i found this cool stationery that i had been holding onto for years, and it was just perfect for this kit!
my thoughts are like this – the internet and social media and all of that have great perks… but i also tend to be a little old-school… in that, i will always love sending and receiving mail! so this is just a perfect addition to my artistic studio!
would you like a hand-written wax-stamped letter from me? go to my about me page and fill out the form with your mailing address information and let’s be pen pals! 😀
i thought this would be a good post to celebrate the summer solstice! 😀
i have always been somewhat obsessed with the praying mantis. for as long as i can remember, i just thought they were so cool, and when i was a kid i used to look for them everywhere i would go! i saw one giving itself a bath one time and it was just about the most amazing thing ever. until i saw THIS! something i have had on my “bucket list” for a while…
backtrack a bit – when i lived in north carolina, a friend of mine found a praying mantis pod {aka ootheca} and saved it for me. i, of course, totally freaked out about it and immediately went to read about how to care for it… then i took a bunch of photos of it and eventually put in my garden…
i did not get to see that one hatch at that time, but this year… i totally made up for it. i found at least a dozen of these in my garden earlier this year. and in late spring, they all began to hatch… and all of these baby praying mantids started to emerge!
IT WAS SO COOL!!!
fun facts :
baby praying mantids are called nymphs. they hatch by the dozens {or sometimes hundreds} a while after the mama creates her ootheca pod {which tranlates to “a place to keep.”} praying mantids are so good for the garden! they are beneficial predatory insects… which basically means they prey the harmful insects which would otherwise harm or eat plants! and i just totally adore them!
speaking of mushrooms and fungi – check out this fantastic wild funky fungi that was recently gifted to me. apparently it’s edible, but it was just a little passed its prime when i got my hands on it. this amazing thing grows wild on a tree in a friend’s backyard. i wish i could remember the name. perhaps she will remind me before i decide to post this blog. another good friend of mine said it looked like a brain – haha. {he’s constantly saying silly things like that}
i love the golden colour! it reminds me of {yummy!} chanterelle mushrooms, but i was informed that this is technically a fungi. so now i’m curious about which is which… how to distinguish the difference, if there is one?! i think it may have something to do with the underside – the gills?! i’m going to do more research, and i welcome any insight from my amazing readers and/or forager friends!
so without further ado, here are some artistic fotos i took of this fascinating creation from our incredible earth.
update 03/17/22 : i am pretty confident that this is a “chicken of the woods” mushroom”…
it does kind of look like a brain in this foto
garden season is finally here! which means my happiness meter just skyrocketed! 🙂
i recently gave my praying mantis egg case an apartment upgrade by relocating it to the community garden. i {safely} tied it to a trellis in my plot.
the praying mantis serves as a wonderful addition to any garden, since they are a beneficial insect. they prey on other insects that may otherwise be harmful to crops and soil.
plus, they are totally fascinating to admire and watch! and i am hoping i am able to witness the case hatch and capture it on film!
i will be checking on it regularly, so stay tuned for more updates!
#farmeraudrey
a good friend of mine recently gifted me with this very unique and beautiful creation from nature.
have you ever seen such a thing?! do you have any idea what it is?!
i suppose the title of this blogpost gives it away 🙂
this is a praying mantis egg case!!!
as many of you may know about me, i am somewhat obsessed with the praying mantis. i had never seen an egg case before, but i was completely thrilled when this showed up in my life! {i think i even cried a little}
and so of course, i had to take some {perhaps too many?!} pictures!
i think the details are just so mesmerizing and are something to behold and appreciate! Continue reading
the details on the leaves of plants such as cabbage completely fascinate me!
i remember this being an assignment in one of my classes during college… creating a photographic tessellation.
at the time, it seemed so difficult… but today i have a different understanding of the digital composite images. when i was a photography student, the digital / social media world had not yet become what it is today… and a lot of my colleagues and i were not too keen on the idea of switching from film photography to digital photography. we were purists in love with the romance of black and white film photography and ansel adams’ zone system… and we also thought it was lame and pointless to do anything digital. it took a lot of convincing from my professors to get me to invest in a digital camera… but i finally {begrudgingly} bought one just before graduation. another hilarious truth – when i purchased my first apple laptop, they asked if i wanted to add built-in wifi and i remember being like, “ppffttt, why would i need that?!”
ha! – it’s wild to think about how much has changed in such a short time.
anyway, i think this snowy tessellation turned out pretty cool – what say you?!
i drove down to columbia, south carolina to watch the total solar eclipse yesterday… and i’m so glad i made the trek! admittedly, i did not do as much preparing as i would’ve normally done… particularly because it kind of came together last minute. originally i had wanted to go to greenville, sc – which is where i was born {and supposedly where the highest totality and visibility would be}, but it all worked out rather nicely and i’m thankful to have been where i was… especially because it was also my mama’s birthday yesterday.
i didn’t have time to make a pinhole camera, which i really wanted to do, but of course i had a camera. if you follow me on instagram, i hope you saw the story… it was fun to create.
it was important to me not to get too caught up in taking fotos, because i truly wanted to enjoy the moment {two minutes, 36 seconds to be exact} 🙂
i shot these images with a 50mm lense… which, of course, isn’t ideal for something so far away… but i kind of liked showing the sky and having the tiny sun and moon fill up a tiny amount of space. i didn’t have a special filter, so i simply put my eclipse glasses over my lense. i thought about using my zoom lense, but like i said, i was more concerned with being there to truly witness the moment… it’s a hard balance sometimes, as someone who loves to take pictures… but i have been challenging myself to “capture the moment with my mind,” from time to time. this was one of those moments.
i took a few pictures of the crowd as well, but i wasn’t super thrilled with most of them. i think i was just too caught up in the experience to really take very many fotos… and i’m okay with that.
it was a truly incredible event and the sky was perfectly clear for the duration of {almost} totality. the crowd was wonderful, the vibe was awesome, the beer was delicious {i drank a special ‘black ipa’ aptly named, “blackout”.} i feel very fortunate to have been where i was during the eclipse. we reached totality around 2:30 p.m. in columbia, south carolina. the temperature dropped, the moon inched in front of the sun, making it as dark as night… the crowd went wild, people screamed and hugged and kissed… it’s kind of hard to truly describe how marvelous it was to see it all happen. the energy felt very intense to me… and as someone who has always admired and been in awe of the stars, it was a lot to take in… something for the history books, indeed.
i’m still buzzing from it all ❤
pizza… and me in this hat!
geese everywhere for days… and creepy, unexplainable masks…
culturally cool bikes… !
large groups of ninjas practicing with swords… and this…
stickers on electrical posts… and graffiti in hidden spots…
broken glass that looks like art… and bright colours…
stickers everywhere for days… especially funny ones…
this cool lamppost… !
tweety bird driving {what appears to be} a pimped-out dunebuggy… and awesome murals…
and why not?! 😉
along with adorable pansies – tulips, sunflowers, and even orchids – are some of nature’s edible flowers.
cool, huh?! ❤
this place is just so cool… there is so much ENERGY in moab! i can’t think of what else to say…
the famous balanced rock…
and arches everywhere…
also lots of phallic shapes everywhere… i know you were thinking it – everyone does. Continue reading
a little alliteration to start your morning 😉
aaaaaand, some pics from way way west-western colorado…
—
to say this state is dry is… well, a gross understatement.
…
dramatic sky.
beauty.
…fossils – whoa. Continue reading
wearing beanies…
{crazy over-exposure!}
and aspens… !
and buying yourself flowers…
and eating tomatoes…
and squeezing in final trips to the farmers market…
and seeing snowfall above 10K feet…
and enjoying breezy landscapes…
and making {chicken tortilla} soup…
and eating {chicken tortilla} soup!
🙂
hope you all have/had a terrific weekend!
i just returned from a {much needed} camping trip with a special friend and i can’t wait to share more fotos from this awesome desert landscape! ❤
hope you all enjoy your weekend!
when i walked out my door the other morning and saw these clouds, i literally stopped in my tracks and exclaimed, “what the —- {bleep!}!?!” i ran inside to grab my {old, but still working} camera, but the fotos don’t really do it justice.
it was as if the sky had become the ocean. the clouds looked like waves crashing on the shoreline. it was both eerie and awesome. and during editing, i had a little fun with the colours…
this just makes me miss the ocean, even more. and it makes me want to be closer to the water, even more. a plan i am working on making a reality very soon.
food & foto 