Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Lavender, Bees, and a Skipper

I have a weakness for up-close flower pictures, as you can probably see from my other posts. A week or so ago, I started experimenting with lavender pictures, and tried to get ones with bees in them. I also got one with this skipper on the lavender, which came out amazingly well for my camera.



Fall is here

It's amazing how suddenly fall comes. It seems like one day we're all outside in flip-flops, and then the next day we're bundling up in sweaters and getting back into our school-year routines. At least, three of us have school routines in our family. Christina and I are both doing courses with Whitefield College (check out their website if your not familiar with it). Now that she's done with teaching me, Mom's studying to be a counselor, so she's doing "school," too. I'm only taking two courses, so I still have half the day to do other things.

Our family took a last camping trip of the season this past weekend. We went to Paradise Creek, one of our favorite spots. It was cloudy, which turned out to be a blessing, because otherwise it might have been really cold. Instead, the temperature stuck around 58 degrees. Here's a few shots I took around the creek and the campground.



We found this sulphur shelf fungus near one of the campsites. (Thanks for looking it up, Caitlin!) I find it amazing what wild colors these things come in.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Huckleberries!!

Today we went huckleberry picking in Gifford Pinchot National Forest. After driving around a lot trying to find a good spot we found a nice little place with lots of berries. We got quite a few, for huckleberries that is. They're so small it takes a while to even cover the bottom of a basket. We saw some gorgeous views of Mt. Adams while we were driving around. I also got some good flower pictures up around the huckleberries. I love huckleberries! To end our picking trip we stopped at a little place in Trout Lake where they have wonderful huckleberry milkshakes.