My Amaryllis just before Christmas

Hello everyone, I took a few photos over the last few days and then played with some of the photos. This is the sort of thing that I enjoy very much. Some people may think that to just display what comes out of the camera is the only way that photos should be displayed, well since I was a professional  photographer I would not be happy if that were the only way one could display any photos. To me the creativity would just be killed. Some folks do a great job taking photos with out any manipulation. Before digital photos were manipulated all the time in the darkroom, well Photoshop is now the digital darkroom. Here are a few of my photos. I hope you enjoy them. This is also one of my seedling Amaryllis by the way.

                      

                    

     

                            The next photo is right out of the camera.

                                   

                          This is a nice photo but it lacks some pizzas.

Not much going on

 

Hello everyone, not much going on these days, except my friend Russ and his fiancé, took me out too a wonderful show here in Edmonton, that is one of the best shows I have seen in a long time. This was a stag production that was called “The Singing Christmas Tree”. The proceeds to this show go’s to charity, mainly to the Food Bank and Santa’s Anonymous. Santa’s Anonymous gives gifts to needy children, and we all know about the food Bank. Well, the show was totally awesome. The music and singing  was world class, I thing the whole show was world class. The Singing Christmas Tree is only on for 3 days every year. The show was at the Jubilee Auditorium here in Edmonton, which is also a world class concert hall. If Russ is watching or listening, I really want to thank you for taking me along. It was a wonderful evening.

Well, as the title says not much going on in my life right now, I am in a fair amount of pain and doing as little as possible so that I am not totally overcome with pain. I have another Amaryllis that is going to bloom in a week or two. I will post a few picture when the time comes, so that you all don’t feel that I have abandoned you.   

Good and bad mews today

Well here is the good news, my first seedling baby to set a flower of all the seedling babies that I have. It was doing so well and showing so much promise. At First It looked like it was going to be pink then as it started to unfurl it looked like it was going to be stripped.

        

Oh and then it started to open it was beautiful and the color was Salmon on the inside, you can’t judge the color from outside of the petals, no stripes on this one.  So Salmon it is and in different light it almost looks orange. I was going to take some photos of the flower this morning when the unthinkable happened, the flower was almost fully open and I walked into the room and the flower stem was gone. I thought someone has stolen the flower when I was sleeping. I rubbed my eyes and took a closer look and saw that the flower and stem was hanging on a few threads, it brock clean off from the bulb. OMG what am I going to do now? well I thought for a moment and searched around in the kitchen for a glass. I cut the stem off so that the glass wouldn’t fall over then I started taking some photos after I had some breakfast so that I don’t fall over with low sugar since I injected insulin first thing before I saw the flower. Well I took some photos and they turned out quite nice. Here are a few more photos.

        

   

                     

                      So there you have it my Seed baby’s first flower.

This for Arlene in the UK

Arlene has just given me an Award and I will display it here. Now I’m not sure what it is for, Arlene will have to elaborate. So thank you for this award, it is much appreciated. 

                            

Now, Arlene is making a Halloween outfit for this function she is going to, and I told her to play the song to get in the mood before she goes to the dance. Arlene didn’t know what song I was talking about so I am posting this song for her to hear just for her and anyone that wants to listen.

 

                                                 

                     Arlene I hope you like the song. 

A Big Surprise Today

Hello everyone, I got a big surprise today, I went into my flower room and had a good look at my Amaryllis plants that I propagated from seed. Low and behold I have my first flower pod from the seed babies, it was almost a shock. I took a photo for you to look at so you can’t say that I’m full of it. I am so thrilled, I wonder what color it will show us. Wow, I’m just so thrilled. So lets have a look.

      

      So can you see the new flower pod? Well if you can’t I’ll give you a hint.

      It’s in the middle of the photo.

     So now I have another photo for you, my one and only Epiphyllum flower.

This was difficult to photograph as it is late in the day and not much light. The image was shot at a very slow shutter speed and hand held. Here it is.

                

My Red Amaryllis Opening

Hello followers, as I promised the Amaryllis is opening and showing us all how beautiful she is. Only one of the flowers is open and will open a little more in the next day or so. The other one will open by the end of the week. We are having a frost warning in the area around so I figured that I better take a photo just in case. So here are a couple of photos for you to look at. I will take more tomorrow if the frost don’t get my plants.

                                    

                                 

  

A Special Flower in My Garden

Hello everyone, I am very pleased to see this flower starting to open up in my garden. I am so hoping that the frost does not come anytime soon, so that this plant can show us how beautiful it is. Out of the fifty or so plants I have of the Amaryllis is young and old, this is the only one that is blooming this September. I am slowly bringing in the plants that I want to save, into the house. The weather here is still quite nice but today and the next 2 to 3 days are on the cool side, the nights are getting close to the frost line. So as soon as this plant has bloomed I will dig them up and bring them into the house. So here is my Red Amaryllis getting ready to bloom.

               

Looked out my Kitchen window

and what did I see, well it was a beautiful scene. The sun lit up the scene and it almost glowed a kind of creamy gold and green. So I just had to take a photo to show my friends on my blog. So I won’t keep you in suspense, here is the photo of the scene I saw.

          

My Garden on Aug 20 2012

Yesterday I looked at my garden and realized that it will be finished very soon. It is starting to look overgrown. My back yard is a sea of flowers. I also found that one of my Red Amaryllis is going to bloom. I hope that the frost doesn’t come early this year as I would love to show you the lovely flower it will put out. I will have to start digging out the plants that I want to save and bring them in the house. It’s going to be a fair amount of work. Anyone wanting an Amaryllis this fall is welcome to get ahold of me and get a free bulb. I can also give advise on how to grow them.  I took a few photos of my back yard so you can see what I am talking about. I will also have to repot some of my plants.  Lots of fun. Here are my photos.

          

                                This photo is a little soft but good enough to show you.

           

                      

 

                                        

Went for a day at the Lake

Hello  everyone. Yesterday Morning my  friend Russ and his fiancé, Anita called me and asked if I had something planed for the day. I said no, nothing planned. He then asked if I would like to go camping with them for the day. I said sure, you bet.  Russ said he could pick me up at 11 a.m. as they are coming back into town then for some supplies and would love to have me along. Wow, that was really nice of them to think of me and be able to get away for the day. He arrived at 11:30 a.m. and off we went to Wabamun lake about 45 to 50 miles from Edmonton. Wabamun is a large lake wit about 3 or 4 Power plants around it. There is a lot of Coal in the area to use for firing the Generators. It was going to be a hot day and I am normally  hiding  at home in my air conditioned home. We have had a hot summer this year  and today was supposed to be around 28 C not used to this type of heat. 

We got to Wabamun Lake about an hour later and started to make some lunch.

         

Russ got a nice fire going to keep the Mosquitos away, and I love the smell of the campfire. After Lunch,  we sat around for a short while, and then got ready for the lake, to see all the boats and good looking ladies in their bikinis. We got on the road and in a few minutes got to the town of Wabamun.

     

Took a few photos around the welcome sign, they a great use of an old speed boat full of flowers, how awesome to see this.  We then got to the marina where the was a lot of activity of people getting their boats in and out of the water. We were luck to find a parking spot right by the small beach they had set up.

   

           

We found a nice spot near the washrooms and under a pine tree to shade us from the sun. We got enough shade that it was quite comfortable. I took a few photos from our spot to give you an idea of how it looked. There were quite a few parents with their children and a number of one and 2 year olds. One of the little tykes was an escape artist always trying to get away to the playground and water park that was opposite from the beach. We all had a great laugh at the antics of this cute little girl trying to get her way.

         The little tyke is in the pink bathing suit running away from mom, which is on the far left of the photo.

  We left the beach around 5 p.m. and so did may of the other people. We picked up a little more ice for the coolers in town, and then went back the Wabamun Provincial Park Campground to make supper. Russ and Anita had a great supper planned , Steak with potato’s and Corn on the Cob. It was very good. I thought I would get a few photos of the couple making supper.

         

  This time I cut some firewood into little strips so that we can get a nice fire going again. The mosquitos were getting a little braver at this time and we had to get out the bug spray so we would not get eaten alive. We got the fire going real good and the mosies stayed away for a while.

               

After supper it started to get cloudy and dark, then we heard some thunder it did look like it would rain yet so we slowly started to put things away into the car and the tent to keep everything dry. 15 minutes later the thunder got louder and we started to see lightning so we hurries to get thing put away. I made sure my camera was in the car and it started to rain. Most everything was put away so I jumped into the car, just think slow motion. Anita jumped into the car right after me, but Russ was still outside. We waited for him and wondered were he was, then finally he got in the car all wet. He told us that he fell, tripped on the tent poles and landed on his hands an knees. Just after he got in the car it started to hail. The hail got bigger and bigger until it reached about golf ball size. It just kept on hailing so Russ decided to drive me home , and it just kept on hailing, I thought the wind shield would break. We stopped a couple of times because we could not see the road. Pieces of leaves and branches were knocked off of the trees. We were almost out of the Campground when the hail stopped but it was still raining like crazy. We got to the highway and started for Edmonton. The traffic was heavy and slow. It rained all the way to Edmonton The storm went south and we went north on the Edmonton ring road called the Anthony Henday  Freeway, and the rain stopped. We got to my house and they dropped me off. They had to go back to the campground before the campground closed for the night. Wow that was one heck of an adventure. A great day for me. The next morning (this morning), I listened to the news and found that that same storm caused a lot of damage around the province. It was a fast moving storm with lots of wind. I sure hope that Russ’s car  doesn’t have any dints on it from the hail. Other than the storm it was a great day for me. Luckily there  were no tornados in that storm.  Have a great Sunday  everyone.

   

More Garden photos

I took some more photos of my flowers and even my tomato plant today. I had 3 more strawberries and were they ever good. I have to keep and eye out everyday for those ripening strawberries, don’t want them to go bad now. Not to much to say these days, but I am very glad that my followers have not abandoned me. Here are some photos from my garden.

    

    

                      Last but not least my Cherry Tomato’s

                        

                      Will have more for you in a few days.

Strawberries

I didn’t do much in the garden the last 3 days as we had a lot of much needed rain. The forecast says we will have a week of hot weather around 30 Celsius. The heat will do my tomato’s good but I will have to water every day. I think the Strawberries will love the hot weather as well. I picked my first Strawberry from my Everbearing  plants. This the largest Strawberry I have ever harvested. It is almost the size of an egg. I took a photo just so you can have a look. These Strawberries will produce until frost in late September. To bad I only have four plants. I actually have 5 strawberry plants but the one that had first given me 3 strawberries is not an Everbearing variety, so I don’t think it will produce any more this year. Here is the photo I took.

                         

                                         

lots of Garden Photos

On June 19, yesterday I went to the x-ray Doctors office and got a x-ray guided shot of cortisone in my right hip. This was the first time to get one of these, so I didn’t know what to expect. I really hate needles but anything to help get rid of my hip pain. My Dr. said that the pain is sciatic nerve pain, so this is a test to see if that is what it is. Well they got my on the x-ray table and had me lay on my stomach, which I never do and was quite uncomfortable. So the doctor explained what he was going to do and started  the procedure. well the first needle was a pain killer and that was not to bad, the next needle was the dye they use and it was a little more painful, the last needle was inserted in 4 or 5 locations to find the right spot. Well, when they finally got the right spot it was quite painful then they injected the Cortisone, I felt the deepest pain I have ever felt before even though they had given me the pain killer injection. Thank goodness it didn’t last long. Today as I write this I still feel the hip pain, not that bad but it is still there. What I have noticed is that the knotted muscle near my kidney is  easing up, and I can walk a little better. The doctor said it will take a couple of days for the injection to take affect. So hopefully this will be a success. On a lighter note I am showing you a few more photos from my garden.

  

  

  

             

                     

My Red Amaryllis has not bloomed yet this year, so I hope they bloom this summer, or maybe this Christmas.

More Garden Photos

Hello everyone, as I promised I have some more photos to show you from my garden, I also had another strawberry from my garden today it tasted great. One of my strawberry plants has a pink flower, I have never seen that before, so I took a photo of it just so you can’t call me a liar. We have had a week of sun and rain off and on. Will be a few more days like this next week. The plants are growing like crazy. I have been fertilizing. Here are some photos for you to look at.

   

   

   

   

   

   

                   That’s it for now, hope you enjoy the photos.