Red, Green and Blue. And Then Some.

 A recent sunny afternoon gave me a chance to capture some of the last color until next spring... These red berries were so striking against the blue sky and remaining green leaves. Red, green and blue, or RGB, is a way of capturing colors for video devices such as the monitor you're using right now. Once in a while you capture these three hues courtesy of Mother Nature.

"Colonial" lamp in a town shopping center parking lot is actually damaged from the last hurricane, the top of it is completely missing, but from this view, it looks just fine.

Just a glorious riot of colors and textures. I feel like the orange leaf most of the time.

This last image is missing the blue sky portions, but I loved the way the color of the burning bush (Euonymus alatus compactus) was tightly contained in the mainly neutral setting. The hints of greens and yellows accent the red nicely, and the graphic shadow of the boardwalk anchors it all. Yes, that's me on the lower right, sort of looking like a larger, stumpier railing post, lol.

B O N U S   P H O T O S  : )

Works-in-progress. Haven't touched these two in several months, but they've both been aging nicely. The piece above will get a layer of wall joint compound soon, as the image below has. These are both examples of my "cardboard quilts," and get a nice 3D shape as the three-layer cardboard sandwich bases I've created dry out and warp in subtly different directions. When these are hung on a wall, frameless as 99% of my art is, they stand proud of the wall as if trying to enter the room itself. Light plays on their faceted shapes, changing as the lighting in the room changes.

ThanksgivingColours

Victorian china doll, with handmade Depression era dress, surrounded by vintage tins. I'm pretty sure this doll was "repurposed" during the Depression and updated with a bright new dress for perhaps the daughter of the original owner. I'd find a "proper" Victorian dress for it, or make something more suitable, but who's to say who loved their doll more, mother or daughter? The newer dress is now more than eighty years old, so it stays. And I'm always fascinated with once-bright colors as they age and these tin cases wear them well.

I just finished rewiring this ca 1947 Italian porcelain lamp. It's named Le Chanticleer, but I've always called it the chicken lamp. It was left to me by my mother's first cousin who died just a short time after my mom almost 13 years ago. Corinne bought it on a trip to Italy that year and of all her relatives, I'm the only one that cherished it, lol.

I guess even the wild beasts that roam around Pink Gardens' yard decided to have their own Thanksgiving. This was a cool brown pumpkin with pale gray highlights, but the interior is as orange as a regular pumpkin. I like the way the raccoons left the seeds nicely arrayed on the granite steps. Very Martha—"In-the-sticks-Martha," that is.

One Maple tree in the backyard clings to some of its golden leaves. 

Milkweed Pods—

They look like tangled, fluffy birds to me

AutumnColour Continues

 

Behold the only purple-and-white dahlia that blossomed this year! It came out two or three days before our frost, so there won't be anymore. Too bad. I would have loved to have lots of these to photograph and enjoy. I've been under the weather for the past week or so. I apologize for the dearth of photos and posts recently!

 

An obligatory photo of typical New England fall foliage! The leaves are all blowing off the trees now. It was a very short colorful season, but much better than last year when the leaves came off in September due to Tropical Storm Irene.

These hydrangeas have turned an absolutely gorgeous shade of raspberry this autumn!

My yellow Butterfly bush still has a few pretty blooms on it. Since I planted it in July, this bush has tripled in width but hasn't gotten much taller. I'm very interested to see how it grows next year in a full season.

That same purple-and-white dahlia in an small arrangement with peach and yellow dahlias around it. A 1:43 scale model of a red '55 Cadillac Eldorado peeks out from behind the flowers...

My African violet garden hanging out on the porch for some fresh fall air. The darker purple plant is more than fifteen inches wide!

AutumnColours—Porch Afternoon

I bought these three awesome heirloom yellow-and-red tomatoes recently at my town's Friday farmer's market on the green. They were so physically beautiful, I decided to set up an impromptu photoshoot on the porch so I picked some of the last dahlias, marigolds, zinnias, and morning glories. I had to shoot quickly as glories fade after just a few minutes. Those rusty clippers were new last fall and are my main summer tool!

Making Up an October Pie . . .

Granny Grape Pie—Granny Smith sour apples, Rose's Lime Juice and grape jam combined with graphic pastry for my latest made-up pie. I've read lots of pie recipes and seen a lot of pies, lol, and I'm in the process of trying to create "undiscovered" ones. Instead of using sugar to sweeten the pie apples, I used grape jam. And to keep the apples from discoloring while I was coring and peeling them, I doused them with the commercial cocktail lime juice.  A healthy amount of freshly grated nutmeg and rainbow peppercorns add just the right amount of spice to the sweet-and-sour. Now that I've perfected the classic latticework top I'm starting to paint with pastry, lol.

Without Leaves . . .

Without leaves on the trees, this huge wasps' nest was revealed. It's high up in this tree, but is probably eighteen-inches from top to bottom. Growing up, my aunt Hoohoo had a paper wasp nest like this and used it as a decoration in one of her guest rooms. I have no idea how she retrieved it originally, and made sure it was empty, but it was a fascinating conversation piece.

Without leaves, the Winterberry's namesakes are revealed.

Without leaves on the bushes above, this vintage galvanized pail is revealed in the woods. I don't know why someone would leave a bucket behind, or why it would stay here for decades. But I left it where I photographed it.

Without leaves, well most of 'em, the twisted trunks of age-old vines are revealed. Pink Gardens' woods are full of these living twists and turns. Literally.

Without leaves, these trees are cleanly reflected symmetrically in the swamp waters below.

B T W :

Longtime, loyal reader, Artichoke Annie, wrote the following poem for this post. She added it to the comments section, but I think it's a great addition to the post itself. Thank you, Annie!

Without Leaves …

… without leaves I'm able to move about freely,

… I miss however the rustling sound usually made when i'm on the go

… I once scurried about in front of your lens unseen

… but now my nakedness is in full view and I must find some small space

… just a small space to provide a cover until Spring

… away from the eyes of those special ones that see us when we are without leaves

—Artichoke Annie, December 4. 2011

Winter Light Arrives

Although the official starting date for winter is a few weeks away, I've noticed that the annual winter "lighting" has arrived. The sun is now lower in the sky at all times, hardly illuminating the backyard clothes line in the afternoon. Without leaves on the trees, more light reaches into the thickets and without the filtering of the tree canopy, shadows are harsher. Trees around Pink Gardens' yard were full of this winter light, yesterday. These stormy skies blew over without a drop of rain or wind, but I appreciated their depth of coloring and texture for these photos.

This huge Sycamore tree's whitish bark gleams in the afternoon sun, perfectly silhouetted in front of the gloomy skies.

A closer view of the top photo. The trees in the background were brightly lit at the same time the tree in front was shaded by the clouds.

A longer view of the Sycamore tree, above. It's the tallest tree in the yard, by far.

TownColour—Decorating With Cabbages?

Trending for perhaps ten years now, these ornamental cabbages have become as much a New England fall tradition as "hairdo" mums, pots of tiny peppers, pumpkins and gourds.

"Planted" in hay and straw, these pumpkins and crysanthemums bring some color to a downtown sidewalk.

This variety is much frillier than the others in this post.

This brass bell is more than one hundred years old, and sits in a prominent window of the downtown volunteer fire department.

Looking almost rose-like, this cabbage is sittin' pretty!

A strictly ornamental bicycle outside of a downtown boutique specializing in French imports.

This clump of swamp roots and moss combine to make a perfect little home for the gnomes and fairies of Pink Gardens' yard. This must be the entrance to their fabulous miniature world!

Bonus Photos:

One of my "holiday" cactuses, this bright pure pink variety, is blooming this week. While it's technically a Christmas cactus, this plant bloomed for Thanksgiving. My actual Thanksgiving cactus doesn't have a single bud on it yet, lol. My three other cactuses, which range from salmon to fuschia to red, lack buds, too. I guess there's no rushing Mother Nature!

Sticks and Stones (and Leaves and Seaweed)

On my daily walks, I usually pick a "theme" to photograph that day, for example, rocks, trees, leaves, abstracts, houses, cars, wildflowers and the like. It gives me a focus and makes each walk around town just a bit different from the last. Above, a nice windy day created whitecaps as the waves neared the shoreline. The sounds of seagulls and the rushing waves was trance-inducing. These abstractions and closeups look great when enlarged. Just click on 'em.

Seaweed and algae clings to rocks frequently under water. This was shot at low tide, exposing more or the rock than most of the time.

Fall leaves catching the light just so. I know I once learned why some trees turn orange while others change to yellow or red, but I can't remember now... 

Different types of rock melded together. I'm guessing this process took place millions of years ago.

A lone sailboat enjoying a lazy September afternoon off the coast.

Small tidal pools are formed in the depressions in the rocks during low tide.

Fractures and cracks all along these impressively huge boulders and shoreline rocks.

Euonymous turning its eponymous Burning Bush firey magenta.

Slippery when wet!

One can imagine the extreme temperatures and forces that took place millions and millions of years ago to create these shoreline boulders. The glaciers thousands of years ago probably added to these strakes and grooves as they tore across the land.

This huge stone has an area of the Connecticut shoreline's famous pink granite blended right into the more common shoreline gray rock. My great-great-grandfather, John Beattie made his fortune quarrying this granite. His company was called Red Rocks and he supplied much of the stone for the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, as well as almost every turn-of-the-century shoreline railroad bridge between New York and Maine. A bit about his 1899 funeral, here. And a few photos of the quarry workers, ca 1880s, here. My other great grandfather was a sculptor at the quarry.

I'm not sure what causes this oxidation on some of the stones. I'm guessing a higher iron content in these areas.

Reaching to the sky...

Erosion and water softens the harder edges on these boulders. How many hurricanes and dangerous galeforce storms have these rocks seen through the eons?

Glaciars left many huge rocks in odd places throughout New England. We had one ten times this size just sitting in the middle of a hill by itself at our family home.

Elephant skin or rocks, lol?

Seabirds frequently use shoreline rocks like these to drop their clam- and oyster-shells onto from the air to get at the gooey goodness inside.

A lone Winterberry tree ready to shed its leaves and show off why its named Winterberry.

Trillion-ton glaciers once inched along the Connecticut shoreline leaving behind these deep scars.

Some rocks show a more melted-looking visage.

A tight little cluster of early-turning autumn leaves. The rest of the tree caught up a few weeks later.