Project 2012 -- Week 40

Project 2012 -- Week 40

September 30 - October 6

Welcome to my Project 2012 weekly post!  This is my time for looking back over the past week, choosing my seven favorites images, and sharing them here with you.  If you have a project you're working on, please leave a comment so I can visit your blog and see what you're up to!

I wasn't sure I was going to use Ellie at all this week, until I got a phone call and scheduled a mini family portrait session.  The client wanted to shoot at a particular park, and even though it was just a few miles from my home, I had no idea it even existed, let alone what it looked like--if it was uncluttered (I hate getting power lines, houses, etc. in my backgrounds!), if there were trees (most of this area is former farmland), if there'd be some good portrait locations...

I also knew I'd better scope it out beforehand, so I could figure out the above issues and get a good idea of where in that park I wanted to shoot.  One more and:  the weather would be changing, so I'd better scope it out soon!  Wednesday was the key day, but I didn't get the car until 3:00, when Danny got home from college classes.  He hopped out, I hopped in, and several minutes later I was in the parking lot.

This scene greeted me literally steps from the edge of the stone parking lot:

[276] Bridge at Knoch Knolls Park

Oh, yeah.  I think this location will work.  I also think this location will be the spot for many future portrait sessions!  Sigh--I just love autumn.  And the below scene--a beautiful frame of trees and tree branches, and a huge log sitting there begging to be sat on by portrait subjects!

[277] Great portrait location

I snapped shots of several great shooting sites at this park.  I was thrilled to find and mentally catalog a new shoot location!  Then, I pulled out my macro lens and went in search of some beautiful autumn details.  The below is one of my favorite macro shots from that afternoon.

[278] Leaf on bark

There were several kinds of wildflowers still happily blooming away.  Little did they know that there was a 20-degree temperature drop and extreme weather change just 12 little hours away!

[279] The last summer flowers

A few days later, once the sun came out, we donned shoes and socks, jackets and work gloves, and headed out to the garden for the last of the harvest chores.

[280] Picking cayenne

Danny worked hard to transplant my sage plant from my veggie garden to the front sun garden.  I don't use sage often, the critters won't eat it, and the blooms are pretty enough for it to belong in that garden.  I wanted to free up some space in my veggie garden for growing other veggies.

 [281] Transplant

The below tree is pretty special.  Twenty-one years ago, my dad received two 12-inch-high "sticks" that were baby maple trees, and he gave them to our family.  We planted them in our back yard (we were living on the other side of town then), put little fences around them, and watched them grow.  Well, one of the fences somehow disappeared and the little stick tree got mowed over.  But the other one survived and grew a little.  Then we moved.

We dug up that little tree, maybe two feet tall or so, and since we weren't in a new house yet (long story), my parents planted the tree in their own back yard.  Then, in the spring, when we finally moved into the house where we currently live, the tree was dug up yet again and planted in our new back yard.  That was 14 years ago.  For a 21-year-old tree, it's not very big.  But having survived a lawnmower and being planted/dug up several times, I'd say this tree is doing very well!

We call it Jacob's Tree because my dad gave it to us in April, and Jacob was not quite three months old.  It simply became his tree.  :)

[282] Jacob's tree

I love autumn.  This is my favorite time of year.  I'm planning on getting out there as the leaves turn amazing colors and the air becomes crisp and chilly, as my shoes crunch the autumn ground underneath, walking nature's paths.


Treasuring life's moments,
Christine

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