CREATIVE ARTS WEEKEND
CREATIVE ARTS WEEKEND
Tomorrow's the first day of Spring, so more Spring flowers. Posted pretty late so I'll add a day to the weekend. Lots of time so let's see whatchya got, and it can be whatever you've created or photographed.
RED BOX RULES: AN IMPORTANT REMINDER
From time-to-time, I should remind all members of NT, etc., that when posting photos, artwork, etc., it's important, when posting, that you own, and/or legally represent the licensing, copyright, etc., of what you post, and TO PROTECT YOUR WORK, TO INCLUDE YOUR COPYRIGHT SYMBOL/INFORMATION; and/or, WHEN POSTING COPYRIGHTED PROPERTY BELONGING TO PARTIES OTHER THAN YOURSELF, TO …
• BE SURE YOU HAVE PERMISSION TO POST, TRANSMIT, etc, SUCH PROPERTY, and,
• IF/WHEN SUCH PERMISSION HAS BEEN GRANTED, TO PROPERLY AND CLEARLY ATTRIBUTE THE COPYRIGHTS TO THEIR RIGHTFUL OWNER(S).
VERY IMPORTANT … IN THE FUTURE, I WILL REMEMBER TO POST THIS CAVEAT REGULARLY.
Thanks, A. MAC
Article is LOCKED by moderator [Buzz of the Orient]
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Spring flowers from my collection. The photos were all taken in March.
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Your picture through the tunnel reminded me of this one from Crete
It's actually the underside of a old stone bridge, but it made a handy picture frane. Yours does the same thing - it made me think of the screen shot from The Third Man movie.
Walking to the Light (© G. Gam)
Another one like The Third Man movie screenshot, and IMO should be a prize-winning photo.
The guy in the photo one of my friends. We were at someone's house in Malibu and this was one of the paths to his garden and ocean view.
Okay.
Very nice photos.
Thanks.
A few shots from Disney's Animal Kingdom...
Note: All my Disney photos were taken with my iPhone 17 Pro Max and cropped and lightly edited in Photoshop 2026.
They're great photos, you did an excellent job with the Disney jungle.
Great ones. I especially like the gorilla. Pensive, in a gorilla kind of way.
I’ve been challenging AI with photos of things that have a lot of depth. I have a bust that my daughter made in high school art class and later gifted to me, of pinhead from the movie Hellraiser. It’s crazy how AI can still accurately glow up the photo with all those nails going in different directions.
Or even quickly turn it into a hand drawing that actually looks like it was draw by hand.
Is the top photo an actual unedited photo? It's actually scary what AI can do to reality, and you do a great job doing it.
Thanks, Buzz. It is the original, but I edited out the background.
Ok, scary.
Kind of an extreme case of acupuncture.
Shelbourne falls NY
LOL. Now THAT's unusual.
Flowering Tree, Shanghai (© G. Gam)
When it was my very first Spring here in China, I was quite amazed to see trees blossom with both white and pink flowers. Maybe it's the stage of development of the flowers to cause them to start out one colour and then change to another. In case anyone doesn't know why the bases of the trees are painted white, it is with a substance that prevents insects from climbing the trees, and is very commonly done in China.
Really pretty. I need something like that in my yard.
Everyone does!
Can you grow crepe myrtle where you live? Beautiful flowering trees and bushes. We have a few crepe myrtle trees.
A lot of my spring flowers got ruined by crazy weather last week. We're talking 60-70 degree temperature swings, from record warmth to record cold that lasted for 2 days. Now it's record warmth again, with a high of 90 expected today. Ugh.
Before the freeze...
During the freeze, which began with a blast of snow and sleet.
And after the freeze...
Now it's a week later and super warm again. The following are all from this morning.
The garden got its first tilling yesterday. The asparagus started coming up early right before the freeze, but got shut down again by it. I expect it to start back up in another day or two.
A couple of new apple trees, Gala and McIntosh, planted two days ago to replace the ones I put here a few years back which acted like they were stunted and never grew. They're the 'Reachables' dwarf type, so they're supposed to stay super small and never need pruning (I think).
I've also transplanted a couple of Roses of Sharon from the back yard where they were having trouble getting enough light. I hope they do better here.
A pair of wood ducks dropped by this morning. Gorgeous birds.
Random shot of the front yard while I was walking around.
From farther away, almost out to the road.
The post-freeze grass is full of bluets and henbit.
Silk flowers and an old wagon turned into an yard ornament.
And finally, Gracie says hi.
Happy Spring!
Aw, that sucks about your flowers. My hyacinths came up early, too, but seemed to weather the cold snap we got last week.
Bluets and henbit - I always wondered what those were. My yard is full of them, and I love the bluets. I sort of hate to see them go when mowing season starts.
Gracie has really grown.
I was actually surprised by how much damage there was. The irises are going to have to start over, and there's some catmint in the garage flower bed that stayed green all winter, even through previous cold spells, but it didn't survive this last one. I think it'll come back, though. There's already some new green coming up from them.
Me, too. Sometimes the henbit makes huge patches of the yard look purplish pink. I haven't started mowing yet either. I always feel bad for the bees when I do.
Almost one year old! Ten more days.
Correction... Nine more days. March 30th.
Yeah, hyacinths are pretty cold-tolerant.
Mine weren't, but it got pretty cold. It was below freezing for two days, and got down into the lower teens at night. They could maybe have handled a light frost or two, but not that deep freeze.
It was up to 100 here the last few days. Brutal.
Gracie is so cute.
I have a feeling it's going to be a hot year for everyone. Probably another record setting one. I'm not liking that.
Gracie is making me nervous. She always wants to be outside now. That's normal, I guess, but these days I stress about predators and I can't babysit her all day. When I make her stay inside the poor thing sits by the door and howls. It kind of breaks my heart, but I don't want anything to happen to her.
Will she walk on a harness?
I've never tried, but I imagine she'd hate it.
One good thing is that so far she doesn't wander much at all. She mostly just hangs out under the back deck when she's outside. That, or on the front porch, watching birds at the feeders that she can't catch in both places. She's been slow to develop, and still can't jump up to get them. It's actually hilarious when she tries. Bella and Buddy could jump all the way to the feeders and I had to raise them out of they're reach, but Gracie can barely make it half-way, and then looks all dejected. Poor thing, lol. That's another reason I worry so much. She's just not very athletic, and I don't think she'd be very good at getting away from anything chasing her. Then again, I guess it doesn't really matter much. Bella was super fast and practically a gymnast, and something still got her.
Most of the time I only let her out when I can be out there with her for a good while, doing stuff in the yard or just sitting nearby with some coffee or something. Of course, sometimes I can't get her to come back in when I want her to. That's when it gets stressful. I guess I'll just have to see how it goes.
My Marco is the same way - can't jump. He sleeps on my bed, but can't jump that high, so he jumps halfway and climbs the rest of the way, to the detriment of my comforter and sheets. But he shows very little interest in going outside, so he doesn't need to be athletic. Just cute.
That's fortunate. Maybe Gracie will get bored with being outside after a while. I'm hoping anyway. You know how cats tend to get bored with things.
Well, I hope she learns to be content close to home, with entertainment by local birds and butterflies.
Thanks for the update. Any fish in the pond?
Nope. Too small and shallow. Lots of frogs, though, and water turtles in the summer. It was actually almost dry for most of the winter, and only recently filled up after some decent rain.
It was there before the house was built, and I'm not sure why it's so small. I guess it was just a little stock pond from way back when. Maybe even hand dug. I do wish it was bigger and deeper. I've thought about hiring a dozer to enlarge it, but I'd lose that wonderful old oak growing right next to it, and I don't want that. Maybe one of these days, if the oak should ever happen to die on me.
No fishing then, and I guess it's too small and shallow for swimming, but you probably can enjoy the music of the night duet with the crickets. AND, think about this....
LINK -> How to Cook Frog Legs: 5 Delicious Methods
Not really interested in frog legs, but thanks. The thought kind of grosses me out. There's not a lot of big frogs in there anyway. You can hear a few bullfrogs croaking in the summer, but it's mostly spring peepers and other little things like newts. I assume those are what the waterfowl that land there are eating. I know for a fact that Green Herons eat the little frogs, as I've actually recorded a video of one doing it. I imagine the ducks eat them too.
I uploaded the Green Heron video back in 2021. Here it is.
I actually can't believe that was 5 years ago. Time flies.
Wow!!! That was a great video. You were lucky to capture that.
Yeah, it was total luck. I just happened to be sitting out front with the camera trying to see if I could get a decent shot of something at the bird feeders when I saw it land on the shore of the pond. I was rather far away and had to go way past my optical zoom and into digital zoom to get it. That's why it's so low res. My camera's digital zoom isn't the greatest. Still, it was kind of exciting to see.
The new iPhones have such amazing cameras. My Panasonic Lumix has a 30X zoom Leica lens and I loved taking long distance photos. For example, you could hardly see these birds with the naked eye.
holy crap, who has to mow that lawn?
That would be me, lol.
It's not so bad, as long as you have a fast mower with cruise control and a decently wide cut.
my BIL lives to mow his yard on his expensive ride on mower. He tried to convert me a few summers ago, but I ended up taking out the landscaping block work around 3 trees. I don't get it ...
Most of the time I enjoy it, especially when it's cool and not dusty, and the grass is cutting smoothly and looks like a golf course after. But I don't really care for it if the grass is too thick (like when rain has kept me from mowing for too long), or when it's hot, dry and dusty, usually in late summer.
A few more Spriing flower photos from my photo library:
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Nice. Are those yellow flowers some kind of mustard?
rapeseed - very common here.
In my backyard looking for food. Or maybe a place to nest
And one in the front yard
Awesome.
For some strange reason your second photo didn't open for me.
A soon to be a turtle traffic jam
Nor did this one, which is strange because if the first one opened, all of them should..
Sorry, I am at a loss also. They are all uploaded jpeg
Try these. I will let you decide which one belongs to which caption
Those both worked - turtles first, bird second. Thanks for posting them.
No reason to not close this extended weekend article at this time. Thanks to all who posted, whether images, comments or votes up. Back next Friday.