It's been difficult to spend much time in the backyard as our lives have been overrun with radiation and chemo treatments, negotiating doctor's appointments, health insurance, pharmacies, closing a business, and the like. About 2 weeks ago, I decided that we needed to give ourselves at least a fifteen minute break in the garden each day. The very first day, we were rewarded with finding a new family of house wrens who had moved into our birdhouse! Please see my blog of March 10, 2012 in the Archives entitled,"Nesting House Wrens" for information on the nesting pattern of the wrens. If anyone can identify...

We spent five incredible days in Giverny, France, the home of Monet's Garden. Giverny is a small village located 80 km. west of Paris. It has a few bed & breakfasts, galleries and restaurants. There are, however, no drug stores, grocery stores or commercial enterprises. Tha main attraction to this quaint village is Claude Monet's home and garden and museums dedicated to Monet and Impressionism. Our photography group, led by Charles Needle, was fortunate to have access to the gardens in the early morning hours and again in the late afternoon and evening hours when the grounds were closed...

 We bought a new macro lens fro our trip to Europe so we could both experiment with taking close-ups of the exquisite flowers. Charles taught us a lot about macro photography but what I learned the most was that it takes great patience! Ordinarily I pride myself on having patience but when it comes to taking pictures, I am challenged. I found it frustrating to be surrounded by such beauty and unable to record it as well and as fast as I would like. It took time to set the tripod up just so, angle the camera, decide what part of the flower to focus on, focus manually, add a light source, compose...

We spent this weekend in Franconia, New Hampshire with the Plymouth Digital Photography Meetup group in anticipation of taking photographs of the Lupine Festival. Unfortunately, we didn't get too many pictures because of rainy weather, but we did have a lovely time.The stately blue, purple, pink, and white lupines stood tall and beautiful against the backdrop of the mountains. I was reminded of the children's book "Miss Rumphius" which we used to read to our children. In the book, Miss Rumphius sets out to reach two goals in her life and her grandfather challenges her to reach a third: to make...

  We had the most beautiful day last Sunday and it will be imprinted in my mind forever. Here we are-empty nesters, and we spent the day "tending nests"! We had a pair of cardinals who were frequent visitors to our yard this spring and I caught this photo of the male cardinal last Saturday. When I enlarged it on the computer you could see the cardinal was carrying two green worms in his beak. So Sunday morning we set out on a hunt for the nest, and sure enough, within five minutes we found the cardinal nest with four babies, in the woods that border our house. Dick set up the tripod...

We arrived in Holland around 5 am and by 6:30 am we were at our hotel in Lisse. Unfortunately, they would not be ready for us for several hours, so we took a walk and shot  photos until our hands were too cold to push the shutter! You don't have to go far in Holland to see these incredible ribbons of color stretching through the fields. It is a typical sight in the spring when the fields turn into a blanket of blooms. Not only were we struck with the beauty of the colorful landscape, but the fragrance of the field of hyacinths was intoxicating! We caught this rainbow one rainy...

In 1740, no less than 19 windmills were built near the Dutch village of Kinderdijk. There is a Foundation which maintains and preserves them to this day. According to legend, Kinderdijk gets its name from an event that occurred during a flood. A child sleeping in a cradle was carried off in a big wave but was kept in balance by a cat and landed safely on the slope of a dike.This spot was named Kinderdijk. In 1869, the windmills received assistance from a steam mill or pumping station, which was replaced by a diesel pumping station in 1927. The pumping station was not able to function during...

It  is amazing to see the process involved in order for a plant or flower to reach your garden or florist! One of the side trips we took on our recent trip to Holland was to the FloraHolland Flower market and auction house in Aalsmeer. They have six locations in Holland and together they are the largest cooperative of this kind in the world. Large batches of flowers, with hundreds of thousands of units of each variety, are brought to auction from all parts of the world, including Africa, South America, and the Middle East. There are tens of thousands of growers. There are 14 auction halls in Holland...

In the brochure advertising the Keukenhof Gardens, it states the theme for 2012 is "Seduction". The gardens certainly seduced me on our recent photographic expedition there. Can you imagine acres of tulips in an array of colors from vibrant reds to pastel pinks accompanied by the tantalizing fragrance of rows of grape hyacinths? There were exquisite designs set in woodland landscapes, each more breathtaking than the next.Prior to the trip I thought four days of photographing tulips would be excessive. Was I wrong! Right til the last day, we were greeted by new buds opening daily, lavish indoor...

Hummingbirds usually return to Massachusetts in mid to late April. This year I put my hummingbird feeder out early since the weather has been so mild. I've been anxiously waiting for the first sighting. This weekend I slept in after being up late with holiday preparations. My four year old granddaughter attempted to wake me starting at 7 a.m. On a later attempt, she exclaimed,"Nana, I saw the hummingbird!" Despite her New York City upbringing, she has become quite adept at spotting butterflies and hummingbirds during visits to our backyard. I jumped out of bed to check out the feeder... The...