When we went to Rochester today, I asked Mark if we could head north to see the Swans.  The last visit, we only saw a couple of geese and some ducks. It was such a disappointment.  I was so sure we would see some Swans today, though.  So, off to the bay we headed!

Mark pulled up and to my dismay, all we saw was Mallard Ducks.  Lots and lots of them.  Almost as many as the Seagulls above!

The gulls just kind of swooped and dived, but seemed to understand I was there to feed the ducks!  I walked down over the stone wall along the shoreline and broadcast some cracked corn out into the water and over the rocks closest to the shore. It doesn’t take much to get the ducks coming….they are pretty curious and hungry little critters!

The ducks are so funny to watch as they land. They can make some pretty BIG splashes!

The little fellow above had some difficulty with his big feet getting him out of the water and up the steep slope, so he used a bit of wing power to climb the rock!

And so, the little Mallards dined on the sand on the shoreline, on the rocks, and….

This fellow found a handy crevice between two rocks where he found lots and lots of cracked corn!

This little drake decided he was “King of the Rock”, perching himself high up on the rock to oversee the activity!

This little Mallard apparently had enough, so he headed off!

I decided to try to get some photos over by the boat launch, where there were no rocks.  I walked over and spread out some corn.

Just like hungry little puppies, the ducks followed me over and began plucking up the tasty little kernels. It was then that I spotted something so disturbing, my heart sank to my feet.  Although I am not particularly fond of having a cat,  I respect people that love them and agree they are pretty animals.  And so, I almost cried as I spotted a beautiful grey and white striped cat, wrapped in a blanket, lying on the shore, dead.  I don’t know the details, but how sad that someone thre the cat there instead of burying the poor thing.  I just will never understand….

I immediately returned to the car, feeling sickened.  I told Mark and he said there really was nothing we could do. I sat there, trying to warm up from a frigid outing and feeling so sad.

After a bit,  I looked up and saw what seemed like zillions of gulls all sitting on the parking lot on the opposite  side of the boat launch.

To the left of that photo is the lake. As I looked that way, I spotted some white……

I quickly jumped out of the car, grabbed the bucket and scotted down toward the water! I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

It sure was a treat seeing the Swans.  By the time I saw them, my cracked corn supply was greatly diminished.  I only had a couple of scoops left, so I tried to use it sparingly.

I will leave you with my favorite shots of the day. Strangely enough, it is not of a swan, but of these colorful little Mallards, all looking so cute!

So, what about my talent?  Well, even though I am so dreadfully left-handed, I managed to actually capture a few photos of tiny Chickadees grabbing seeds from my left hand, while holding the camera and snapping with my right hand! Talent? Or no?

These photos are all best viewed by clicking on them to enlarge them…

After I was done feeding the little birdies, I decided to use my horse-whispering talent.  I walked over to the pasture where the wonderful Monroe County Sheriff’s horses are kept.  I had seen four horses in the pasture upon entering the park, and since it is just a short distance from the parking lot, I thought I would at least say hi!

I should have tweaked these photos to brighten the up a bit, but you get the idea!  Only two of the horses wanted to talk to me, so we had our little tete-a-tete, and I was on my way.

And, as I was leaving, horse #1 said, Hey, take me with you! Of course, it broke my heart, but I left the kindly giant behind. He *does* belong to the sheriff’s department, after all!

And here are two random shots thrown in….

One of the great benefits of owning a three car garage that has everything BUT the vehicles stored there is that we can enjoy things like Jack Frost’s lovely artwork. (which seemed to take forever to clear from the windows!)

And, while up in Rochester, we saw a most awesome little shed at a car dealership!

Yes!  A rubber tire building!  No need to fret over falling meteors and such in this shed!  Everything just bounces off!  Watertight, meteor proof….what more could one ask for?  Yeah, I imagine the inside stinks!, but one cannot have it all, eh?

How I wish the next two would have turned out better.  Murphy was investigating the Christmas tree and it was hysterical!  In the photos, the light he is concentrating upon is red, although it shows up orange.  However, Murphy’s bright red nostrils and mouth were not inflamed…just a reflection of said light!

The last photo was taken this evening as Mark and I sat in a parking lot at the north end of Canandaigua Lake.  Off in the distance, the lights from Bristol Mountain were reflecting off clouds and making a glow in the sky.  When I took the photo, it looked nearly black until I tweaked the colors and focus a bit!

Hope you are having a good weekend!

Yeah, I am being totally wimpy today and I just feel so overwhelmed!

I had no idea that the weather was going to take a one-eighty degree turn. While it has been so warm and unusual here lately, it very suddenly turned FRIGID.  No, not even cold. Beyond cold. Frigid!  As in, Arctic cold!  Now, I don’t mind cold weather at all, but shouldn’t the transition be a little longer than a day?

All right. No more bellyaching. 

I shoveled the ramp and knocked the four or five inches of snow off all three vehicles.  I got the Explorer all uncovered and part of the truck.  Then I went in the house to get something ready for dinner tonight. I had thawed a roast, so decided to make just the perfect meal for a bitter cold day…..Hearty Beef Stew, from my book, Slow Cooker Revolution.

Ben and I worked on finishing getting the vehicles cleared and then came inside. The temperature remained well below freezing all day.  I am housesitting so I went to check the house. I decided to take the Explorer. Ben was going with me. We stopped at the end of the driveway so I could grab our mail.  I shifted into drive to go on up the road, but the car refused to move.  Ben hopped out and told me to stop the car right away…..transmission fluid was leaking everywhere!  As we walked up the driveway, there was a streak of fluid all the way. Apparently, a piece of metal broke in the driveway and the gasket fell off.

Mark ended up calling AAA and they sent a flatbed to grab the car.  It was so cold….there is always, always a brisk breeze at the end of the driveway. The operator loaded fast and took the Explorer away. What a pain that was!

Ben and I checked the house I am housesitting and then we came home.  By this time, it was getting near dinner time. I made up a batch of dumplings and put them on top of the stew.  As it worked out, ev eryone loved the stew and it really was the perfect dish for this cold day!

I finally warmed up by taking a hot bath.  I had spent so much time outside today and I felt like I was never going to warm up again! Tomorrow, it is supposed to be warmer….I sure hope it is.  We have so many little tasks that still need attended to.  Mark and the kids just finished putting up the final boards on the new ramp yesterday. The kids were so glad they did it then, instead of today!

So, I will leave you with a couple of birdie photos I took today.

So…tomorrow will be a better day!

I took these photos near the Corn Hill section of the city.  Corn Hill is located parallel to the Genesee River.  That is the water that is to the right in the photos.

After taking a few shots looking downtown,  I walked back to the truck when I became aware of an awful noise….Swirling all around above the river were hundreds, no, thousands of crows.

It was so cold walking along the streets!  We have become such big sissies with all the unusual warm temperatures we have had most of the fall!

I wandered past the Christmas displays….wow!  There sure is a lot to see there!  Even though I don’t care much for all the commercialism at Christmas,  I really do like looking at all the baubles and whatnots!  I love all the bright and cheerful colors. Between the warm and comforting autumn colors at Thanksgiving and the bright, splashy colors of Christmas, this time of the year has it all.  I bumped into a young teenage girl along the way, looking rather spellbound in the aisle. She confided this is her favorite time of the year and I agreed with her.

Off I trotted to the garden center, where all the bird activity was happening.  My, oh my…..those birds are certainly chatty!  If one happened to have a headache, their noise level would be enough to throw one over the edge. I watched as what seemed like tens and tens of Sparrows zipped down from the top rafters of the building, diving into the Christmas displays and garden supplies.  It was incredible!

Then, “it” caught my eye…..

I have never been attracted to Orchids, really.  But these beauties, called Blue Mystique nearly took my breath away!  I just stood there, staring, for a very long time.  At forty dollars a piece, there is no way one of these would come home to live with me, but they are the most beautiful plant I have ever seen! 

Did you know that BLUE is my very most favorite color? I am so thankful for eyes that are able to see all the beautiful elements in this world!

Yesterday, after dropping Michelle off for her afternoon classes,  I picked up Carly and her daughter, Erin, for a little photo adventure.  I really needed that! It was awesome and we had fun wandering, too.

We went to the George Eastman House first. We weren’t there very long.  We really didn’t have a lot of time, as Michelle’s afternoon classes only run three hours.  Thankfully, Carly knows her way around the city very well….I never would have even known where to go!  After finishing up at Eastman House, Carly asked if I had ever visited the Mount Hope Cemetery. Nope.  But I would like to!

We got to the cemetery and it is really an incredible place.  Carly, being trained as an Earth Science teacher, knows all about land formations and such.  She told us the cemetery is built on what is called “kettles”.  As one wanders about, it is easy to see how this type of terrain is so named.  There are deep round valleys that do indeed look like kettles!  And, Carly said if the kettles fill with water, they become kettle lakes.  Thankfully, that isn’t happening at the cemetery, lest the dead might arise from their graves…..or at least their coffins might!

We had no sooner stepped out of the car when a male Cardinal began to flirt with us!  Can you see him? He’s the intense red “spot” in the center of the photo. Click to see him bigger! I stood there and took repeated shots of him, but it was nearly impossible to get focussed correctly on him. Only when I got home did I find this really cool shot of him…

The monument below was seen from the road and I told Carly we should go look for it.  The color was just beyond fascinating…and the monument is so beautiful as well!

I guess it really is impossible to capture the brilliance of the colors of the tree.  I don’t like to fiddle around with photos. I like to try to capture my subjects just as I see them. So,  I tried shooting upward into the tree!

Enlarging the pictures adds a lot…condensing them just detracts from the glorious colors!

We had wandered off just a bit from the car when I wondered if I had locked the doors.  Not that a “graveyard” is a typical place for pilfering, but I just wanted to make sure the car was locked.  We asked Erin to run down and make sure it was locked up, as we “oldies” didn’t want to clamber down a hill, then climb once again! Erin loves to run, so she scampered off and made sure everything was set.  When she came back, she was nearly doubled over, laughing hysterically.  She thought that both she and I had been pressing the wrong button for the locks.  She was so funny!

One of the interesting aspects of this cemetery is that no space was wasted in the past.  There are literally graves everywhere! Now, remember Carly called this land kettles….

The stones in this cemetery range from elaborate to simply initials etched into a tiny just-above-ground marker.

I couldn’t quite understand why some of the sites are terribly overgrown, either? The next photo was taken from a steep clifflike area.  There was a guardrail built at the edge from concrete upright “pillars” and horizontal iron bars, but the concrete was falling apart and the bars were not very likely to keep one from tumbling down the steep grade! Anyway, the mausoleum built into the hill across from the one we were on was intriguing!

As I was photographing the building, Carly and Erin had found some rather unique seating arrangements in a section of really overgrown graves!  The cedar trees looked like they were going to overtake the stones!

Now, how we could feel so comfortable and at ease amongst the “sleeping” is beyond me, but the atmosphere was amazing! We were having so much fun and it was just the kind of day where everything looks beautiful and perfect!

Carly told me there were a couple of famous people buried in the Mount Hope Cemetery. So, off we went on a little explore to find the monuments….

A brief history lesson. And, the monument. Buried in the same place is his wife,  and a daughter.

Apparently, Mr. Douglass was married twice as this marker is nearby….

As we walked along, I noticed this and smiled. Ironic it is in a cemetery, for in the crevice of a dead stump, a new little tree had taken root and was growing!

Another brief history lesson. On the way to Susan’s grave, what should Erin spot?

Definitely enlarge this one, as you can see the little fellow is sitting on the edge of a stone that says “safe with Jesus”. Too cute!

Susan B. Anthony’s simple, unassuming marker.  It seems so small for a woman who so greatly impacted the rights of women in this nation, and perhaps even elsewhere in the world.

And, one last tree shot….

We only covered a tiny slice of this huge cemetery. Perhaps one day we will revisit and see even more. 

Did you ever believe when you saw the title above that such amazing color would be found in an old, old cemetery?

Mark and I both went to Rochester with Michelle and we did a few errands.  Michelle’s bithday is Saturday, so we went looking to see if we could find her something she would like.  She is so easy to please, but I don’t like getting her something she might not really, really like.  We talked to her on the way home and decided we would just take her on a “shopping spree” so she can pick out what she truly wants. 

While Mark and I sat outside the McDonald’s in Henrietta, we noticed a seagull watching *us* from atop a camera on the store!

That silly bird kept watch over all that was happening at Micky D’s!

Still don’t have my camera back with the Murphy photos from yesterday. Harrumph!

Today,  I am so thankful for a place to call home.  God didn’t need to give us a house.  He didn’t need to surround our house with some pretty awesome scenery!  He didn’t need to do all this for us.  But, He did.  And for all this, I am so very grateful. And thankful!

I hope you don’t mind some more photos…I tell you the truth…there are some trees with s-c-r-e-a-m-i-n-g colors that were calling my name!  I cannot get enough of this.  The temperature today was quite chilly, but the sun made it feel plenty comfortable.

Oh, I forgot to mention….it was pretty cold last night and this morning, so we needed a fire in the garage so Mark could spend some time tinkering there!

So, about those trees?

These trees above are all red oaks.  Some with red-orange leaves, orange leaves, and the tiny oak tree with BIG red leaves! And, there are even red oaks that still have green leaves!

In looking up the driveway toward the house, one can see there are trees with many leaves and trees with no leaves.  The Shagbark Hickories have lost their leaves. The Hickory below has not lost most of its leaves!

Even though we have had some Autumn winds pass through here in the Bristolwood,  many trees are clinging to their leaves! But all in all, they are all breathtaking , particularly against a sky of blue. 

While I was out taking these photos,  I did need to walk along a pathway in the woods.  It was then that I also found some really cool weeds and spent flowers.  I even found some NOT spent flowers!

As I was walking about, I spied a couple of little birds that there palying peekaboo with me and the camera!

I guess the sunshine, fresh air, and blue skies inspired me!  Michelle and I put out our fall decorations today.

The weatherman is calling for some milder temperatures this coming week.  That is good, as Ben and Mark have some plans for outside work!  Oh, and by the way, the mums in the above photo were cut and placed in water about two weeks ago!  The vase has been sitting on the table on the front porch all that time and the flowers still are looking good!  Shortly after this photo was taken, the flowers went back out on the porch!