August 2024 - P52 Challenge

[Cassel]

Do you want to challenge yourself to take photos every week for a year?

Maybe you want to practice your photography skills, or just try to capture "ordinary" daily occurrences.

Let's just encourage each other.

This is a no-pressure thread, and you can share the photos you took or the theme you are going for (if you are going with a theme).

And if you don't want to share the photos yet, and only showcase them once they are in a montage or a scrapbook page, you can just say that you did it.

And it is ok to start your 52 weeks at any time. It does not have to start in January!

[Sue Thomas]

Week thirty one . I can only ever  add one image to each post. I've tried editing the post to add another image, but it will not allow me to do so.  Anyway,  I would like you to meet some of my  many seasonal wild friends.  Richardson's Ground squirrels. Many come to the call, for a treat.  I do not attempt to touch or handle them.  I let them come to me. Although they are very teritorial, somtimes they will share a treat.  Which is quite rare. As it usually sparks a fight, with the dominant/older one winning seeing off the subordinate. The other image is of a baby, following in the steps of  older ones.  I'm unable to take shots with the camera as I can't  operate it one handed.  Using a tripod or monopod doesn't work either, as they won't pose  for me in a specific spot.  These were taken using my  mobile phone.  

Edited August 1 by Sue Thomas

[Sue Thomas]

For this week I have done 2.    Here is a recently emerged baby one, enjoying a slither of apple.

Edited August 1 by Sue Thomas

[Sharla]

On 8/1/2024 at 2:19 PM, Sue Thomas said:

Here is a recently emerged baby one, enjoying a slither of apple.

He is truly delightful - a lovely photo.

[Sharla]

Week 31 I was taking some photos of allium flowers when this chap landed on one of them. I think it’s a European hornet but I’m not sure – he, or she, has a delightful expression.

 

[Sue Thomas]

2 hours ago, Sharla said:

Week 31 I was taking some photos of allium flowers when this chap landed on one of them. I think it’s a European hornet but I’m not sure – he, or she, has a delightful expression.

 

Beautiful capture!  It is in fact a Hover Fly or known as flower flies.  They are dead ringers for bees and wasps.  Not only are they harmless, they are valuable pollinators of flowers.  The easiest way for the untrained eye to tell  apart from those that they mimic, is that their antenae are   very short in comparision to bees and wasps. Although there are  other distinguising features too.

[Corrie Kinkel]

Today when I looked out of my kitchen window I saw something on the street that I couldn't immediately identify. Often birds are searching for little insects or worms between the stones especially after it has been raining. I went outside to have a closer look and it happened to be a small hedgehog! When we lived in our old house we had hedgehogs visiting in the garden, but here I haven't seen them around. This is a more buildup area although there are some small spots like the one where I took the  flower photos for the weeks in July. The lady from across the street saw me and came to have a look too. We didn't know what to do because the hedgehog was in danger to get overrun  by a car but he was looking okay and walking around. She is the caretaker of a Jehova Witnesses community center and lives on the premises which has a decent garden. We decided to try to get the hedgehog to walk into a box without us touching it and he/she obliged and is now in her garden. Surprise of the day........

[Sue Thomas]

What a wonderful find, and saving grace that you could find a safe haven for it.  I have always adored hedgehogs, and once upon a time, they were in abundance.  Now in the UK they are on the endangered list, and protected.  I belive I have mentioned on here, that we had a cattle grid at the bottom of our drive.  Hedgehogs used to fall into it, and the children would fish them out when they walked home from school.  We would feed them raw minced beef, and water, before letting them go in the garden.  From there they were safe to roam the garden and  fields. 

[Sue Thomas]

I didn't have any doubt in my  mind, that this  photo of a male Brown Thrasher taken on Tuesday morning was going to  be photo of the week.

[Susan Ewart]

5 hours ago, Sue Thomas said:

I didn't have any doubt in my  mind, that this  photo of a male Brown Thrasher taken on Tuesday morning was going to  be photo of the week.

Wow, he's a stunner.  Those eyes!  I love that tail, the colors are so beautiful.

[Susan Ewart]

On 8/2/2024 at 3:57 PM, Corrie Kinkel said:

Today when I looked out of my kitchen window I saw something on the street that I couldn't immediately identify. Often birds are searching for little insects or worms between the stones especially after it has been raining. I went outside to have a closer look and it happened to be a small hedgehog! When we lived in our old house we had hedgehogs visiting in the garden, but here I haven't seen them around. This is a more buildup area although there are some small spots like the one where I took the  flower photos for the weeks in July. The lady from across the street saw me and came to have a look too. We didn't know what to do because the hedgehog was in danger to get overrun  by a car but he was looking okay and walking around. She is the caretaker of a Jehova Witnesses community center and lives on the premises which has a decent garden. We decided to try to get the hedgehog to walk into a box without us touching it and he/she obliged and is now in her garden. Surprise of the day........

Master scriptor and hedgehog wrangler, you are truly a renaissance woman Corrie!  What a wonderful experience with a happy ending and safe new life for this sweet little thing. 

[Sue Thomas]

9 hours ago, Susan Ewart said:

Wow, he's a stunner.  Those eyes!  I love that tail, the colors are so beautiful.

They rarely show themselves, as they spend almost all of their time on the ground lurking in the dense undergrowth.  They also nest on the ground. 

[Corrie Kinkel]

10 hours ago, Susan Ewart said:

Master scriptor and hedgehog wrangler, you are truly a renaissance woman Corrie!  What a wonderful experience with a happy ending and safe new life for this sweet little thing. 

That "master scripter" and the other names are hilarious, but can we leave it there please

[Ann Seeber]

WEEK 30 = SUN AUG 4 for me. I'm just catching up here! Still delving into the ancestry of my father's family in Ulster County. The original 1698 Bevier house on Huguenot Street in New Paltz became a general store and the Bevier's purchased farmland in nearby Marbletown. This home was quite an upgrade from the New Paltz original. This 1740 Bevier house is now a museum.

[Corrie Kinkel]

This week I visited the Textile Museum in Tilburg with my cousin. The museum is in the original factory from 1870 and most of the more modern looms are in working order and produce cloth for tea-towels, napkins, tablecloth etc. You can see and hear them when they are working; the noise of 1 or 2 machines already is deafening and in those days the workers had no noise protection. It was an interesting day; we learned about the whole process from wool, cotton or silk to the end product. We both had been there 30 to40 years ago with our children but it was nice to see all the new exhibits that has been added over the years. Luckily there was a coffee corner too.

[Ann Seeber]

3 hours ago, Ann Seeber said:

WEEK 30 = SUN AUG 4 for me. I'm just catching up here! Still delving into the ancestry of my father's family in Ulster County. The original 1698 Bevier house on Huguenot Street in New Paltz became a general store and the Bevier's purchased farmland in nearby Marbletown. This home was quite an upgrade from the New Paltz original. This 1740 Bevier house is now a museum.

Here's the original Bevier House on Huguenot Street in the center photo in this June layout.

[Sharla]

Week 32 A blue sky! An actual photo of a blue August sky. It was even warm for a few days.

 

Edited August 13 by Sharla

[Susan Ewart]

1 hour ago, Sharla said:

Week 32 A blue sky! An actual photo of a blue August sky. It was even warm for a few days.

 

That is really blue!  We had a house shaking thunder and lightening storm this morning .  The the skies cleared and it's a blue sky, but not as blue and glorious as yours!

[Ann Seeber]

I'm working on Week 31 - this is a screenshot of a video produced by the Huguenot Street Historical Society and when I saw it, I was delighted to see my own name, Terwilliger. It seems my ancestor was a blacksmith in the New Paltz, NY, area. The photo quality was fair but I ran it through PSPs Effects/Photo Effects/Time Machine and chose the Platinum developing process which also added the frilly border which also shows up on some old photos I have here. PSP explained the Platinum process gave superior prints but because it was exorbitantly expensive was not used very often.

Edited August 13 by Ann Seeber

[Corrie Kinkel]

I'm a bit early with my week 33 but I was very lucky with this shot of my oleander in full bloom. After all the rain we had it enjoyed the warm and sunny weather and had a lot of flowers. I took the photo on Tuesday morning and in the evening we had a sudden downpour and a lot of the flowers were destroyed and on the floor the next morning. Most of the buds survived on the plant so it will continue to flower but maybe not so abundant; we are already half way in August and that means less hours of daylight over here.

[Ann Seeber]

And here's my Week 32 - The full 2024 performance of the Italian Frecce Tricolori in New York's Hudson Valley. They appeared at the Orange County Airport last weekend. It's their first American tour in more than 30 years. I will also post this on our Facebook page so I can also post the video.

[Sue Thomas]

2 hours ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

I'm a bit early with my week 33 but I was very lucky with this shot of my oleander in full bloom. After all the rain we had it enjoyed the warm and sunny weather and had a lot of flowers. I took the photo on Tuesday morning and in the evening we had a sudden downpour and a lot of the flowers were destroyed and on the floor the next morning. Most of the buds survived on the plant so it will continue to flower but maybe not so abundant; we are already half way in August and that means less hours of daylight over here.

Now that is what I call a beautifu splash of colour. 

[Sue Thomas]

1 hour ago, Ann Seeber said:

And here's my Week 32 - The full 2024 performance of the Italian Frecce Tricolori in New York's Hudson Valley. They appeared at the Orange County Airport last weekend. It's their first American tour in more than 30 years. I will also post this on our Facebook page so I can also post the video.

Cool shot!  Did you take the photo with your phone? 

[Sue Thomas]

I took the last photos for this year of the  Wrens feeding their young yesterday afternoon. What goes in  one end must come out the other end.  When I saw the nestlings pop their  heads out, I knew it was hours or at the most a day before they fledged.  And  that is exactly what they did.  This morning the nest  was empty. The last of the Wrens have fledged. 

Edited August 16 by Sue Thomas

[Corrie Kinkel]

1 minute ago, Sue Thomas said:

Now that is what I call a beautifu splash of colour. 

It was a joy to look at and it will be again in 1 to 2 weeks if the rest of the buds will open. But just after that downpour it was looking very sad with most of the flowers on the ground. It is in the corner of my small patio and it makes having a cup of morning coffee very pleasant.