Thursday, October 30, 2014

Planting, Playing, and Star-gazing


As promised, I am back with my last recap of our October Rerform trip. And yes, I do remember that I promised you a shot of one of the most beautiful women in the world. Brace yourselves.

We spent a lot of time outside because the weather was just gorgeous. We spent our time helping to plant a garden, exploring our surroundings, and star-gazing. 



There is a "pool" on the hill beside my grandmother's land that was used as a baptismal for their church for years. The congregation would sit in chairs on one side and the preacher and new believer would climb down into the ground, in the waters fed by my grandparents' well. I am sure that the kids {my dad and his siblings, cousins, and friends} probably used it as a "swimming hole" as well. The pool has long since been retired and the ground has grown up over it, but my grandmother wanted to see if we could find its location this weekend. We walked the grounds and talked about life. She found the general site, shown below in the picture, but of course there is no longer evidence of the famed spot.


My little botanist was watering the garden, I suspect in the hopes that the bulbs that he had planted just hours earlier would start blooming immediately.


And they did!





Hahaha, just kidding. #icrackmyselfup #whyamitheonlyonelaughing

I mentioned that we took our time star-gazing on this trip. The skies were so perfect for it, and with a place this far away from any city, the light pollution is greatly diminished. My goal was to take shots of the stars, filling the frame with their beauty. It didn't exactly go as planned, though I am proud of myself for getting up at 4:00 am to accomplish the goal. My lens was too heavy for the tripod to keep still at the angle that I was trying to force it to remain. My bad. I will have to try again.

However, I was able to capture the moon around 11:00 pm and am pretty pleased with the results. I mean, it's no NASA or National Geographic, but work with me here.




On Sundays, we always head up the hill from my grandmother's house to eat lunch with my uncle and family {after attending service at a perfect little country Baptist church, of course}. This weekend was no exception.

Canon has several cousins that live here, or close enough, to play with every time we visit. Most of them are girls, but this little dude is finally getting to the age that he and Canon can have so much fun together. I had so much fun just watching them interact that I couldn't help laughing and smiling right along with them.


My uncle and aunt have chickens, goats, cats, dogs, and are looking into getting a donkey. It's basically a small farm, but you can do that when you have so much land and no city restrictions!


They happened to be celebrating several birthdays on this trip and took it upon themselves to get Craig a cake too! {His birthday was in the weeks' to come.} The kids couldn't wait to blow out all of the candles.


Of course, I couldn't spend the whole afternoon just taking pictures of people, or even animals. I had to get some flora and fauna in as well.

I don't know what this plant is, but it is so cool!



I promised you a picture of one of the beautiful women in the world, so here she is.My grandmother is an angel on Earth, beautiful on the inside and outside. You can't get much better than that.



I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful Halloween. I can't wait to see all of the pictures of kiddos in costume that are going to be filling up my Facebook feed. Don't worry, you will get bombarded with photos of a certain little dude here too. At some point.






Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Pretty Lily


I know I'm a day late, but I am here to show you some of the coolest flowers on the planet - spider lilies. I found these growing wild on my grandmother's land and proceeded to whisper sweet nothings at them through my camera for the next half hour or so.

I started out shooting them in the traditional ways. Nice enough. 






 
Then I decided to try and challenge myself to find new and different angles. I found myself lying down underneath these beautiful things. Never mind the itchiness that ensued from lying in grass. Happens every time.



I was excited to find that gold glitter is actually a natural occurrence. Dear crafters and teenage girls - you're welcome.



I will see you back here tomorrow for rest of our trip to Reform so come ready to see one of the most beautiful women on the planet. Trust me.





Monday, October 27, 2014

Flower Child


Ah, the country. There is just nothing like it. Things bloom here in such vibrancy that it is impossible not to notice. I know this post is mostly just pictures of flowers, but since that is what I love to shoot the most I can't apologize for it. These were all found on my family's land, growing wild and free. They beckoned me. 




I know this isn't the best photo, but I had to include it because well, have you ever seen a hummingbird perch?! Look closely and you can see one just hanging out on the middle branch.


As usual, the boys did their jobs when we arrived - unfurling the flag and releasing the air out of her well's pipes. In addition, this time Canon helped Grandmama plant some bulbs in her above-ground garden. My uncle built this for her and it is perfect for her because she can still do her planting and gardening without falling to the ground trying to reach it. Brilliant.

Sidenote : I want one of these above-ground gardens. They are so cool!!! 


Grandmama showed Canon how to till the soil, dig a hole for the bulb and recover the hole, patting the soil down gently but not tight. They had so much fun playing in the dirt!




I am anxious to see what comes from this planting, mostly because I have forgotten what they actually planted. We should only have to wait a year - or less. :)


Our October visit was especially nice because my brother, Walker, went with us. Being so close to us means that he can just hitch a ride with us anytime in order to visit our grandmother. Getting some real fresh air is always welcomed by him as well, so while everyone was napping on Saturday he and I set out to explore a patch of gorgeous flowers that we saw driving earlier in the day.






Walker got the idea in his head that he would learn how to create a flower crown because "little girls do it all the time so it can't be that hard!". Doesn't everyone think like this?!


It took a while, but he finally did create it. It probably would have only fit a {tiny} doll's head, but he figured it out!


While he worked on his crown, I took to exploring all of the flowers.






The house in the background belonged to my great grandfather, his father before, and so on. It survived the Civil War and even boasted gunshot wounds from that time for years. One of my uncles inherited the house and it has passed down through his family since. There are a lot of changes to the house, including the now filled-in bullet holes, but it is still so precious to our family.










But wait, there's more! We had a wonderful time during this visit and I have more to share with you so come back tomorrow for a glimpse at some of the most beautiful spider lilies. Ever.