Pictures for Pam, Day 16: Creamy White Dahlia

(This picture also wants to be seen at full size) :)

What a difference a day makes! The sky had some clouds when I arose but I could see that it would be a beautiful, sunny day. At one point on my walk I had to stop and look out over the valley towards the Rogue River because of the racket I was hearing. There was a huge flock of Canada Geese flying around the Rogue River and they were making so much noise I could hear them from miles away! I hoped they might fly overhead but instead they landed on the river for a break before setting out on their migration (I'm guessing, anyway). I snickered at the boisterous fuss they made but was also very pleased to hear them. It is so nice to live in a place with so much wildlife!

Tromping up and down the driveway, it was fun to think about my friends on ipernity and all the good times I've been having with back-and-forth comments, letters, and the delight of the wealth of awesome photography. ipernity really is such a wonderful community and I feel like a new person these days because of this upward spiral. There are no words to express my gratitude, but I do my best!

The past few days I've been taking some time to process some of the pictures I took of the gorgeous dahlias at San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers. There is a total bummer about that photo shoot. When I got home and took a closer look at the images I was horrified to discover that the flowers were FILTHY! I didn't remember seeing this at the time but when the gardens were watered, it was obvious that a lot of dirt particles flew up and hit the blossoms. In fact, most of my tight shots looked like someone had taken a pepper shaker and covered the entire flower with a million black specks. YUCK!!! If I had any thoughts of posting a close-up, it was going to take a lot of work. However, I have finally been in the mood, and these flowers truly deserve the attention.

And so, I present to you one of my successful clean-up jobs! What you're looking at may look like a pristine, perfect blossom, but to get to this state took over an hour of dirt removal! Every petal was covered with dots of dirt! What a mess. But truly, the effort was totally worth it because now I can show off this stunning wedding bride of a dahlia! And, it isn't so bad to sit and click away the dirt when I have some nice music to listen to. In fact, I saw a picture on Explore of a henna-painted hand captured magnificently by Boro (Thank your Betty for the proper ID), and the music to accompany the picture was a French artist I'd never heard of... Bernard Lavillier ...and I loved the piece so much I went over to YouTube, queued up a play list and spent the whole time listening to his fabulous music while I cleaned up this picture. What fun.

Pam, this beautiful dahlia is only a fraction as lovely as you are, my dear. I hope you enjoy its radiance and maybe it will give you some warm fuzzies to help you on your way to recovery. I am thinking about you all the time! *big hugs*

Explored on 11/25/18, highest position, #7
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