Janet Brien's photos

I'd forgotten all about this picture until I was looking through my images to see what I could use for my 1-10 Project. This beauty is a Cat-Faced Orbweaver, just like Roscoe Frank McCrawlerson, the spider that stayed in our porch doorway. This one I found on our back porch one evening, crawling on a piece of plastic. There are five others doing this project with me! Make sure to check out their streams and see what they've been doing with their 1-10 Project! 1-10 Project Buddies Chrissy Valfal (Valerie) Jenny McIntyre Rachel Lynne Explored on September 15, 2014. Highest placement, #3.

(+3 insets above) What fun to have an excuse to post this picture! Last year I found a log with many formations of jelly fungus, but this one was my favorite because it looked like a bunch of orange fingers! There are many species of jelly fungus, and many of them appear to have the consistency of jelly, though they are usually quite rubbery to the touch. They sometimes have a slick coating of moisture on them as well. (I have included three more pictures as insets above) If you would like to know more about this fascinating fungus, you can visit this Wiki page: Wikipedia: Jelly Fungus There are five others doing this project with me, and if you'd like to jump in, we'd love to have you! You can catch up when you can! :) 1-10 Project Buddies Chrissy Valfal (Valerie) Jenny McIntyre Rachel Lynne Explored on September 10, 2014. Highest placement, #9.

Six is such a fun number! There are countless flowers with six petals, over a million insect species, and endless groupings of six. But I wanted something different, so I looked in my archives and remembered some pictures I took of a bell pepper. It turns out that my favorite image featured six bell pepper seeds! You can see why I remembered this picture: did you know that these seeds have a lovely texture which resembles a fingerprint?! I had no idea they were so pretty and interesting to look at! There are five others doing this project with me, and if you'd like to jump in, we'd love to have you! You can catch up when you can! :) 1-10 Project Buddies Chrissy Valfal (Valerie) Jenny McIntyre Rachel Lynne Explored on September 3, 2014. Highest placement, #6.

Last June, Steve and I got the opportunity to take pictures of a friend's garden, and I spent a couple of hours immersed in an immaculately landscaped slice of heaven. This tiny beauty is called a Forget-Me-Not, a popular garden flower which is also used as a symbol for Remembrance Day by some Newfoundlanders, and as a symbol by Freemasons to not forget those who have died. There are five others doing this project with me, and if you'd like to jump in, we'd love to have you! You can catch up when you can! :) 1-10 Project Buddies Chrissy Valfal (Valerie) Jenny McIntyre Rachel Lynne Explored on August 25, 2014. Highest placement, #1.

This is what I consider a very special image. I remember walking into my front garden and seeing a pink glow down near the ground as the sun was just rising over the hillside. I dropped down into a crouch to stare in rapt amazement at this beautiful little poppy, appreciating the wonderful show it was putting on. The four pink translucent petals overlapped one another and created four darker spots in the shape of an X...how cool is that? I ran inside and returned with my camera so that I could attempt to capture this moment, hoping it would be as pretty as what I saw. Often those special moments cannot be reproduced, that special something just eluding the camera. But today I got lucky and can show you this breathtaking scene. There are five others doing this project with me, and if you'd like to jump in, we'd love to have you! You can catch up when you can! :) 1-10 Project Buddies Chrissy Valfal (Valerie) Jenny McIntyre Rachel Lynne Explored on August 19, 2014. Highest placement, #2.

This picture shows a bit of the chaos which happened every single morning during the entire month of July. The garden hummed with bees, they were everywhere! I never saw so many at once! They are still visiting every day, but there aren't as many flowers now that the poppies have peaked. What a show it's been! There are four others doing this project with me, and if you'd like to jump in, we'd love to have you! You can catch up when you can! :) 1-10 Project Buddies Chrissy Valfal (Valerie) Jenny McIntyre Rachel Explored on August 12, 2014. Highest placement, #3.

If you would like to see how my pumpkin patch is doing, here's my latest blog! Part 11: Dreams of a Big Flower Garden: Pumpkin Patch Update! I meant to post my picture yesterday but my internet was out all weekend and we didn't get service back until yesterday morning. By the time we had internet again I was full to the gills with other things I needed to do, so I decided to post my picture today! There are four others doing this project with me, and if you'd like to jump in, we'd love to have you! You can catch up when you can! :) 1-10 Project Buddies Chrissy Valfal (Valerie) Jenny McIntyre Rachel Explored on August 6, 2014. Highest placement, #5.

I am starting a new project, suggested by my dear friend Chrissy, and I would like to invite anyone who is interested to join in the fun! (A big welcome to Valfal (Valerie) who will be joining us! (By the way, you can join any time and catch up if I'm on the next number) I only post about once a week these days, so it won't be stressful to keep up with me! Naturally, you can post all the pictures you want inbetween project pictures, but please wait for me to post the next in the series before you post yours. I will try to post my project picture every Monday morning. Anything goes for your subject(s) unless you choose to restrict yourself to something specific. That can be a fun challenge and you might choose to take pictures of a certain type of subject or a specific color, etc. The point is to have fun! :) Let me know in a comment that you're joining in on the fun and I'll add you to the list of people doing this project with a link so folks can see what you've come up with! :) My first picture was really hard to pick, since you may know how often I choose to highlight one subject! But I finally decided on this glowing Morning Glory, which is growing in my wildflower section. So many flowers! It's just incredible how much these vines grow, and all over the place too! They are really amazing flowers and I've really been looking forward to them. I have a whole area devoted to them, and there will be several colors as they begin to bloom. Explored on July 29, 2014. Highest placement, #1.

Note: my latest article is up which shows my raised bed garden in bloom! Part 10: Dreams of a Big Flower Garden: An Explosion of Color!! I have finally arrived at the last letter of the alphabet, and this is one of the beautiful Zinnias that have bloomed in my garden! By the way, "zazzy" is slang which means, "a basic cross between zany , pizazz and snazzy to create an adjective suggesting that something is too great to be confined to one word." I have three sections devoted to Zinnias, each with a different kind. This section has Dwarf Zinnias, and I was really surprised to find that about two dozen seeds germinated for me. The plants took off like wildfire...that is, until Cucumber Beetles discovered them. The insects ate many of them down to the ground, and severely damaged the others. I had been so excited and happy because all of the sections of Zinnias were doing so well, and within a couple of days I lost many of them and was facing the death of all of them. I was desperate. Though the chili-garlic spray I was using worked a little bit, the seedlings continued to be damaged. I finally tried a insect powder which I sprinkled onto the leaves and it worked! Finally my Zinnias were left alone, and to my amazement, many of the seedlings that were basically dead came back and are now creating buds! Hooray!! My Dwarf Zinnias are almost all shades of pink, but there's one orange-red one too, and there are others yet to begin blooming, so there may be other colors as well. I'm so happy to share my first Zinnia flower with all of you, grown from a tiny seed, and what a nice picture to end my Alphabet project with! Explored on July 21, highest placement: #1.

My latest article is finished, "Ant Invasions!" If you've ever battled with ants, you will know how we felt! You can read it here: Ant Invasions! I would like to present the FIRST FLOWERS of my RAISED BED GARDEN!!! These flowers are very special to me, because I raised them from seeds that were sent to me by my friend Pam J after I told her how much I loved them. We ended up trading several types of seeds, and though I didn't have luck with some of them, these sprouted and so did bunches of Maximillian Sunflowers, which are currently growing larger every day. These flowers are called "False Sunflowers", and grow wild in the Midwest. I love them so much, thank you Pam! Explored on July 14, 2014. Highest placement, #3...

I thought it would be a lot more fun to find a natural "X" for my picture, and I found this one in my archives which I took in-between rain showers one day. Update: Things are getting better!!! My garden is beginning to explode into bloom! ► I have managed to fend off the ever-determined ground squirrels. ► I have beat back the bad bugs long enough for my plants to get large enough to survive and now to flourish and begin to bloom. ► The deer have never even considered trying to jump my fences. ► The one bird who was eating our tomatoes seems to have moved on. ► The ants have been eradicated from our house and are almost gone from my flowers. I didn't realize that all of this would affect me so much, but honestly, it felt like everywhere I turned there was a pest to deal with. I couldn't even sit at my computer without seeing ants. But finally, it looks like things are calming down. With that, I have more time for photography, posting pictures and commenting. Let's hope things continue to improve! It's horrible to feel like there's no place safe from some kind of infestation or attack.

(+4 inset images above) This is the elegant and beautiful Oregon Fawn Lily, which blooms here in March. The purple version, the Henderson's Fawn Lily, grows on our property, but to see the white species I need to walk along the ridge line trail behind our house. About a quarter mile away I find them here and there, and they grow fairly profusely about half a mile away, near the far end of the trail. These flowers range in color from a luminous off-white to a light creamy-yellow and grow only about 6-8" off the forest floor. Update: I was planning to do another A-Z project, but I'm going to put that on hold. My A-Z partner, Chrissy , suggested doing a series on different colors, but I also want to begin posting pictures from my garden. So far I have California Poppies in yellow and cream, a brand new cream Anemone, tiny purple snap dragons, and some little white daisies. To begin the show, about two weeks ago, "False Sunnies" began blooming, and these seeds were given to me by my friend Pam J ! Explored on July 5, 2014. Highest placement, #1.

I watched this beautiful ladybird beetle hunting for breakfast among the dew-covered poppy leaves one morning, and when it paused by a dewdrop, I got some pictures! My garden has many ladybugs in it and I couldn't be happier, because these predators kill aphids and many other insects that destroy my plants! More apologies for not being around lately. It has been a lot of work trying to keep ahead of all the animals that are trying to eat my plants, and though I am still keeping ahead of them, this has left me feeling desperate, frustrated, worried, and depressed. The insects have all but annihilated my dozens of Zinnias which were doing so well. I have them planted in three sections of my garden and they are all just tatters now. I'm fighting back with more and more unfriendly measures as my options are taken away. The ground squirrels are chewing and digging their way into my gardens and eating entire plants. My dill and basil are gone, and some of my beautiful and lushly growing sunflower plants. It seems that the moment I repair one hole, they've created two more. So, it's all-out war and this makes me very unhappy because I just want them to leave my gardens alone. I get it...they are oases of plants and water, and I knew there would be trouble. But I didn't realize that the ground squirrel population has exploded this year for some reason, and they are making me crazy. However, that being said, I've got lots of things doing really well, and just wait until I get to the letter "Y"! :D If Garden Wars isn't enough to keep me busy, there are two colonies of ants attacking our kitchen and we have been trying for about three weeks to get rid of them. They must be under the house, because perimeter ant block has zero effect on them. Whenever we take care of one spot, they find another way in. It's horrible and so annoying, especially when I think I've finally taken care of the last place of entry, and the next morning they are coming in another way. ARGH!! I've also been busy with work, my book, and other tasks. I have surprisingly little time for my photography, and unfortunately, my zest for sharing the wonderful things I see is severely damaged with all of the frustrating situations going on. I am working on balancing everything so that I can have some happy time with photography on a regular basis! :) Explored on June 24, 2014. Highest placement, #1.

Note: my latest garden article is up! :D Part 9—Dreams of a Big Flower Garden: We Have A Pumpkin Patch!! A few years ago, Steve and I went to a nearby county fair and we had a lot of fun taking pictures of the farm animals. One of the sows had an enormous litter of piglets and we spent a long time cooing at their cuteness! I learned something today about the word "Ungulate". I always thought it meant "hooved mammal", but that's not entirely correct. Wikipedia gives this definition: "Ungulates are a diverse group of large mammals, most of which use the tips of their toes, usually hoofed, to sustain their whole body weight while moving. The term means, roughly, "being hoofed" or "hoofed animal". As a descriptive term, "ungulate" normally excludes cetaceans, as they do not possess most of the typical morphological characteristics of ungulates; recent discoveries indicate that they are descended from early artiodactyls, and thus are directly related to other even-toed ungulates such as cattle, with hippopotamuses being their closest living relatives. As a result of these discoveries, the new order Cetartiodactyla has been proposed to include the members of Artiodactyla and Cetacea, to reflect their common ancestry; however, strictly speaking, this is merely a matter of nomenclature, since it is possible simply to recognize Cetacea as a subgroup of Artiodactyla." I had no idea that whales were considered to be ungulates!! My apologies for not being around much lately. The garden is keeping me very busy, along with everything else going on right now! Explored on June 11, 2014, highest placement, #2.

(+1 inset) (By the way, I have three articles for Part 8 on my Garden Adventure articles...ENJOY! Part 8a—Dreams of a Big Flower Garden, 1-Month Update: The Good Part 8b—Dreams of a Big Flower Garden, 1-Month Update: The Bad Part 8c—Dreams of a Big Flower Garden, 1-Month Update: The Ugly I have tried a few times now to grow tulips. The deer and other animals thank me for my efforts and eat them all before they bloom. Next year will be different because I'll have fencing around my garden but this year was another failure. I did get pictures of one brave tulip that managed to make it nearly to the day it would open! (See the inset) A couple of years ago, Steve and I got the chance to to to an Emu farm, and it was an experience I will never forget. Aside from the emus, the farm was complete with a vegetable garden, an orchard, and everywhere there were flowers planted, including this tulip. Thanks to my A-Z project, I finally got the chance to process this picture, one that I was so happy with and have wanted to share since I first saw it. :) Explored on June 3, 2014. Highest placement, #1.

(+1 inset, showing our metal trough planter full of flowers) Note: I just finished writing the first of a series of blog posts about my new garden! My New Adventure: A Raised Bed Flower Garden! (There are several posts now, the bottom of each links to the next) Last August, I asked Steve to bring home some seeds so I could conduct an experiment: I wanted to see if I could get a fast-blooming plant like a Zinnia to bloom before frost in November. He found a 25¢ deal on flower seeds and brought home a bunch of them. One of them was Sweet Williams. When I discovered they were "biennial", I thought they would never bloom, so I took a bunch and tossed them in my metal trough planter and some in my front flower garden, since it wouldn't hurt and I didn't think they would grow anyway. (The deer ate my experiments, boo!) This spring, something strange plants started growing in each garden. The tops were green and fuzzy, sort of like a Tribble on a stem. Having no idea what this odd plant could be, I waited and wondered. I specifically didn't look on the internet because I simply love flower surprises! One day, about three weeks ago, I saw a bud forming and I could see that the whole top would be covered with them. A couple of days later, the first flower opened and I could hardly believe the beauty of this gorgeous flower! It was a Sweet William, and I'd never seen one face to face before! Stunned by its beauty, I remembered they are in the carnation family, so I leaned in to smell... mmmmmm... sweet and spicy, the classic and unmistakable carnation fragrance! About then it suddenly ocurred to me: the metal trough was FULL of these "Tribble Tops", dozens and dozens of them, plus a couple in the front flower bed. I was in for a SHOW!! (See the inset picture) What a show it has been, and I am so dazzled by these flowers! They are a mix of colors ranging from white to purple, with varigated forms, and they are positively, drop-dead gorgeous. They are now among my favorite flowers, and I'll be sharing more pictures through the year! :) Explored on May 27, 2014. Highest placement, #1.

(+3 insets above) Note: I have a series of blog posts about my new garden! My New Adventure: A Raised Bed Flower Garden! (More posts are there now!) A couple of years ago, I got a really nice deal on end-of-season spring bulbs, and Steve and I spent many hours digging holes and planting them out in our meadow around the beloved Oak tree which stands guard there. We didn't have much soil to contribute, so we dug in the clay dirt, plopped in some potting soil, added the bulb and covered it up. We set up sprinklers and watered every day. In the end, not a single bulb flowered. We were so disappointed. Last year in April, I looked out into the meadow and saw something blue. No. Could it be? I ran out to see, and yes, it was an anemone!!! I got my camera and took many pictures because I expected that it would be eaten by the next day, and it was. It was the only flower to bloom. (See the insets above). This year, April came around and I looked at my anemone pictures to get the exact date. A few days before, I began making rounds, but the blue anemone didn't come up. Discouraged, I almost gave up the hunt, but decided to check the next day, just in case. As I approached, I saw something red and held my breath. Shouting in happiness, I bent down to look. "Ohhhhhh!!! A RED ONE!!" Again I ran for my camera and took pictures. Even though it lasted just a day, I am so happy I captured images of this lovely red de Caen Anemone! Explored on May 24, 2014. Highest placement, #1.

Note: I just finished writing the first of a series of blog posts about my new garden! My New Adventure: A Raised Bed Flower Garden! A couple of months ago, Steve and I visited a large public garden because we'd seen a friend's photography and hoped to see some of the same things. There was a huge variety of plants and flowers, and although we were too early for much of the show, we weren't late for the DUCK SHOW! There were two large ponds and many beautiful ducks, geese and other waterfowl to photograph. I managed to get very lucky with this shot, and captured this pair's lively discussion! :D (Thanks very much to Hawkeye (Art) for the extra information about the unusually colored duck on the left, it appears to be either a male Saxony or Leucistic Mallard, how COOL!) Early Announcement and Invitation: I have decided to do another A-Z project after this one is finished, and would like to invite all who are interested to join me! It's going to be about a month before I'm done with this current project, but I wanted to bring it up now so you can begin thinking about it to decide if you'd like to join in the fun! The requirements are as restricted as you want to make them: you can make it easy by having it like mine, "Anything that starts with the letter", or you can have a theme for your project, such as "A-Z Birds", "A-Z Flowers", "A-Z Insects". Keep in mind that a theme can be anything, such as photographic terms, or things that are a specific color, or items in your house or tool shop. The sky is the limit with an A-Z project, and yet, it's only 26 pictures, so it's not a project that will take over your whole life. Start thinking about it now, and if you want to join in, you can begin capturing and processing your pictures, placing them into a folder to upload as I upload mine! Explored on May 21, 2014. Highest placement, #2.