Janet Brien's photos

This was a long piece of smooth wire, covered in frost! I hope you'll take a few moments to read this poem, it's fantastic and so visual, you'll need to put on a coat by the time you're done! :D My 9th grade English teacher introduced poetry to me and this was the one that made me love poetry! :) The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert W. Service There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee. Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows. Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows. He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell; Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell." On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail. Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail. If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see; It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee. And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow, And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe, He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess; And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request." Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan: "It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold, till I'm chilled clean through to the bone. Yet 'tain't being dead — it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains; So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains." A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail; And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale. He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee; And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee. There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven, With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given; It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains, But you promised true, and it's up to you, to cremate those last remains." Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code. In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load. In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring, Howled out their woes to the homeless snows — Oh God! how I loathed the thing. And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow; And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low; The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in; And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin. Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay; It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May." And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum; Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum." Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire; Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher; The flames just soared, and the furnace roared — such a blaze you seldom see; And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee. Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so; And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow. It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why; And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky. I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear; But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near; I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside. I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide. And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar; And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and said: "Please close that door. It's fine in here, but I greatly fear, you'll let in the cold and storm — Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm." There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee.

This is a very tight crop but I wanted to include it because the frosted barb looks so much like a dagger covered in crystals!

5 more pictures in notes above ! :) I left the dogs behind today because I wanted to go to the lower forest to look for mushrooms and other interesting subjects, but this area of our property is not fenced to the main road. I can't concentrate on both photography and the dogs at the same time and I will not risk their safety, so they had to stay at home. Veering off into the darker part of the forest, I came to a stop at a very special log which I call "The British Soldier Log." On it grows a beautiful and tiny, red-tipped lichen that I have not found anywhere else on our property except on a log along the ridge line. I'll never forget how excited I was when I first found this lichen a couple of years ago. Who ever heard of red-tipped lichen before?!! SO COOL!!! :D Since I had my macro flash on my camera, I knew I'd be able to get some good pictures, and I also had some time to spend, so I decided to really study this log carefully. I took off my glasses so that I was essentially blind, but for what I was doing, I could see better than most. I spent about 20 minutes looking very carefully all over this log to see what other treasures grew there. I found other groups of British Soldier Lichen that I hadn't seen before and many types of fungus and lichen, and I even found acorns that had been hammered into a tiny crack by some woodpeckers! As I was looking around the log, I noticed a crack, which I peered through. On the other side, the perfect form of a beautiful British Soldier stared back at me! Grabbing my glasses and grinning broadly, I knew I had my Picture of the Day as I positioned my camera for a series of pictures! Field Marshal William Joseph "Bill" Slim, 1st Viscount Slim (6 August 1891 – 14 December 1970) was a British military commander and the 13th Governor-General of Australia. He fought in both the First and Second world wars and was wounded in action three times. During World War II he led the 14th Army, the so-called "forgotten army" in the Burma campaign. From 1953 to 1959 he was Governor-General of Australia, regarded by many Australians as an authentic war hero who had fought with the Anzacs at Gallipoli. Wikipedia: William Slim (British Soldier) Explored on November 25, 2013. Highest placement, page 2 (#41)...

3 pictures and a note above! :) Before I went down to the lower forest, I was outside with my camera and wandered out behind our shop. Because I was moving very slowly, the group of Lesser Goldfinches that were feasting on Teasel seeds didn't fly away, and I got to stand there and watch them flitting about, twittering merrily to one another and munching away. It was such fun to watch them, and though I didn't really have the proper lens for the job, I managed to get a bunch of pictures and turned them into this collage for you to enjoy! :)

4 images above in notes! :) This is a close up of the British Soldier in the main image. I wanted to show the wonderful detail! :) From Tom Volk's Fungus of the Month for July 2002: Cladonia cristatella [cluh-DOHN-ee-uh cris-ta-TELL-uh] is a very common and well known lichen, found throughout the northeastern USA into Canada. There are look-alike species throughout most of the world as well. The little red "caps" that resemble the red hats worn by invading British troops during the American Revolutionary war give the lichen its common name of the the "Bristish Soldier Lichen." In reality, the red hats are actually the sexual fruiting structure of the lichen, the apothecia. (be sure to visit Tom's page for the full article!)

This is a group with some nice bokeh! More about this fascinating lichen from the article Island Creek's Ecology: British Soldiers British Soldiers is a lichen which gets its name from its resemblance to the uniforms worn by English soldiers during the Revolutionary War. A lichen is not just one organism, but a fungus and algae living together to form a new organism. The fungus in British Soldiers is called Cladonia cristatella. The algae is known as Trebouxia erici. Because lichens take the name of the fungus part of the relationship, British Soldiers is also known as Cladonia cristatella. Each part of the lichen appears to help the other. The fungus provides the algae with a "house" to live in, and the algae makes food for the fungus. Each organism could live on its own, but they seem to do much better together. The algae can also form lichens with other species of fungi, but the fungus cannot make a lichen with any algae other than Trebouxia erici. The main body of a lichen is called a "thallus." You can only have a thallus when the fungus and algae have joined. The bright colors of British Soldiers would not be there if the fungus was alone; instead it would look like a white blob. The red part of British Soldiers makes spores. Spores are a lot like seeds from plants, in that they can travel by wind and start a new fungus. The new fungus will not become British Soldiers, though, until the algae joins it. (Please visit the full article for more information!

2 more pictures in notes above ! :) It was very cold this morning but the sun was shining, and this afternoon it had warmed up enough that I decided to take the dogs up on the hill for a proper walk and photo hunt! What a lovely time we had, with a smiling Molly in the lead most of the time (remember she has just 3 legs and it's a steep hike up that hill!), tail held high and waving grandly! While the dogs had fun romping, I found many fun things to take pictures of...a really cool stump with lots of texture, a bunch of mushrooms, lovely pine needles, a baby centipede, a black beetle, tiny white fungus with tiny pores and I even found bird's nest fungus in two stages: newly formed and showing its nest! I found these cool mushrooms under "Snakey's Log", which seems to attract all kinds of interesting things to it. (snakes, lizards, scorpions, insects, etc...) Today there was a beautiful black beetle which I photographed, and as I was about to put the log back into place, I noticed this curious family of mushrooms growing on its underside, leaning out to get a better look at me! HOORAY!! Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE (born 10 January 1945) is a English rock singer-songwriter and one of the best selling music artists of all time, having sold over 100 million records worldwide. Wikipedia: Rod Stewart Explored on November 25, 2013. Highest position, page 5.

Another archived image, I really love how this one turned out with all of the textures everywhere! This stump is on the top of our ridge! :) I came over to this stump to see if there might be any mushrooms growing on it. Even though I didn't find any, I thought the stump had a wonderful texture and pretty colors, and the leaves scattered around it were beautiful too, so I took a picture for a natural abstract still life! :D

A couple of days ago when I went out into the frosty morning to take pictures, I wandered past the beautiful Oak tree that lives in our large meadow and was taken by the misty scene. Turning the image into a sepia tone gave this image the magical, moody quality I saw that morning! :) Explored on November 25, 2013. Highest placement, page 8...

3 more pictures in notes above ! :) You can also find me on Facebook ! It was another freezing cold day today, and I decided to stick close to the house because I'm a big baby and didn't want to "die of frostbite" again like yesterday! :D Stepping out onto the front porch, I saw that the flowers growing in two planters are now seriously on their way out because of the frost. But that doesn't mean they aren't still beautiful! :D So I spent some time taking pictures until my fingers and toes started yelling at me to go back inside! :) (You'll find two pictures after this one to show my picks!) I went into the kitchen and looked out onto our back deck, and what did I see but the adorable sight before you! Three extremely fluffy mourning doves, huddled up around a water dish (formerly a pot saucer). Now, if you know anything about me, you'll know that I simply go crazy whenever I see a bird with fluffed-up feathers! Here we have THREE!!! When they didn't fly away after a minute of me cooing at them, I ran for my camera and they were quite happy to sit and pose for me as I got pictures through the window! :) Doves are one of the most recognized symbols of peace. They also symbolize love and are a symbol for messengers. You can find out more about the dove as a symbol on this Wiki page: Wikipedia: Doves as symbols John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), commonly known as "Jack" or by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from January 1961 until he was assassinated in November 1963. Wikipedia: John F. Kennedy

2 more pictures in notes above! :) Months ago, Steve and I brought home a Cosmos seedling in a 4" pot, and it has been blooming prolifically ever since. However, the frost is its downfall, as you can see here. But though the flowers are dying, they are still lovely.

With petals edged in frost, this Zinnia was so lovely this morning! I wanted to get a very shallow dof for an abstract image, and I also used some texture to create a more artistic effect. Thanks to Jerry Jones for the border texture, "Not A Clue".

5 more pictures in notes above ! :) This year I really noticed that it's been warmer, and I kept waiting for frosty days to arrive and they just didn't. We got some very early morning frost on a couple of days but it melted quickly, and then nothing at all. Last night it was finally extremely cold and I could tell it would be frosty today. When I got up, I looked outside, and the world was twinkling with sugar coating everything! Hooray!!! (I was amazed to find out that the last day Medford, Oregon's weather has recorded frost was March 24. That's 240 days, the longest nonfreezing period since the weather service started keeping Medford records in 1911! And the last record was LAST YEAR, which was 230 days...can you say global warming? *sigh*...) I bundled up in my warmest sweaters and a coat, donned a hat and pulled rubber boots on over my thickest socks, and out I went like a kid running into a candy store! Where do I start? Everything is so gloriously sparkly!!! Crunching gleefully over the frosted grass, I began heading for a metal fence, since those are always such fun to capture frost on. But of course I was stopped in my tracks by a beautiful frosted mushroom. Walking past the oak tree in the meadow, I stopped to take a picture as it stood cloaked in the frosty fog, so beautiful. (see the inset above) Then I captured some leaves bristling with frosty crystals, and finally meandered over to the fence. No more frost, but no worries, because I spotted some frosty nails that I couldn't resist! Then I looked up and saw the moon, and got a picture of that too! I heard some geese fly by quite close by, and readied my camera, but never did see them in all the mist! I decided it was time to head back, though truthfully, it was my frosted toes that made that decision! As I began walking back, I looked down and found a great prize! One of nature's most unusual fungus species happens to grow on our property, and it's called an earthstar! Related to a puffball and round when first growing, the outer layer opens up and splits, creating the "legs" you see, which eventually raise the puffball-spore sac above the ground to help disperse the spores when it opens! Is that cool or what?! I carried it over to some moss and was pleased to get frosty images of this interesting fungus for my Picture of the Day! Finally, as I was walking back, I found another pair of frosty mushrooms that I'm also sharing a picture of tonight! William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 (baptised) – 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, the authorship of some of which is uncertain. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Wikipedia: William Shakespeare Explored on November 22, 2013. Highest placement, page 2.

These pretty mushrooms are chocolate brown and can be nearly black in color. I hadn't gotten around to taking pictures of them until I saw them covered with frost today! Aren't they amazing?!!! Hey, huge shout out to everyone who's been Fav'ing this picture! I'm so happy you like this frosty image! :) *big hugs all around* Explored on November 22, 2013. Highest placement, page 3.

This nail is embedded in the decaying wood of an old tree house built many years ago. It has since fallen down, tree and all, but I love all the interesting textures that abound here.

I thought it would be nice to share another angle of this beautiful earthstar. Isn't it interesting how leathery it appears? It is quite tough, actually! They are said to be edible, but nobody in their right might would, as it would be like chewing on a rubber tire! :D From Wiki: Astraeus hygrometricus, commonly known as the hygroscopic earthstar, the barometer earthstar, or the false earthstar, is a species of fungus in the Diplocystaceae family. Young specimens resemble a puffball when young and unopened. In maturity, the mushroom displays the characteristic earthstar shape that is a result of the outer layer of fruit body tissue splitting open in a star-like manner. The false earthstar is an ectomycorrhizal species that grows in association with various trees, especially in sandy soils. A. hygrometricus has a cosmopolitan distribution, and is common in temperate and tropical regions. Its common names refer to the fact that it is hygroscopic (water-absorbing), and can open up its rays to expose the spore sac in response to increased humidity, and close them up again in drier conditions. The rays have an irregularly cracked surface, while the spore case is pale brown and smooth with an irregular slit or tear at the top. The gleba is white initially, but turns brown and powdery when the spores mature. The spores are reddish-brown, roughly spherical with minute warts, measuring 7.5–11 micrometers in diameter.

2 more pictures and a note above ! :) I planned to choose a mushroom image for my Picture of the Day, as I'd gone out this morning and gotten pictures of a bunch of different mushrooms. However, as the day was coming to an end, I looked outside and once again was overcome by an amazing sunset! Then came the argument with myself: "Oh, it's such a pretty sunset! I should take a picture!" "No, I've got plenty of sunset pictures!" "But it's so pinky-red and gorgeous!" "People are going to get sick of my sunsets!" "But this one is different!" "Oh alright...I'd better hurry or I'll miss it!!" Once again, I somehow managed to capture the most brilliant colors with my first picture, and each one after was less striking. The next picture I'm sharing this evening is the same sunset pointing to the south, showing dramatic clouds with a splash of color. It was taken a couple of minutes later... look at how the colors have faded! Still pretty, but it's not the same eye-popping color palette. I've got one mushroom picture to share along with the other sunset image...wow, I'm really starting to pile up the mushroom images and I can't catch up with all the processing! Well, hopefully I'll be able to get them all done so you can see them as time permits! (Now is the time to start laughing...because I have some really neat mushroom pictures that I haven't gotten to...and they're from last spring!! Too many pictures, not enough time! :D) Thomas Kinkade (January 19, 1958 – April 6, 2012) was an American painter of popular realistic, bucolic, and idyllic subjects. He is notable for the mass marketing of his work as printed reproductions and other licensed products via The Thomas Kinkade Company. He characterized himself as "Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light," a phrase he protected through trademark but one originally attributed to the English master J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851). It is estimated that 1 in every 20 American homes owns a copy of one of his paintings. Wikipedia: Thomas Kinkade Explored on November 21, 2013. Highest placement, page 2 (#40).

This is the same sunset as the one in the main image, looking south instead of west. The cloud bank with the splashes of pink above were so pretty and not something I've seen before.