Saturday 31 August 2013

FMS Photo a Day Challenge - August

I've been playing along with the Photo a Day Challenge set by
for 12 whole months!

Clearly I'm addicted.
I add to this post daily
and also post the photos to
Fat Mum Slim's Photo A Day Facebook group.





1. Something Beginning With N - One of my favourite things!



2. Incomplete - We've been building ourselves a brand new kitchen! It's taken months and it's still incomplete. But we're on the home stretch...only bench tops, kick boards and tiles to go!



3. Skyline - The skyline from our backyard on a glorious winter day! The smoke that you can see is coming from the Nestle Factory and often the whole town smells like coffee!!



4. Fresh - Dreaming of our move out into the fresh, country air...



5. Early - Almost the same shot as the skyline photo from two days ago. But this one was taken early in the morning...6:20am...and it was a chilly 3°C.



6. This Means A Lot To Me - Family photos mean a lot to me. Old photos, baby photos, wedding photos, group photos...I always have them on display somewhere.



7. A Sign - A sign that autumn doesn't exist in this part of Queensland. The jacaranda leaves are only just starting to fall off the tree...and it's closer to the end of winter!




8. Peek-A-Boo - A swan taking a nap but keeping one eye on me!





9. 2. O'Clock - At 2 o'clock today I was out taking nature photos for my other group! Can you guess what this is?



10. Beverage - I was wondering what beverage to photograph today...coffee, wine, champagne...when Miss 5 asked if I'd like a cup of tea! How could I refuse?




11. I Love Doing This! Getting out and about for a family picnic. We went to my favourite place today. This was the view from the picnic blanket. Guess where?



12. Macro - Miss 5 and I fell in love with this little duckling at the duck pond. It kept getting closer and closer. I think it thought it could eat the camera!




13. Fast - The wings on this little guy were going so fast you can barely see them!




14. Trash - Don't throw your old boot in the trash, nail it to a tree! This is in our street. I don't know why either. But it is pretty funny!



15. The Best - The best blooms in the garden right now are the bottlebrushes.




16. Cooking - I don't like cooking. But I don't mind cooking this because I make it so often I reckon I could almost do it in my sleep now!



17. Exercise - The Saturday theme for my other group today is landscape. So I thought I'd kill two birds, so to speak, and take the family for a walk up a mountain!! A nice easy mountain, Mt Emu, at Peregian. Our exercise was rewarded with spectacular views from the top.



18. Someone You Spoke To Today - These two...or should I say they spoke to me, incessantly, as usual!



19. Lost - One of our Bauhinia trees has finally lost its leaves and is beginning to bloom.



20. Stairs - One from the archives, way back before I had a digital camera! This was taken almost 11 years ago in Rome. I loved these stairs leading up to Palatine Hill.



21. Slow - I haven't seen a snail in the garden for ages. It's like this little guy knew the prompt for today and appeared especially for it!



22. A Room - A room full of kids (and teachers) all dressed up for Book Week.



23. Yellow - I spy daffodils on Daffodil Day.




24. In The Background -  From the archives, and I've used this before, but it was perfect for today. A photo we took using the timer back in the days of film. Us on our honeymoon in Europe, with a rather famous landmark in the background.




25. Culture - A bit of New Zealand culture on our Aussie beach.



26. Entrance - The entrance into my kids' school, and I where I teach. It's called St Patrick's...hence the shamrocks.




27. 10 Minutes From Home - Exactly 10 minutes from home is the site for our new home. Hopefully we'll be moving in this time next year...well, that's the plan.




28. Corridor - Today I went to Miss 5's Prep excursion to Underwater World. This is my favourite kind of corridor!



29. Lucky - I was very lucky to get so close to this gorgeous rainbow lorikeet while I was bringing the washing in this week.




30. Cluttered - My bedroom is getting very cluttered with my sewing and craft stuff. This is why I desperately need a sewing room...fingers crossed I'll get one in the new house!




31. Dangerous -  The danger of having Miss almost 6's birthday party at the park today was that the wind meant no candles to blow out! At least we got the sparkle candle going...you can see how many matches that took!!





Thursday 29 August 2013

365 Days In Nature - August



31/8 Day 243 - Saturday Theme: Bird/s. Today's theme was a great excuse for me to go to the duck pond! I found lots of birds there, including nesting ibises. Looks like there'll be lots of baby ibises soon...they're so cute!




30/8 Day 242 - In a couple of months the jacarandas and poincianas will be a sea of purple and red. But right now they're all turning gold.




29/8 Day 241 - Pretty colours in the afternoon sky.




28/8 Day 240 - We saw this amazing creature at Underwater World on the Prep excursion today. It's a leafy sea dragon.




27/8 Day 239 - Look who was hanging around the bottlebrush beside the clothes line when I was bringing the washing in! I got so close and was surprised that he wasn't scared off. I couldn't choose my favourite so here are 4...





26/8 Day 238 - The jacaranda tree and a rainbow lorikeet silhouetted in the foggy morning.



25/8 Day 237 - I think this is a New Zealand Christmas Bush. Whatever it is, it's growing in my mother-in-law's garden and is very pretty.



24/8 Day 236 - Saturday Theme: Fruit  The mulberries are almost ready!


A collage of fruit from my archives, both edible and non-edible. All from our garden and my mother-in-law's garden.



23/8 Day 235 - The mango tree in the back yard is flowering.



22/8 Day 234 - I do love the colours of dusk, especially with a smoky horizon. I hope you're not sick of the view from my back yard yet. Clearly I'm not!



21/8 Day 233 - Another blue-faced honeyeater in our golden cane palm.



20/8 Day 232 - Where there's smoke...Taken from the top of the hill that we live on.



19/8 Day 231 - I was snapping the lemon buds when they where photobombed by a cute little bug!



18/8 Day 230 - A magpie-lark, or peewee, as I call them. It was much nicer to us than the nasty piece of work plover that swooped my Miss 5 this morning! I detest plovers!



17/8 Day 229 - Saturday Theme: Landscape  We walked to the top of Mount Emu (Peregian Mountain). It was an easy walk. Highly recommended if you live locally. The views from the top are spectacular! Now...how on earth do I choose one from the 69 that I took? This one I think... The rest I'll have to blog!



A slideshow of landscapes from my archives.



16/8 Day 228 - Some days it feels like you could just reach out and touch it!



15/8 Day 227 - The bottlebrushes are blooming lovely at the moment!



14/8 Day 226 - I worked today, took Miss 5 to Irish dancing, cooked the kids dinner, sat down at 5:45 and realized I hadn't taken a nature photo today! So I grabbed the camera and ran out the door saying, "I think I'm too late for my nature photo!!" But I think I was just in time.



13/8 Day 225 - I took the kids to the park this afternoon and while I was sitting under the fig tree, I managed to snap a figbird with a fig from the fig tree in it's beak! It's not very sharp because they move so quickly, it was difficult to capture this one.



12/8 Day 224 - The bauhinias are blooming!! Spring has sprung early!



11/8 Day 223 - One of my favourite views from our block. The line of trees on the faraway hill gets me every time!



10/8 Day 222 - Saturday Theme: Juxtaposition (Nature against man made)  The natural element, water, in a man made canal. And if you look closely, can you see what's lurking in the canal?



9/8 Day 221 - The mulberry tree is covered with baby mulberries!



8/8 Day 220 - It may be a windy winter afternoon, and a little chilly, but the sun is still blazing!



7/8 Day 219 - A beautiful winter morning sky. Oh, how I love winter!!



6/8 Day 218 - It's not the best rainbow lorikeet photo but this guy didn't hang around long enough and he wasn't a very good poser!



5/8 Day 217 - Same jacaranda tree, different bird. It's a Blue-faced Honeyeater today!




4/8 Day 216 - Seagulls by the sea shore...well, not exactly...by the Noosa River. Oh how I wish it could be winter all year round. Another glorious day here in sunny Queensland!



3/8 Day 215 - Saturday Theme: Yellow Flowers  I've posted red grevilleas, a pretty peach and cream one...today's is a yellow one, of course!



A collage of yellow flowers from my archives



2/8 Day 214 - It's my turn for a kookaburra shot today! There were three of them in the jacaranda tree. This was the best photo I got.



1/8 Day 213 - This spider web looked so pretty glistening in the sunshine...like a big shiny record!