WildOats

I was outside the other day, and saw something that kind of grabbed my attention. It looked odd to me so I had to do a double take. I stopped and looked at it more carefully.

In reality it was a plant, but when I looked at it, it looked like an owl of some type. It had the whole big eye owl look to it. And it also had these tiny brown leaves, that kind of looked like owl feathers.

Anyway, here’s what the thing looked like. What do you think? Does it remind you of an owl or what?

Seems like old man winter has decided to hang around for a while. A lot of cities up north are having tempertures into the single digits. And even worse, a lot of cities are into the minus numbers…..brrrrr.

The artic blast has even made it down here to Florida. But by the time it gets here, it’s not as cold. So we only cool down a bit. Nothing anywhere near as bad as it gets up north. Thank God.

So to warm all you northerners up, I decided to put up a picture of a nice warm sunset. I live almost on a golf course, so there are some nice views to look at. For this one, I was actually out on one of my walks. The sun was almost all gone at this point, and there were wisps of some clouds.

I like when there are a few clouds in a clear sky at sunset. When you have that, the clouds take on different colors. I think the colors depend on how high they are or something. Anyway, the colors always look nice off a blue or dark sky.

For this shot I was by a lake, and there was also a palm tree there. So I decided to get the palm tree into the shot and let it silhouette. I Also liked how the colors were picked up by the lake.

Anyway, here’s some warm colors to warm up all you cold people up north. Enjoy.

Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. I guess with the holidays and stuff I got a little side tracked. Also, I really haven’t had much to talk about, and I haven’t been taking too many pictures either. I’ve been pretty much working on my photoshop skills. Not that I’m all that great at it, but I’ve been learning a few tricks here and there.

The other day I was out for my walk and came across this poinsettia flowering bush. When I was a kid, my mother used to put those poinsettias all over the house at Christmas time. However they weren’t live flowers, they were the plastic thingies.I thought they looked aweful at the time.

So when I noticed this live variety, I decided to take a closer look. This was a plant that was probably 4 feet tall or so. It had green and red leaves, and the little yellow center bits. I don’t think the living version is all that much prettier than the plastic ones my mother put up.

But being that it is the Christmas season, I figured I’d go ahead and take a picture of it. The problem I faced this time was lighting. Being that it’s winter, the days are shorter, and the intensity of the light isn’t as strong as in the summer. On top of that, this flower was growing under a tree, so it was shaded.

So to compensate for the low light levels, you need to keep your shutter open longer. When you do that, it makes motion blur much more visible. I tried to keep as steady as I could, but it wasn’t good enough. The picture has some blur to it. I’m not happy with the final product. But anyway, here it is. The Merry Christmas flower.