Month: September 2012

“Weekly Photo Challenge: Solitary”

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 20 Comments

This week’s weekly photo challenge is “solitary” as in one person in the photo solitary not the card game, which I play wayyyyy too much.

Anyway, this is an old shot of my son as a teenager. We lived in Colorado at the time and were fishing at a stocked goose pond on Fort Carson. The pond was the home of various geese that were in rehab. I didn’t even know geese drank.

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So I snapped this shot and he went off to the other side of the pond to fish.

I innocently opened a bag of pretzels and the geese came closer. I looked up and they stopped.

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Then I ate a pretzel and they came closer, pausing and acting quite nonchalant when I looked up at them again.

And every time I looked away and looked back they were closer and closer…

Staring at me with their little alcohol crazed eyes…
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Eventually I was surrounded, my pretzels were absconded and my lawn chair was tortured and bitten in a way that no lawn chair should ever be tortured and bitten.

 I was jumping up and down and snapping a towel at them and all the people who were fishing completely ignored me.

I left thoroughly defeated, deluded, depretzeled …

But eventually I did go back, and there were no geese.

A mountain lion had come down to the pond with a bag of pretzels…

And that’s the end of their story.

So the moral of the story is, first off never put a geese rehab pond in the middle of a mountain lion’s range and secondly, if you think you’re alone, trust me you’re not. There are over six billion people on the planet and even better there’s more billions of birds and animals. You just need to go outside.

And take some pretzels.

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If you would like to participate in the Weekly Photo Challenge, follow this link!

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog, 2012

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Free Spirit

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 8 Comments

This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge’s theme is “Free Spirit”.

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What is freer than flying through the clouds like a bird…

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Up Up and away..upside down that is

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Dancing with the birds..

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The Iron Eagles that is..

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And one Thunderbird

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And two Thunderbirds..

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And Four Thunderbirds!

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And six Thunderbirds!!

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Even the cloud trails were spectacular.

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This post is dedicated to a true Free Spirit, Pilot Glenn Smith, who lost his life during an accident at the Quad City Airshow in Iowa this weekend.

As the crowd observed a minute of silence, a five plane formation approached, one plane flew off into the skies leaving a missing man in tribute, which flew to the sound of Taps. It was deeply touching.

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My deepest sympathies to his family, friends and to his teammates.

May his spirit forever fly free.

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog, 2012

My Summer or How I Was Kneecapped By A Groundhog..

~ thepurpledogpaintingblog ~ 20 Comments

So how’s your summer going? I know, I know it’s nearly over and I haven’t posted much but I swear I have a great excuse, ahem I mean reason..

So there’s this groundhog and like all groundhogs, he is so cute, a big darling fat ball of fur.  Adorable.

Actually there are a lot of groundhogs,woodchucks, whistlepigs, whatever floats your boat, there are tonnes of them all over North America.

As everyone knows, groundhogs often study meteorology. They quite enjoy it even though they get dragged out of their den every February to tell us when winter will end. And since all groundhogs have a strange sense of humor, they will often lie and give us the wrong info. They’re funny like that.

Some groundhogs, especially those located in Ohio are infamous for their archeological interests. In fact, The Ufferman Site in Ohio, which is on the National Register of Historic Sites has been solely excavated by groundhogs. They have brought up human bones, pottery and rock tool bits used by the Cole culture (circa 800-1300AD).  No human has ever had to excavate as the groundhogs have done such a great job of it.

Groundhogs, can climb trees, they can swim and they can run. To their dismay, they cannot cycle and since all groundhogs dream of competing in Ironman competitions, their sorrow is great.

But there is one thing that Groundhogs are renowned worldwide for, there is one thing they love to do more then anything, there is one thing that amuses them to no end and that is to dig holes, big deep holes…

And while many people think they dig them to live in for safety and food storage, that’s ridiculous, everyone knows they prefer bungalows with full size pantries. They actually dig holes to trap humans especially humans walking around with cameras, so that that  human walking around with a camera will twist and turn as they fall to save their camera and tear all the muscles holding their knee cap in place. And then that human will spend the next six weeks wearing a hot awkward metal and foam cast that makes me, ahem that human, walk like Frankenstein and since that human will be in pain occasionally they will groan and small children and animals will run from this Frankensteinian beast, except of course for the fat black cat that lives with that human and likes to scratch her face on the metal contraption and enjoy her pain cause she’s an awful sadistic animal and meanwhile the groundhog is rolling around slapping it’s knee, bubbling over with mirth and glee, because even though he’s adorable, he’s a mother of a mean little so and so…

And that ladies and gentlemen is how you write a run on sentence…

Anyway, it’s not that bad. (rolleyes) I’m fine (whine whine moan). Seriously it’s all good. (sigh)

Actually did some drawings for a trade.  Lots of fun.

The only rule was that they had to be small 3.5 by 2.5 inches (ATC’s, ACEO”s whatever) about the size of a playing card and they had to be in black and white.

As always they might appear larger on your screen then they actually are

This is a little windmill, in black and white that’s down the road a ways, I think someone lives in it.

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This is from a photo in the RIL on Wetcanvas, many thanks to the person who put it in there for all to use.  It’s acrylic.

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This is a barn in pen and ink that we have driven by a few times.

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This is an 1800’s bread oven off in the woods (to keep the heat away) at Balls Falls in Ontario, Canada. This is an acrylic.

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This is an old wagon that for some reason, someone stuck in their yard. Acrylic.

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This is a penguin, cause I sure as heck wasn’t going to draw a groundhog. Pen and Ink.

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And this is a Victorian house we drove by on the way to Saint Louis in acrylic.

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Other then that, I took a photo of the blue moon. It wasn’t blue but it’s negative is.

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I also found a potato with dancing angels in it, I was going to sell it on EBay but I gave it to the raccoon instead..

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I hope everyone has had a wonderful summer and has a fun holiday weekend.

Happy Labor Day!

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©Virginia Spencer, thepurpledogpaintingblog, 2012