Thursday, February 11, 2010

A Saturday Morning Walk

On Saturday, my mom was trying to get me to go to a park called Shollenberger for a walk. As reluctant as I was, I agreed and put on my rain boots, grabbed my camera case, and we headed out. When we got there the lighting was perfect! When we had walked a little ways around the wetlands, and had taken a couple photos, we found a new path that we hadn't been on before. The sign said "Warning: this path is a seasonal wetlands and may be flooded or impassible during certain times of the year". Looking down the path we could see that it really WAS flooded and there were a few Canada geese standing on an island of the path. I walked slowly toward them as I did not want to startle them. When I got nearer they did not get scared off and I managed to get a couple of photos. We were walking down the path which was mostly covered in about 4 inches of water, when we came upon another path that went around three small lakes next to the water treatment plant. We were walking about, just looking around for a while, when we went down a small side path and two Canada geese started to fly! I took my camera, adjusted the settings as fast as I could and held the shutter button while following the geese in the sky. I had been trying to get a shot of a bird flying all day. Unfortunately, when I tried to look at the photos on the camera it was hard to tell if the lighting was right or if they were in focus! We started back on the flooded path, the sky got a little cloudier at one point and it started to drizzle but then stopped a little farther along. When we got back to the Shollenberger Wetlands, we ran into a couple of swans that were posing. After I played with them for a while, we headed home as we were tired, EXTREMELY hungry, and it was starting to cloud over again. I have posted the best of the photos from this trip.

-Lily








Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Three long drives and a new camera

My mom and I just found one of the most beautiful drives in Sonoma County last week: it is in Healdsburg to be exact. The first time we found it it was a really foggy morning after about a week of non-stop rain. While we were driving, we passed a beautiful old house, so we were looking for a place to turn around. We finally got to the driveway of a park so we turned down it. On either side of the road there were vineyards: one of them was flooded! Since it was so foggy, the water looked like a mirror: it also looked like if you stepped into it you would fall through the face of the earth! Everything was so still and peaceful that it felt like you could hear the mist. Unfortunately, our camera was broken so I could not take a photo. After we sat for a while sitting in the car wishing we had a camera, we moved on. A little further along the way, we drove past a small fenced-in field with some sheep in it: there were a few lambs in the pasture as well! When we backed up, there was a sheep lying down with a lamb standing on her back, and two lambs looking out from behind her, and they where all looking directly at us. They looked so sweet with their white bodies against the damp green grass. So, after we sat in anguish because we didn't have a camera AGAIN. Then, we moved on into the town of Healdsburg. This all took place on Thursday morning, by Saturday I had a new camera! So, to test it out, we went back on our drive. Unfortunately the sheep where in a different field so I didn't get any photos of them but I did get one of the flooded vineyard.

Sunday was my Dad's birthday so we went for a bumnumber ( a really really long drive, like 8 hours long) with my dog Annabel. We took a couple walks and stopped a bunch of times to take photos. We drove out to the Nicasio Reservoir and took a short walk there, after that we continued on to Point Reyes. We went home by the way of Tomales Bay, when we stopped and took a short walk along the Bay. When we were almost home, my mom decided she wanted to take a quick look at a place out in the country, she did not however realize how far out this spot was! When we got there we kept going on the same road not really knowing where it came out but thinking it was close to our house. Well, when we where driving up a hill we suddenly realized that it was starting to look like we where close to the ocean. Then we came to the crest of the hill and we where suddenly looking out over the Tomales Bay again. My Dad immediately said "It's-- the--Nicasio--Reservoir" trying to convince himself that we where not all the way back in Tomales Bay! We made it home safe and sound, but we did do so with some really numb bums!

Today my mom and I decided to go try to get some photos of the lambs again! When we got there there were some new lambs and the ones we saw last time, along with all the Mommies!

Here are the best of the photos from the past three bumnumbers!

-Lily