Archive | August 2015

Swarm of the Dragonflies

Swarm of the Dragonflies–like miniature helicopters in flight

With the rain we had yesterday for a good part of the morning and then it stayed cloudy all day, the dragonflies were in a frenzy last night. It was hard to capture them, but you can see a ton of black dots on the clouds, all dragonflies. I couldn’t see them on the camera when I was trying to get a shot, only with the naked eye.

If you click on the image and then click again, you can get the larger picture. How many do you count? That was just a small amount of them. I cropped it because the picture would take too much time to load.

Have a great day! Don’t you think that would make for a cool book title, by the way?

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

When a Vulture is Eyeing You… And…the Art of Conversation…Is it Dying Out?

Aug30

Vulture with a Mohawk

I had some fun with this. Used fisheye and lomo on it.

Taken at our local zoo. I know they’re opportunistic feeders, but they have them all over the place there and it’s kind of Edgar Allan Poe, you know?

Beware.

More fun with Photoshop

This was a fun shot that showed what happens when you go out to dinner with family…. Who would have ever thought that meals out would end up in this form of socialization?

Truly, though, they’ve gotten better about it so that when we go out to eat, we talk. lol Like in ye old days. 🙂

Have a great day!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

Sometimes the Amateur Photographer Looks Like a Clown but Gets it Right, Anyway…

Aug29

Yellow, Yellow Butterfly!

I took the puppies out and naturally, I see a beautiful butterfly and I’m sure it’s a monarch, but it disappears. It’s really rare to see one, so I was disappointed I’d missed it.

So when I’m trying to corral the puppies to bring them inside, I see this beautiful gorgeous yellow, yellow butterfly. I’ve never seen her before in my gardens. So I rush inside, get my camera with the macro lenses, and the tripod, and chase the butterfly all over the garden.

Poor butterfly.

But I’m determined to get a shot. I never managed to use the tripod. The butterfly moved every time. Sooooo, I held the camera on the tripod and took the hand-held shots. I couldn’t get any closer than this either.

And….wouldn’t you know, there were crunchy leaves all over the patio, so I’m trying to watch the butterfly and miss crunching on the leaves, which didn’t matter anyway. I’m sure the poor thing saw this hulking human predator anyway, so it really didn’t matter.

Even so, I got her. Isn’t she just beautiful? My Facebook fans tell me she’s a tiger swallowtail!

She made my day!

Have a great day!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

Jaguars and Cougars and Tigers and Lions, Oh My!

Aug28

I took these shots at the Omaha Zoo. Jaguars often pace, and these were just perfect!

Jaguar Comfortable

White Tiger Portrait

The lioness was sitting right next to the window, first time that she was wide awake.

Cougar, ears to side, they have over two dozen muscles in their ears that help them to focus on sounds and show their expressions

Cross-eyed Tiger

Love the big cats!

Have a great day!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

Photographing Subjects–I Can’t Decide

Aug27

Some photographers are really excellent landscape photographers, or they do fantastic portraits, or animal shots, or macro shots, or…well, the list goes on. And then there’s me.

Like reading, like writing, like photographing, I love everything. I love to see the beauty in all photos no matter what subject a particular photographer loves to create. I can’t draw worth a darn, but when I played around with it, landscapes were my thing.

Crathes Castle Trees like soldiers standing tall and straight--shot from Crathes Castle upper floor window

Crathes Castle Trees like soldiers standing tall and straight–a narrow blanket of golden leaves leaving a marching trail beneath them–shot from Crathes Castle upper floor window

But in photography, I love it all. The same with writing. I love to create Highland medieval romances, and English medieval romances, and wolf, jaguar, cougar and bear shifter romances, and psychic romances, and vampire romances, and romantic suspenses, as long as they have romance, mystery, intrigue, adventure, humor, and most have a body count.

My editor on my wolf stories said of my second book, “Your body count has gone way up.” That was my most successful book for a long time. lol

In my third book, I tried to be nice. Fewer dead bodies. Wasn’t half as successful. 🙂

But I love doing a mix of things. I couldn’t imagine not trying to capture a bee on a flower or a water droplet on a rose petal or a line of thunderclouds or a cougar close up or the vines growing on a castle wall or the North Sea pounding at the shore line beneath a Scottish castle or fall colors anywhere (because we don’t have much of it here), if I have the chance to do it.

Raindrops on a shrub at Crathes Castle

Water droplets on a plant at Crathes Castle

I love to capture life as I see it both in my writing and my photography, and so I guess that makes me eclectic. Maybe eccentric. But happy too.

Ancient stone wall, black and white cows, fall colors–Scotland

Shaggy Highland Cow and Fall colors reflected in the glassy river

This scene with the black and white cows could be from anywhere, except for the ancient stone wall in front. Can you imagine the Highlanders who built this wall so many eons ago? Why they built it in the first place? What they were protecting? I loved the cows, the hint of color in the foggy forest, but the ancient wall covered with moss and lichen the most. I love history and for writing and reading, I love it the most also.

I started writing jaguar Christmas, and I have the first 1,000 words! 79,000 to go! 🙂

Have a great day!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

View from Eilean Donan Castle–a Blue, Blue World of Fog and Mystery

Aug26

Eileen Donan Castle View

Don’t you love the view? The water? The mountains from the castle? Blue and more blue. Mysteries beyond. It draws the eye deeper and deeper and deeper, one layer of mountains at a time. As you can see it is cloaked in a light fog from the closest hills to the farthest mountains.

Have a wonderful day no matter what day it is. I called my daughter on Saturday, who is a dietitian for a school district, and she informed me she was at work. Okay, school personnel don’t work on Saturday. So I was thoroughly confused. “Is this Friday?” I was hopeful it was and I still had an extra day to make word count.

“No, Mom, it’s Saturday.”

“Okay. Good, I thought I had messed up my days somehow.” lol

But, I will say I finished Covert Cougar Christmas! And after finishing it, I cut out more bears for orders, and then pulled out my notes for Jaguar Christmas, so I can remember what story I pitched, brainstorming I did on it, and get started.

So whatever day it is, have a great one! 🙂

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

Shadows and Reflections

Aug25

Shadow on Hill and Reflection in Water

Shadows and Reflections on Water

When I was in Scotland, I took hundreds of pictures, until my battery died, and I was so disappointed. I couldn’t take pictures again until after we returned from an island, and I never had pictures of the island or the ruins we saw there. Ugh.

But I’ve never shared tons of these pictures because I had so many, shared lots, and then that was it. So as I was looking over some of them, I found some interesting shots.

These are shadows reflected on the hills from another hill, and both the hills and shadows reflected in the water. The water is so glass like, it’s hard to tell in the bottom shot that it was actually a reflection and not just ground.

But aren’t they beautiful?

I thought they turned out nicely, considering we were in motion at the time. 🙂

I love water, so take lots of pictures of water. I also love hills and mountains and trees. Since Scotland has it all, I had fun!

But I also want to make my stories as accurate as possible. One of the things I wanted to see was trees for wolves to run in. But so much of the landscape is uninhabited, that they could really run all over the place and never be seen. 🙂 <3

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

Golden Lights Reflecting off Eilean Donan Castle at Night

Aug24

Golden lights on Eilean Donan Castle at night. We, Vonda Sinclair, Author, and her friend Karen and I, stayed at a bed and breakfast near there and went back out at night to take pictures. October, some years back.

— at Eilean Donan Castle.

Eilean Donan Castle, Scotland

Isn’t it beautiful? I thought about how it would be, no lights, just sitting there in the dark while invaders pondered how to plunder it. Torches would be the only lighting then as the enemy moved around in the pitch dark.

Seeing a beautiful bit of man-made history makes me think of that historical past, doesn’t it you?

And it makes me think of the romance element! Of course. 🙂

Highland Rake, Book 3

Dougald MacNeill takes Lady Alana Cameron to his laird brother James’s Craigly Castle when he finds her roaming the heather on the MacNeill lands. But who has sent her there and why? Her uncle, laird of the Cameron clan, and warring with the MacNeill for years, has made a marriage arrangement with another clan and now that is even at stake.

Having witnessed her father’s death, and even believing he had returned her home when all along he had been dead, Alana discovers she has the gift, or curse, of seeing the newly departed and sometimes those who should have long ago passed over. Her own deceased brother continues to plague her, the rake, and now another, who is very much of the flesh, Dougald MacNeill, has her thinking marrying a rake might just have its benefits. Dougald’s sister, who is one fiesty ghost, has offered to help Alana keep Dougald in line if he thinks of even straying.

But who sent Alana on a fool’s errand in the first place to remove her from the Cameron’s lands and set her squarely in Dougald’s care, and who really killed her father and her brother, and what has it all to do with Alana? Will she and Dougald learn the truth before it is too late?

Have a great Monday! Have to ship bears today and books to an Ann Rice Vampire Ball in New Orleans!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

The Reflection of a Castle in a Well

Aug23

I love purple flowers and these were more showy, but you couldn’t see the detail of the crenelated parapet which showcases the medieval design on the battlements better in the second picture I took with the tiny orange flowers bowing down over the well. They are actually to the right of the purple flowers above.

Orange Flowers at the Castle Well

This was at Dunnottar Castle in Scotland, one of my favorite of the seven castles we visited.

Okay, back to writing! 18,000 done! 7,000 to go!

Have a super Sunday!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

I’m Not Really Behind…

Aug22

I was thinking I was behind on posting my blog today. But in truth, I was cleaning out kitchen cabinets and getting boxes of stuff ready to give away. So that makes me not behind. Because I’m ahead in cleaning. Don’t you see? And I was getting stuff ready to ship.

Purple Bubblegum Bear

This is the latest creation. New fabric. Isn’t she cute?

Fog at Sunrise

Love Fog

Yesterday, we had fog. Why is that cool? Besides making an interesting picture in depth perception, it’s just cool, for real. I mean, it’s been so hot, when it cools down, fog happens! And that makes it the coolest. The puppies got me up at 2:30 that morning, and it was still hot. At 7 am, it was much cooler. And that’s when the fog rolled in. I loved it. This morning? Hot.

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

And I caught a scissor-tailed flycatcher watching me. I had actually taken the camera out front to take more pictures of the cool fog and snapped a few of him.

And, and, and, then I found this!

White Crepe Myrtle

A volunteer underneath my cypress tree. What’s so unusual about it? I have red, watermelon, and pink crepe myrtles. NO WHITE crepe myrtles. Until now. Isn’t that fascinating?

Life is truly wondrous.

Back to my regularly scheduled writing. But I’m in a real cleaning out mood. What should I tackle next?

Writing. 🙂

Have a super great Saturday!!!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”

Connect with Terry Spear:

Website: http://www.terryspear.com

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/421434.Terry_Spear

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TerrySpearParanormalRomantics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TerrySpear

Wilde & Woolly Bears http://www.celticbears.com

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"Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy IS reality."

Archive | August 2015

Swarm of the Dragonflies

When a Vulture is Eyeing You… And…the Art of Conversation…Is it Dying Out?

Sometimes the Amateur Photographer Looks Like a Clown but Gets it Right, Anyway…

Jaguars and Cougars and Tigers and Lions, Oh My!

Photographing Subjects–I Can’t Decide

View from Eilean Donan Castle–a Blue, Blue World of Fog and Mystery

Shadows and Reflections

Golden Lights Reflecting off Eilean Donan Castle at Night

The Reflection of a Castle in a Well

I’m Not Really Behind…