Tag Archive | water

Finding Colors in the World

Jul24
Riverwalk in San Antonio–Added Oil Texture in Photoshop, but what I loved about the scene when I took the picture was the reflection of the colorful umbrellas in the water.

It cooled down!!! It was 78 yesterday morning, and around 85 during the day, finally ending up at 91, but I spent most of the day running errands and then pulling grass and weeds out of my flowerbeds. I did get my word count.

But this is the thing. Bark mulch is great because it reduces water evaporation, shades the roots of the plants, in this heat, that’s great, and helps to shade out weeds and grass. It also breaks down and makes great compost for the plants you planted there.

I. Think.

I mean, I go out there and I just weeded 4 of the 7 flowerbeds and there are more weeds and grass before I can get to the others! But I will say where I have deeper bark mulch, the weeds/grass are/is easier to pull up. Where I didn’t have much mulch, I had to get a shovel out to dig up the grass. It’s never ending. It’s like dusting. If I dust, it will come right back. And I don’t even have to be gone long for it to start all over again. lol

It’s toddler time. Potty training. We are getting the hang of it. I. Think.

Have really terrific day!! I’m off to…get into something!

Terry

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”
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Fog, Reflections in Scotland on Glassy Water

Sep18

Fog and Reflection in Glass Lake

Fog and Reflection in Glass Lake

I love fog. It reminds me of cooler weather. And in hot Texas, any reminder of cooler weather appeals!

Terry

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

Connect with Terry Spear:

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Shadows and Reflections

Aug25

Shadow on Hill and Reflection in Water

Shadow on Hill and Reflection in Water

Shadows and Reflections on 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:

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Even a Dandelion Can Be…

Mar20

A thing of beauty.

dandelion wet (640x427)

Happy TGIF!!!

Terry
“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”
Connect with Terry Spear: Website: http://www.terryspear.com
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Nature’s Beauty

Aug4

rainbow, trying to create (640x427)

Oftentimes when I water, I see the miracle of a rainbow forming in the sunlight, and I think how much I’d like to capture it. I absolutely had NOT planned to take pictures today. None. Not one. Okay, one. Of a rainbow. Well, maybe more, until I could capture one just right.

You see, rainbows are tricky devils. They fade just as you take the shot. Here I am, juggling the hose and the camera and trying to see if the rainbow is even in the picture. It was, but I couldn’t tell, or sometimes it would fade right out of existence before the camera finished focusing.

rainbow with hose (2) (640x427)

rainbow over the cornfields (640x427)

The top one shows more of the rainbow. The second one, the rainbow at the top had nearly disappeared already.

You know that a pot of gold is at the end of a rainbow, right? But would it exist if you create your own?

creeping vine hummingbirds (640x427)

Wolves and cougars have been found to help keep a balance in the wild or animals such as herbivores, elk, deer, goats, will eat up the vegetation to the ground, and then other wildlife can’t take cover and lose their habitats. And what has that to do with these pretty flowers? While I was out watering the other day, I saw these bad, bad flowering vines. They are weeds. They creep over everything and in this case, they’re climbing over a variegated privet, pictured above with the rainbow. But twice now when I’ve gone out to water, a hummingbird has flown close to my water spray. And I thought she was coming from the cornfields, which I couldn’t understand. Unless my neighbor has a hummingbird feeder.

But no, she’s coming for the nectar from these flowers. Sometimes “weeds” are miracles in disguise.

creeping vine, tubular flower (640x427)

Hummingbirds love tubular flowers.
creeping vine waterdroplets (640x427)

Nature’s hummingbird feeder.

desert willow flower (640x433)

Desert Willow

I planted these because they don’t mind heat and drought, only now they’re not flowering. But the hummingbirds are attracted to them when they do flower.

So the weed, which seems to be more reliable,  stays. Sometimes humans just need to leave nature alone.

Don’t you agree?

Now, if I could only capture a shot of the hummingbird!

Have a glorious Monday!

“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy is reality.”
www.terryspear.com
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Moving Models! And Reflections

Jun23

 

See all that grass, dead and alive?

I went out to pull grass after a thorough rainstorm, well, two, to be exact, and there the bunny  was…again. And so what could I do? But go back in and get my camera.

bunny hiding (640x427)

He was crouched down when I walked right up to him, gloves ready to start yanking out the grass and I was so surprised. *sigh*

I’ve killed off some of the grass, struggling to keep the jasmine alive and the grass dead and out of there. 

The problem with bunny models, is sometimes they….move.

grass (640x427) (2)

I actually stood right near him while he let me take more pictures of him. Cute, isn’t he? Now if only he’d eat all the grass.  🙂 The stuff to the right and upper top corner, that’s the jasmine and the ONLY thing supposed to be in there.

bunny on stepping stone (640x427)

The bunny is on the pavers to the left. The bird was taking a bath in the lake on my driveway after the second storm to the right. And I thought it was cute that his reflection is showing in the water. He was watching the bunny and didn’t see me at first watching him. I’d hoped I might get a reflection of the bunny in the water too, but not enough water, and too dark over there.

IMG_6388 (640x427)

I have finished Her Highland Hero! Did I mention that already? I will set it aside now while my critique partners review it, then revise, then reread, then send to beta readers. 🙂  But otherwise, I have written THE END.

I love it when that happens.

I am starting the novella soon. I need to come up with a title. I can’t start writing the story without a title. 🙂

The anthology is called Kissing the Highlander.

I had an idea for a story and called it the Highland Imposter, but I changed my mind about the story, so back to the title drawing board!

Hope you all have a delightful Monday!

I’m off to write…something.

her highland hero cover with title cursive copy

Terry

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

www.terryspear.com

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Reflection

Apr2

reflection of rock in creek (640x427)

Can you see the reflection? I love seeing reflections of life, catching our world upside down, duplicating, copying, but in a different way.

Do you see where the world ends and the reflection begins?

It’s there, visible, and yet is nearly invisible.

When we saw it, it appeared as though the reflection was not a reflection. Not a mirror of the world at all.

Reflection is the stuff of fantasy.

Terry, the philosophical

www.terryspear.com

Is Your World Upside Down?

Feb10

female cardinal 008 (640x427)

It was a gorgeous day outside and so I sat out on the patio and wrote some, hoping to catch a picture of the birds, but the only one that came close was the female cardinal, usually the most skittish of birds and she sat in a shrub right next to me, but the pictures still didn’t turn out. A big bird, not Big Bird, but some big bird, I figured was a predatory kind, landed in the leafless maple tree. I saw its white breast feathers, that it was big, and then it moved somewhere too high that I couldn’t see it through the trellis, though he continued to yell at me. I was dying to get a shot of it, to see what it was.

The cardinal was on the shrub next to me, watching him, and watching me. She was in between us. But I think she was more worried about the big bird. It was probably a hawk. I see them a lot, but I hadn’t see one in the tree before, just on our electric wires sometimes. Usually they’re quiet. Unless they’re flying around. So I’m still curious.

Here’s the picture that did not turn out of the cardinal. 🙁

female cardinal 001 (640x427)

The top picture is of my upside down world. While I was waiting for a bird to come around so I could take a picture, which of course they wouldn’t, I looked around to see what else I could get a shot of that looked interesting. A reflection of the bird feeders and side of the barn in a puddle of water. It’s like looking into another dimension. Too cool for words, right?

And I’m back to writing on Cougar’s Mate.  I’m at 48,000 and that means only 32,000 to go! See how easy that was? 🙂

Terry

Colorful Koi on a Perfect Fall Day…

Oct13

Everything came together for me when I took these pictures, the soft lighting on an autumn day, the fall leaves coloring the bottom of the koi pool, the movement of the fish and the water, the reflection of the trees up above. When I uploaded them, I found some looked like paintings, surreal, fantasy, fun.

I love when that happens, like when I’m writing and a story finally begins to take shape when I’m moaning and groaning about how I can’t figure out where to go next with my story–remind me when I start the next book and have the same concerns–and then…it’s like the picture all comes together. Or at least a part of it. A scene or two. A chapter. The End.
fish looks like a painting (800x533)

I tend to get a lot of backsides of animals when I visit the Cameron Park Zoo or others, but I still loved the detail and color of the fish in this shot.

koi colorful (800x533)

This wasn’t the best picture, but I loved the character of it–the way the fish all came up to look at me, wondering if I had food for them.
koi looking at camera (800x533)

I’ve tried since to capture the beauty of the koi and the green trees reflected in the waters, but I’ve never had the ideal conditions that I did that one day.

But then again, I finally caught the howler monkeys in perfect form the last time I was there, when I’d never managed before. So when one subject doesn’t want to cooperate, find another. Sometimes I have to do that with my writing too.

Terry
“Giving new meaning to the term alpha male where fantasy IS reality.”
www.terryspear.com