Our Flower-Yard!

We've been having a blast at "Ketelsen East" in St Charles, IL!  Experiencing another Spring after the all-too brief appearances in Tucson and our visit to the Carolinas last month has been very restful.  Add to that many opportunities to visit friends and family makes this loads better than our trip in February when we were both sick with the flu... We even saw our groundhog neighbor (living under the building next door), who we've called "Bruce", though I think this version is likely an offspring.  Didn't get a picture of him though - he is pretty shy.  At left is a photo of the house lit up in the evening to make it look homey...

So we've been enjoying the cool weather and the first arrival of Spring.  Last year, it hit hard and a lot earlier, so was a joy to see all the blossoms and flowers in this year's edition.  The Fox River was flooding just a few weeks ago too, so the mowers haven't been over the yards here, so we've been enjoying the "yard-flowers" too.  We wouldn't dare call them weeds!  Besides the ever-present dandelions, we've got several colors of violets, and two types of Trillium too (white and red)!  We've even got tulips that have broken free of the flower beds, and are starting to come up willy-nilly!  Shown at left here is towards the north and other structures, where they mow a lot.  Just dandelions and violets in that direction, but to the south of the house is more of a jungle of other flowering plants, including big patches of Trillium, as shown at right.

Now the Trillium we have in our yard is a less-common recurved red trillium.  It is a pretty plant, but not showy like many other flowers because the petals curve inwards and hide the flower.  It is also hard to make look very impressive - the only way is to get down in the dirt and shoot it at its own level.  Then you can peek into it.  I'm working on some 3D shots of it too, so look for that coming up.  The White variety (Trillium grandiflorum) is showier, different but definitely related and shown at right.

And even the dandelions are spectacular when looked at closely!  A year or two back I took a macro shot of one that still serves as my wallpaper on my laptop, though didn't make it into a blog post.  Here is a triple-header on the left, each at slightly different ages, so show a slightly different general appearance.  Interestingly, our second day here was a cool one - it never got over 50, and NONE of the dandelions that were open the previous day made an appearance!  After all taking a day off, it warmed up a little and they all returned...  Even after going to seed, the macro lens reveals a wealth of details that are generally little-noticed.  While the seeds are wind-dispersed, the seeds themselves also have little thorns on them that would likely also stick to clothing for transport as well...

So I was shooting the tulips scattered in our yard...  Mostly they are near flower beds, but they seem to be migrating out towards the open yard...  I suspect that the later in the Spring that our "yard" is mowed, the more likely they'll keep on moving towards the exit!  So how do you shoot a tulip in a new way?  How 'bought straight down with a macro lens?  Looks pretty cool, even with the white tulip with subtle color variations...

So a day or two later, after the above shot came
out, I was shooting another the same way - straight down, stopped down considerably so that a good portion of the flower would be in focus with the larger depth-of-field.  This one was a yellow tulip with red highlights - beautiful colors...  But wait, what is that little green particle hiding among the flower parts near the center - aphids!  In fact, if you look closely at the white one above, you can spot one of the little buggers there too.  On this yellow one, I went in for an oblique closeup for more details.  You can see little legs, perhaps some eye dots - perhaps a probiscus with which they suck plant juice.  Will have to keep an eye out for more of these little microscopic critters...