Oh Deer!

When we first bought our new home in Colorado, I was so excited about all the wild life that our neighbors talked about.  Of course they were a little less than excited about some of the animals that visit our home.  Particularly, the Mule Deer (a little larger than white tail), that often rub their antlers on the budding trees.  But supposedly, we have a moose cow, a bear, and the deer.

Last week, I got my 30-something-th chemotherapy infusion, and I was dragging after getting a wonderful injection of neulesta.  I laid down to take a nap, but Thor, my Golden Retriever, decided to bark and bark and bark.  I was irritated, so I yelled at him to STFU.  Yeah, I know my language isn’t the best when I feel like I do post-chemo.

My daughter said, “Mom, get your camera, there are deer looking in the window.”  Deer looking in the window?!  Why would deer want to look in the window. Sure enough, I looked out my window, and saw the two doe above eating grass in our neighbor’s yard.  I snuck outside, and captured these photos of the beautiful buck that accompanied three doe.

I’m 90% sure this is lovely 10-point buck that ruined one of our brand new pine trees that we planted earlier this year.  But who knows.  He sure liked to pose.  I got about 2-3 yards away from the herd before he pushed the doe away, and took off across the street.  I did manage to get a few more pictures.

I took a total of 30 pictures…

Some prints are available for sale, and I am making a new 2018 calendar.  My photographs are available for sale at Jodi Vetter Photography, the calendar, and other products will be soon available on a new Etsy Storefront.  A percentage of all sales goes towards Camp Mak-A-Dream outside of Missoula, MT.

New York State of Mind

About two weeks ago, we just returned from our second trip to New York City.  The last time I had been in New York, I was the running the marathon.  I had a blast.  There was no cancer, no steroid weight gain, and it was me, my husband, my camera, and Les Miserables.  This time, I had some new lens, and got to see some new sites!

A few days before we left, we had a snow storm.  The weather was completely different in NYC than it was in Colorado.  While it was cold and snowy in Colorado, it was warm and humid in NYC.

We stayed in the Fabric District, closer to Macy’s and the Shopping District near Time’s Square.  The buildings were very interesting here.  The first night we hit the theater, went to Bryant Park, and went to The Palm West Side, where I saw my only celebrity– The Dude From Dateline NBC (Keith Morrison).

My favorite addition to Bryant Park was the new “light balls” amongst the mums in the park.  I wanted to go ice skating either there, or in Rockafeller Center, but due to my blood counts, I had to forgo any kind of things that could cause internal bleeding, and me on skates can definitely cause me bleeding.

The next day we walked to the race expo at the convention center (near Marvin Gardens). NYC does have a LOT of green space, and there were still a ton of flowers growing in the green spaces.  Mums, Latinas, and a few wild flowers here, and there.  I have to say that the Expo was really hard for me.  I spent most of it mourning my “old” life and feeling sorry for myself.

 

On the way back to the hotel, we took a detour through Central Park.  We visited the finish line, and I took some pictures of the local fauna.  Lots of rats with wings and little songbirds.

More leaves, more squirrels.  We hopped onto a subway, went to our restaurant for the pasta feed.  I had the most wonderful Tiramisu, and grilled chicken with a mushroom sauce.  Needless to say, we ate our way through New York City.

After the race we went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and One World Trade Center.  Its was truly amazing to see both buildings.  I got to play with my panoramic lens.  Going back to the Trade Center was really cool.  The first time we had gone to NYC, the building was not done yet, and now you can travel to the top.  It was state of the art trip, and the new shopping mall underneath is a real wonder.  St. Patrick’s was absolutely gorgeous.

When God Paints The Sky…

I have been blessed to live in areas of the country where the sunsets look like God is painting the sky.  He uses a retinol of colors, his pallet is amazing.  I have taken more sunrise and sunset pictures than any other.  Most of them are without filter.  Today, I’m going to share a bunch of them with you.  No matter where you live, I find that watching the sun slowly creep up, and down to mark the beginning and end of days is one of the most beautiful natural thing in the world.  Enjoy :).

Sunset from my deck

Panoramic on the Bay in Florida

Sky on fire in Colorado

Sky on fire in Florida

Sky on fire at my mom’s house in Orlando, FL

Palm trees at sunset.

I love sunset and sunrise pictures.  My next goal is to conquer night-astro photography.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Sanctuary…

My goal for this month was to write more, unfortunately, desire, health, and my heinous schedule has curtailed my efforts.  I made six trips to Lone Tree Cancer Center to get my infusion, only to have those infusions cancelled (until this past week), then I spent two days of my chemo recovery trying to stay awake long enough to entertain two children.  Needless to say this week hasn’t really gone as expected.  Normally, we do a Sunday morning hike, but my desire to walk through the woods right now is non-existent.  Further receiving distressing news about the health of one of my sister-in-laws didn’t make me feel like doing much.

So I am going to post some pictures of a recent hike we took to Catamount Falls, as part of the Catamount trail.  The trail itself is 5.5 miles (one way, but I could not do the entire hike, so I did just the Thomas Trail where the falls are visible.  These pictures were taken a few weeks ago, so the leaves are in full bloom.  I didn’t realize how much I missed four seasons until living in a state with one season.

The first thing I noticed on this hike is the interspersed maple and aspen with the pine trees.  Pine in Colorado burns easily, but also grows easily, so when the fires went through a few years ago, the pine still thrived, and the hard woods did not.

Near the streams, however, there are plenty of young maple and aspen.  We have a few growing in our yard now, and the colors have changed from a dark brownish to a golden red.  But my all time favorite are the cedar/aspen.

 

I love the golden colors.  They just make me excited for warm coffee mornings, hot chocolate, ‘amores, and the trappings of winter that are just not the same in Florida.  Not that I don’t miss flip flops, and eternal summer, but it for this Yankee it just isn’t the same.

Florida does have it’s share of water, but there is nothing like a cool stream falling along creaky rocks, with falling leaves, and a brisk breeze.  I absolutely loved watching the water fall down 30 ft rock cliffs, and hearing the sounds of the brook near the valley.

I call Colorado my sanctuary, because I feel so much like home here.  Among the mountains, wild flowers, streams, and clear air.

And finally after several miles of hiking, sweating, and stops of sharp hypoxic breathing, we reached the bottom of the valley, and followed our stream back to the car.  There I reveled in the pictures that I took.  I realize that I love photography, because I love going back, looking at the streams, sticks, trees, flowers, and remember the smells, the feelings, and the pure joy I have during my hikes.  These are my happy times, and this is my sanctuary.

 

Exploring The ‘Hood

One thing I absolutely adore about my new house, and my new neighborhood is that I can live far enough outside of town that it’s a personal sanctuary, but I’m close enough to a city that has all of my personal favorite stores.  The farthest one away is a 45 minute drive on the freeway (to just past Lone Tree).

Just up the road from our home is a field shared by cows and the pronghorn.  The males have horns like deer, and the females don’t.  They are quite shy, and when I pulled over they took off.  I had to switch lenses to my 800 mm.

The top two pictures show how close the pronghorns to the city.

On sunny days and nights this is what I see.  This picture was taken before a stretch of foggy weather, then we had beautiful weather, and again we had snowy weather.

The foggy weather still yields beautiful scenery. Though the mountain is not visible, the pictures, I still think the pictures are beautiful.

A few weeks ago, the fog broke, and this is what we saw on Pike’s Peak.  Snow came back like the first time we visited, and picked out our new home.

Yesterday, we had a snow storm.  It was fantastic.  I slowed down the shutter speed, so that I could capture the snowflakes in without them looking too blurry.  The after effect made for the most perfect winter wonderland.  Sadly, the only remnants of snow are in the shadows of our home, and where the trees cast a shadow.

Besides the pronghorns that live the fields near our home, we also have two red tailed hawks.  They have a nest in our front yard, and we can hear them call in the late-afternoon, when they come out to hunt.  We also frequently will hear their young cry for food.  There are plenty of insects, field mice, and snakes to feed their babies.

 

This year we had a record number of painted ladies.  The painted lady butterfly flew through Colorado instead of taking their typical route through Florida.  It is hypothesized that it was because of the hurricanes that hit during the season.  Before the freeze we experienced, there were still many wild flowers to attract the butterflies.

And of course there are song birds galore.  I imagine they will be migrating soon, so I won’t hear many of them during the winter, but I can still enjoy them.  The hummingbirds have gone already.

 

 

 

 

 

 

July Camping

In July we went camping.  It was our first Colorado camping trip and we had a great time.  We went to Eleven Mile State Park.  I don’t even know how to describe where it is, but it’s on the other side of Pike’s Peak.  The reservoir runs along a river fed by snow melt.  The lake has Northern Pike, Salmon, Trout, Bass, and Crawdaddies.

Yes, that’s right Crawdaddies, Mudbugs, or crawfish, the little red delights that are often found in the French Quarter on Mardi Gras.  They were in season when we got there.  Some of the park rangers were having a weekend seafood boil.    We were surprised to say the least.  Unfortunately, our boat is broken, and Shane had to take it to the shop after we got home.

While the kids and Shane went fishing, I walked around camp, and took some pictures of camp. I found one of the Colorado Springs Rocks.  The staff from a beauty salon in town had hidden rocks throughout the park.  There were a lot of song birds too.  The top two pictures posed for me on the picnic table.  The other bird and rabbit were regular visitors to our campsite.

 

And flowers galore!  We took hikes on the third day through the pine and birch trails.  I have traded tropical flowers for wild flowers.  Succulents, red poisonous berries, and other fragrant flowers.

 

And of course a new toy.  I sucked it up and bought a super wide angel lens.  It took perfect pictures of the landscapes around our camp.  I could get full mountains without turning my camera all sorts of different directions.  I still haven’t figured out astrophotography.   But hopefully I will be able to take pics when I get out of the hospital.

And we had our security system.  She LOVED sleeping outside, and getting in touch with her wild side (chasing ground squirrels and birds).  Thor didn’t pose for me.  He would walk up to me every time I put up my camera.  The only time I can get a good picture of him is if I am at the end of the yard, and he’s running towards me.

 

Dogwood Photography Challenge Week 10 and 11: Portrait Environmental and Reflection

I’m not really that great at portraits, and I’m still kind of behind on my photography challenge, so I’m double stacking my pictures today.  I took this bird a few weeks ago at the Maxwell-Gunther Reserve on the Chocktawatchee Bay in Niceville.  It’s a group of cabins reserved for military personnel and retirees.  Really close to Destin.

If you ever wonder where songbirds go when they fly south for the winter, this is it!  The birds come here.  Often in January and February our area is over-run by birds of all shapes, sizes, and colors.  We don’t have the parrot population that California gets, but we do get a lot of songbirds, loons, ducks, geese, eagle, falcon, and owls.  Anything that migrates from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the East Coast comes here.

For week 11, the challenge was reflection.  Last week I went to EPCOT for the Flower and Garden show.  I love taking pictures of anything natural.  It’s my favorite thing to do is walk through gardens and take lots of pictures.  I have a really great submission for week 13, because I got some great macro shots of butterflies.

I have done a LOT of reflection the last few weeks.  Sadly, I lost another friend to cancer.  When you have cancer, you become a survivor, but you also realize that life is not something that you take advantage of.  With losing my father, then making and losing cancer friends, you realize every sing day is a gift from God.  So I have been doing a lot of reflecting, and I think one thing I would like to start is some kind of Art Foundation for cancer patients.  Painting, photography, and mosaics have gotten me through this tough time.  I think it would be great if we (survivors and friends) did things like the 52 week challenge, and then have an on-line store, where the proceeds go to help families dealing with cancer it would be great.  It’s something I’m tossing around in my brain right now.  I would sure like to do something like that.

Well, it’s a beautiful day, the sun is shining, and I plan on taking my camera to the baseball game tonight to get some shots of my kids with their friends.

Dogwood Photography Weekly Challenge Week 8: Panorama

I skipped week 8.  It has been a hectic week this week.  My husband has been in China, my kids and I had a lot of appointments, and I had chemo today.  Week eight was a panoramic picture.  I went to a local military beach and snapped this picture and merged it in Light Room.

My infusion went well today, though I’m considerably tired.  I did get some really positive news.  My CA-125 reading went down 40 points!  The doctor is going to continue me on Doxil.  I’m still planning on going to next base to talk to the doctors about clinical trials.

Here are some more pictures from the shoreline along the Chochtawatchee Bay in Florida…

 

Dogwood Weekly Photography Challenge Week 9: Shadows

This week’s challenge is artistic shadows.  I tried taking several shadow pictures, with very little luck, but at last week’s Mardi Gras, I was able to capture these beads laying on the boardwalk in the shadows of a building.  That’s all I have to say about that.

It has been a crazy few weeks, and that’s why I am behind in just about everything.  I gave up Facebook for Lent.  I haven’t given it up 100% though.  I still go on and read statuses, sometimes I post a little bit.  I mostly post my photography, updates on cancer, and updates about my friends.  Recently, I posted regarding my friend, Becky, who passed away.  It’s the fifth death in our little local cancer group.  It’s the first person I have known quite well.  So her death caused me to go into a tailspin.  I have had to talk myself down a few times this last week.

I’m still stable.  As in my cancer is not growing, it is not shrinking, it is remaining the same.  It feels like the last two weeks of each chemo cycle it grows, but once I get chemo it shrinks it.  It’s frustrating, and annoying.  I find myself on my downtime doing a lot of research.  It’s hard to explain to people that I have cancer, but I feel great (for the most part), and I don’t look like I have cancer.  It’s definitely one of those invisible diseases, and it’s really hard to explain that you aren’t terminal, but you aren’t entirely well.  I feel like I have a ticking time bomb inside me.  One day it’s going to explode, and I’ll be like Becky, slowly fading away.

 

 

Dogwood Weekly Photography Challenge Week 7: Faceless

Laissez les bons temps rouler!  Happy Mardi Gras.  This is my last Mardi Gras in the deep south, so I decided to save my week 7 inputs for today.  I’m a few weeks behind, but I do have most the photographs done.  The real reason for not posting though was week 7 was a chemotherapy week, and I didn’t feel up to going to shoot, and week 8 I was busy getting our house ready to sell (it’s on the market).  Mardi Gras was a perfect excuse to get my faceless picture.

I never realized the Mardi Gras tradition, and how it relates to my religion.  Mardi Gras is a traditionally Catholic celebration.  It started in the early church monarchies in Europe, specifically in Rome!  It is 40 days and 40 nights BEFORE the Lenten season, and takes place between Christmas and Lent.  The King Cake that is traditionally served during Mardi Gras represents the Halo of Jesus.  The baby inside of the cake is, well duh Baby Jesus.  The colors represent the three gifts the kings gave to Mary and Joseph.  It’s a time of revelry before a time of reflection.

While our house was being shown I got out to take some pictures faceless pictures, and this was the one I decided on.  The man stilt walking a feat to behold.  God knows I couldn’t get my fat arse up there.  He was dancing and posing for pictures.  We got beads, candy, and Moon Pies for all!

So enjoy the pictures and laissez les bons temps rouler!

 

Traditional Mardi Gras Brass Band

Jazz Sax

Eglin Color Guard

Crazy Stilt Walker!

Senior Dance Troop