From the Reservoir

A while back my friend Deana showed me a great place to take photos, the Reservoir over our city.
After a recent rainstorm I decided to take some pictures up at the Reservoir.

As I drove through the center I saw this little guy discover a chip bag and shove his head inside to find food. It was adorable. I snapped this while stopped at a light, but it changed as I was taking the picture and I got honked at!

Creepy spider and a HUGE web! EEP!

I think this was my favorite photo of the day

The path I made in the tall grass. I debated making my very own crop sign...

Hunt for Clouds Leads to Fruit!

In pursuit of clouds

This last school year I ran an after school club called Junque Journal. It is part art and part writing. The club met for an hour after school once a week.

Well, we had to evacuate the school during our last meeting because someone burnt something and the fire alarms went off. Luckily it had *just* stopped raining, so we didn't get drenched. The sky was beautiful after the spring storm! I couldn't resist taking pictures of the clouds.

As I was driving home I couldn't help but continue admiring the clouds. I even pulled off to the shoulder to get a few pictures.

But that still wasn't enough. I saw one giant cloud (which I now realize is the same cloud as my first picture! I had no idea until now, when I began processing them!) and just had to find a better place to photograph it. I chased the cloud. I took a random exit off the highway and just drove randomly towards where I thought I could get a shot.

I pulled off at a cute little farm stand and grabbed the cloud picture (above) then wandered the farm stand a bit. 

http://www.springbrookfarmcountry.com/

 The Spring Brook Farm Country Store was very cute. They grow their own fruits and veggies, as well as flowers. I think they have animals too? Their website is in the caption of the photo I took. They were nice and reasonably priced for delish food! If you're in the area I would recommend stopping by.

I also went across the street to another country store, this one was just flowers. It was called Gary's Farm Stand. I asked them if they minded if I took some pictures and they said it was fine. One guy led me through the greenhouse to the back parking lot so I could get more cloud pictures too! Very helpful! 

Gary's Farm Stand
http://www.yellowpages.com/littleton-ma/mip/garys-farm-stand-10914711

Gary's Farm Stand

When I got home I took some photos of the food that I bought at the Spring Brook Country Store so that I could show the quality of their fresh local food. I can't show you how it tasted, but let's just say that between my husband and I the food did not make it past 2 days... 

Raspberries, Blackberries, Honey Spread, Strawberries, Peas
I also got honey sticks but they were gone by the time I got home!

Fresh raspberries

Fresh blackberries

Fresh Strawberries

Fresh peas  (I didn't have to share these with my husband! All mine!)

My friend told me I should try Honey Spread, so I did. You spread it on toast like jelly or butter. It is delish! 

Scavenger Hunt: Spring!!

Again with the Chrysta Rae Scavenger Hunt! As I said in the last post, Chrysta Rae gave us 10 prompts that we had to hunt for and photograph. I revealed my balloon picture yesterday, as well as the process I went though to take it.

Today I will reveal SPRING!

My submission for SPRING!

This one was difficult for me. I had SO many ideas! Unfortunately, I was unable to DO most of my ideas. Ideally I wanted to take a picture of someone jumping (springing) by a freshwater spring with pretty flowers and a slinky. Every type of spring I could think of. I was unable to get to a spring. This made me sad. I thought of taking a picture of a flower, or a flower with a pencil spring or slinky but I thought that there would be a lot of those kind of pictures. I couldn't think of anything interesting to do with just a slinky, my creativity was failing me. I was completely at a loss of what to do.

Now, I am a teacher, and I am almost always after school with extra help, a club, or just grading or planning. One day there was a group of students staying after, some of our more outgoing and energetic students. They were playing catch while waiting for extra help to start and getting pretty rambunctious. Then I got the idea to make THEM jump for me!

I got a group of them out in the hall and told them they would get extra credit if they helped me out with my project! They were excited to help me out, until I made them jump up and down for a minute straight! I was testing out different settings on my camera and experimenting. The kids weren't too upset, they were getting extra credit after all, and they got to see me sprawl out on the floor in the hall of the school in my pretty work clothes. They thought I was nuts.

OVEREXPOSED! There are really 6 kids in this picture... jumping for a minute straight.

I changed a few of the settings and tried again.

I decided that I hated the lighting and there was nothing I could do to fix it.

I knew I was going to re-take the picture, but I had to figure out when and who I could con into doing it this time. My chance came when I had a pair of kids for extra help a few weeks later. Again, I promised some extra credit if they would jump for me. Again they thought I was nuts for sprawling on the floor (this time in a long flowy skirt!)