Friday's Hunt v. 4.12

I don't think I did very well with this week's prompts.  Just wasn't feeling too creative I suppose. Sometimes my brain doesn't want to translate the prompts into fun and exciting pictures!  Still, I gave it a shot, so here we go with:  Starts with L, Landscape, and Key.

Starts with L
Little starts with L.  We acquired two new chickens for the flock this week, and they are really little birds.  Although they are fully grown, they are about the size of a pigeon, maybe a bit smaller. They are two serama hens.  The serama breed of chicken is wildly popular in Malaysia, where they hold beauty contests for them on a regular basis.  The light coloured one is named Cream and the dark coloured one is named Jellybelly.  I decided to keep the names they came with.

Jellybelly is in the classic serama pose with the tail straight up and the wings tilted down.

Cream is very friendly and will even sit on my shoulder.  This gives you an idea of how little she is.

Landscape
I had to go to Nova Scotia today to do some clean-up at my property there, which is up for sale, but I'm moving the rest of my stuff out of it on Monday.  I intended to take a landscape picture there, but I forgot.  At home, it's trees everywhere!  So I decided to try miniature landscapes.  I took a mushroom landscape and a moss landscape.  These are landscapes from the squirrel's eye view!  See the bird feather?

Key
This is the wire gate on my goat and sheep enclosure.  The rebar is attached to the wire and it slips into 3 large hooks that are in the tree trunk - you can only see one of the hooks in this picture.  The "key" is the bungee cord, which keeps it firmly closed just in case some goat gets an idea about how to open it!

Friday's Hunt, v 2.13

Friday is here once again - seems to happen every week! This week has been extremely busy for me, but I appreciate having the work, so I'm not complaining.  I'm still making time for Friday's Hunt, hosted by Eden Hills. As usual, there are 3 topics for today: Starts with M, Week's Favourite, and Work.

Starts with M

I meant to do a blog on this topic a little while ago, but I didn't get around to it, so I'll do it today!  I wanted to showcase some of the interesting mushrooms I have found growing here around our new home.  Fall is mushroom season here, and there have been some really pretty ones.  I've missed a few, but there were still plenty to photograph this week, so here's a little tour of Claire's Mushrooms.

This yellow one is really vivid.  There are several clumps of it around.

It has a spongy underside, rather than the typical "gills" that you see on many mushrooms.  I think that might mean that it's a bolete species, but I'm not sure.

I do have a mushroom field guide, but at the moment, I haven't got time to look all these up in an effort to identify them.

This is a wood fungus growing on a birch.  There are quite a few of this style of fungus around. This one is on a tree that fell a while ago and is slowly decomposing.

These ones are on live birch trees.

Here's a new mushroom just emerging - I love its bright orange colour.

There are a lot of brown mushrooms of one sort or another.  Some are small and kind of trumpet-like.

Or umbrella-like!

Others are large (I put a sunflower seed on this one to indicate size).

I'm quite sure some are edible, but I don't want to take chances until I properly identify them.  Most of the boletes are edible, so that might be a good target group.

This is an interesting fungal species - some kind of orange jelly-type growth on a stump.

This is my favourite mushroom from the ones that I found on my mushroom walk-about.  It has a vivid red cap with bright white gills underneath.   

Week's Favourite

I managed to photograph a new warbler this week, so that's my favourite for the week.  This is a Nashville warbler.  Thank goodness it doesn't sing country music!  Haha!

Work
There's a lot of work still to be done here in our new home.  Even though we moved in back in June, we're both busy, and this week has been especially busy for me with work projects.  Since I work for myself, I have to take the work when it comes, and that can be a bit of a feast-or-famine situation. So, the work of unpacking and organizing (some things which have been packed for over 5 years since I moved back from Iowa), has been on hold this week.  This is a picture of one of my bookshelves, which is currently in a state of ongoing organization (the left side still needs a lot of attention!).  It's a lot of work to go through all my many books and organize and arrange them.  This shelf is all non-fiction:  cookbooks, gardening books, craft and hobby books, art books, animal care books, etc.  My field guides are on a separate smaller bookshelf right next to my desk, since I use them a lot.

Anyway, the work continues!  It's not exactly a pretty picture, but I didn't have a lot of time today so that's going to have to do!

Friday's Hunt v 2.11

Holy guacamole, where does the week go?  It's Friday (already!), so that means it's time for Friday's Hunt, hosted by Eden Hills. As usual, there are 3 topics for today: Starts with K, Week's Favourite, and Yellow or Gold.

Starts with K
My husband, Marc, is a huge motorcycle fan, and he has a number of bikes, but one of his most frequently used bikes is his Kawasaki KLR.  I think that's a two-fer on the letter K!

The KLR model has come out in various colours over the years.  I'm fond of the silver and orange model that he has - I think it's a great colour combination.

He even has a handy pouch that attaches to the handlebars that has the KLR logo on it.

I am sometimes a passenger on this bike.  It's not the kind of bike that we'd do many thousands of miles on, but it works for day trips and I am usually pretty comfortable on the rear portion of the seat, thanks to the back rest.  Here I am on the bike today - not my usual spot (the back seat), and no, we don't ride motorcycles without helmets, nor do I wear my green garden boots.  We are very conscious of safety gear.  This was just for a blog picture!

Marc also pointed out to me that the bike had an extra "letter K" feature that I might otherwise miss - it has special tires on it that are referred to as "knobby" tires.  They are designed to provide added traction on loose surface material such as sand or gravel.

Week's Favourite
To be honest, I didn't take many pictures this week.  It was a busy week.  Marc took vacation this week so that he could work on his garage project.  I was busy with some work projects and also some organizing projects.  I'm also trying to get prepared for vending at the Nova Scotia Fibre Festival in October, so it's just a busy time.  It means I haven't been visiting other blogs as much as I'd like, but sometimes that's just how it goes.

My favourite shot this week is one that I took of Fezzik the Goat in his new surroundings.  He seems to be fitting in really well and is comfortable in the woodsy setting.  He has such a confident, strong look these days.  It's such a contrast from his early days as a weak, health-compromised little goat kid.  I am so glad he made it through those hard times.  If you want to keep up with Fezzik and his news, "like" his Facebook page!

Yellow or Gold
The season change is just around the corner - autumn is rapidly asserting her presence.  Of course, the leaves begin their changes with beautiful shades of yellow and gold, so that was a natural choice for this week's category.  I'm noticing a few more yellow tones in the woods surrounding the house lately - both leaves and late flowers.  The goldenrod is still in bloom.

There are abundant blooms from the hawkweed in the lawn.  It is one of the Hieracium species, but I'm not sure which one.  There are so many species of this plant!

The birch have been dropping some yellow leaves, as have the maples.

There are even golden-yellow mushrooms to be found, although some might argue this one is venturing into "orange" territory, rather than yellow or gold!

See you again next week for Friday's Hunt!