Mural

I'm kind of surprised that i hadn't taken a picture of this before. It's a mural on the wall of a business in town, and i don't really know its history. It's something you see as you drive south through downtown, and i guess i just sort of stopped noticing it after a while. The Ben Franklin that it's painted on is going out of business, and i'm not sure if that will stay there afterwards. The yellow Bettle is my car, and it needs a wash.

broken headstone

This is another picture i took on Memorial Day. I was impressed that even though the headstone was broke that someone put it up like that. Too often the old headstones get treated badly as no one is alive who knew the person or family and the older ones are easily fractured. One of the things i notice are the changing styles of headstones from decade to decade, although more noticeable by century. New ones now have pictures of the people along with the names and dates, sometimes etched pictures of the hobby of the person.

Memorial Day photograph

This was taken yesterday, Memorial Day, in the cemetary on the north side of town. I missed the parade and ceremony but took some pictures anyway. This was a marker sitting by itself in a blank area of grass, i'm not sure if there used to be more old markers like this or it was the only one there. The graveyards here are less grand than the ones i was used to in LaCrosse, which had statues and more unusual markers. Here they are mostly just the headstone type, but i did see several that were before 1900. A funny thing happened while i was there. There was a crow following me around, it would hop up on a headstone, and when i raised my camera, it would hop behind it. It didn't matter if i raised it slowly or fast, the crow would be hidden by the time i got the camera up to my eye. He was totally playing with me, i kept giggling after a while as it was just so surreal.

Clover watching rain

This is my pet rabbit Clover, looking out the window watching the rain. I have five other rabbits as pets, but Clover is the one who doesn't mind me taking pictures of him, he will sit still long enough for lots of photographs. He loves to look out the window and see what's going on, even though sometimes he gets scared at what he sees and runs down and hides while thumping. I love my silly bunnies.
I have been working really hard on remodeling a closet, so haven't had a chance to get out and get many photos. Today is Memorial Day, and there was a parade early, but i missed it sadly, so no pictures from that. I will try to get out later and see if i can get any pictures of things happening later or decorations that are up.

heavy rain

There was a strong storm last night with tornado sirens going off. This is my neighbors downspout that got knocked loose either from the winds or heavy rain, and this was taken only a little after the rain started. It was coming down very heavy and strong for about an hour or two. The sky got dark really fast, and after the storm passed it got a lot lighter. There still is rain here today, but thankfully just a light rain.

Hotrod

I saw this car on a side street while i was driving around looking for something to photograph, and thought it was interesting. My parents have an old Model A Ford that my uncle Al restored, he was good at restoring cars, and this reminded me of it. I am envious of people who are good at fixing and customizing cars, it's a skill i totally lack. I sometimes watch shows like Monster Garage and i'm just in awe of how they know how to do what they do. Although, i am kind of that way with computers, so i shouldn't be too upset.
(this is two photographs stiched together as the lens i had was not wide enough to get it all in one shot.)

My kitchen

I haven't been feeling very good lately, between migraines and a bad cold, so i haven't really been able to get out and get new photos. I thought that this would be a good picture to post as it shows where i spend a lot of time when home. I'm not sure how typical the design is for the area, but it's what i like, i get sick of white type colors in winter when all you see outside is snow. This is taken from my kitchen into the breakfast nook type area.

House

After looking at Abraham Lincons blog and seeing his post about his yard and house, i decided to post a picture of my house from today also. Original huh? ;) Anyway, everything is nice and green, which is nice after winter and the odd spring weather we had. My yard is an odd shape that starts out narrow by the road and spreads out at diagonals towards the back where it gets a good deal bigger. There are lots of trees and bushes in the back too, which gives nice shade and cover to wildlife. The damage on the grass to the right of the driveway was caused by a dumpster that was brought right after a rain shower, i tried to replace the sod by pulling it back, but there is now an ant nest there of considerable size. That is another post though i think, it freaked me out pretty well seeing that many ants come out, some with the larvas in their jaws trying to save them.

Soft focus squirrel

This is a squirrel on my deck, watching me, in soft focus which the lens can do. The lens is a "EF 135mm f/2.8 with Softfocus", and i forgot to take off the softfocus effect when i took the photo, but i also think it's kind of cute how it turned out. I know i've been taking a lot of photos of wildlife and plants in my yard, but those are also the ones i am liking how they turn out best. I will try harder to get out more and show more of River Falls, but it's just been the ones i like best that i have posted so far.

Bird eating

I saw this bird eating some of the dandelions that had gone all white puffball. I don't know what kind of bird this is, but it's very pretty. I guess i always figured that something ate the seeds of dandelions, but have never seen it before. This little bird also ate for quite some time, several heads of them. It's kind of nice knowing that even though they kind of take over the yard, that something is getting some food out of them, this bird and the wild rabbits i have seen.

Frog on door

This is an older picture, i've been fighting migraines the last couple of days, so i haven't gotten out as much as i would like. I saw this frog on my front door one night, i hear them a lot but rarely see them. He's not very big, about the size of the tip of your thumb, mine at least.

Sky at night from my deck

This is my first attempt at photographing the stars from my back yard. I think i used about a five minute exposure which is also why the house and tree are so well lit. Sometime i'm going to drive out where there are almost no lights and give it another shot when it's this clear again.

Dandelion

This is a dandelion in my yard. I think it's starting to wilt or going to turn into a puff ball of seeds soon. I know they are weeds, but i kind of like them, and have seen the wild animals eating them a lot. I personally think if the wild animals have food like that, they hopefully will leave the veggies and herbs i plant alone. I hope. ;)

seedling

This is a picture of a pumpkin seed sprout that i have in a peat pot. I haven't felt very good today to go out and get photos, but since this is eventually getting planted outside, i guess it counts as a River Falls photo. ;) I'm not the best gardner, but i'm giving it a shot, and will probably include some photos here of how it goes and what i can grow here.

Windy Day

Today is very windy, storms just seemed to have missed us though. Those are my bird feeders which got broken in the wind and a squirrel very happy about that fact. I put food out for all, but i just got that one with the tubes and they couldn't figure out how to get food out of it, so the birds had plenty too. My neighbor who passed away recently had a bird house that got blown off it's pole and broken on the ground. I hope there were no birds in it at the time, not sure when they nest and lay eggs though.

River Falls Days 2005

This is another older picture, it's kind of cold and raining a lot out right now, so i worried about the camera in that. It did remind me of this though. This is from the River Falls Days 2005 parade. It started out nice and sunny although a little warm. Later on it started to downpour very strongly and caused the parade to cancel early. It rained hard into the night even, but it was nice seeing some of the marchers keeping good spirits. The rain wasn't very cold, but it was pretty heavy and constant, i had an umbrella and by the time i walked home i was totally wet.

Pretty blooms

I'm not sure the name of the tree blooming there, but i love them. There are several like that in the area, but these are right outside my door. It's cold and rainy out there right now, and has been for most of the day, but i really like how that looked when I had the camera handy.

Recycling dumpsters

This is actually a slightly older picture, begining of April, but i've been too busy today to get out and look for things to photograph. This is the area where recycling things go, cardboard, cans, plastic, stuff like that. They are about six feet tall, and very long, although they fill up quickly. This is less than a block west from the main street that i have the picture of during night.

Sinkhole or something

This is what looks like a sink hole in town near the waste water treatment plant. On the other sides of the trees to the right are housing developments, which surprises me, as the odor here was pretty strong. I had never been in this area before, and probably won't be again, as the smell was pretty bad. It looked neat from a distance and i wanted to get better photos, but couldn't take the smell any longer.

Lightning storm

I couldn't think of anything i could do for theme day, either i don't know River Falls well enough or it doesn't have something that fits. Either way, i decided to try to get the lightning in the storm that happened just a few hours ago on film. This is the one i was most impressed with. I took it out of an upstairs window of my house looking out over the street as the sun was setting. Storms in spring are pretty common here, it warms up a lot during the day and then the cold air fronts blow in and strong storms follow. There are usually tornado reports in spring, but i really hope to never be close enough to one to get a photo of it. ;)