20 Dec 19 With Christmas literally just around the corner I thought I'd go with something Christmas festive for today's close up. Hard to believe we are just days away from a new year, but we are and just 7 more photos to close it out. So here is a shot of a Sweet Gum Tree which I know is known by other names, the most common of which is Liquid Amber. Not sure from where the Sweet Gum moniker derives, but the Liquid Amber comes form it's Latin name, Liquidambar styraciflua. It's a nice tree to have in your landscape as its seeds are eaten by eastern goldfinches, purple finches, sparrows, mourning doves, northern bobwhites and wild turkeys. Small mammals such as chipmunks, red squirrels and gray squirrels also enjoy the fruits and seeds. So this plant has just about all of the U.S covered. Not bad. We are thinking about adding a couple to the landscape but not until we make for some more room, which put in terms of our eldest cherub when she was much younger, maybe later. In the meantime, we can just enjoy them wherever we see them and around here they are used aplenty by the local communities for landscaping the roads. Other than some severe cropping this is what the camera recorded. Christmas Tree Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 1000; 1/100 sec @ f / 9.
13 Dec 19 Back to the yard scenes again today and another of the stained glass lookalikes since several of you have asked for more. These are fun and easy to make. This is a triad of leaves from a large bush whose name I don't remember that is part of a hedgerow that currently lines the back side of the front garden area. They have a tiny little white flower in the spring and beautiful yellow leaves in the fall with distinct green veins. I wasn't thinking very far into the future when I planted them believing that I would never consider enlarging that landscaped area. Unfortunately for me I now want to expand it considerably which means I need to transplant all of them. Maybe the smart thing would be to put them all in half 50 gallon barrels that could be moved from place to place as the garden area expands. It might even be a good approach to containing their size. Other than the conversion this is what the camera recorded. Needing a Frame Nikon D300s; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 250 1/60 sec @ f / 9 with fill flash.
