i am have an island

Have I ever told you we have an island?

Well, we have an island.

Not a private Caribbean island like Johnny Depp, but an island is an island, right?

I'll let you decide that for yourself in just a minute.

But first, when I posted this photo....


I got some questions on how I captured the shot, so I thought I'd give you a few more details.

The bright blue sky combined with floaty areas of fog got me outside early that morning. It was really pretty, but I could tell the first couple pictures I took just didn't do it justice. If I exposed for the sun rays, the herb garden was very, very dark, and if I exposed for the garden, the sky was no longer pretty at all.


Not very impressive, right?

I turned around to snap the alfalfa field....again, much prettier in real life, but it didn't really make for a spectacular photo either.


When I turned back around, it was as though the heavens had opened up and amazingly enough, I was able to capture it fairly well.


Having the sun behind the tree helped me expose better for the whole scene than in the first picture above where the sun was straight ahead, and the sun was now starting to hit the flowers in the foreground which also evened out the lighting situation a bit.

It was purely a case of right place, right time.

I wandered around and snapped a few more, but nothing compared to that one shot.



I also wandered over to our island.

We usually refer to it as Eyesore Island - here it is last spring.


Lovely, yes?

In the past, I have tried in vain to turn it into something a little more easy on the eyes. Like the year I painstakingly sprayed all the weeds, watered and sprayed again and again, and then planted thousands and thousands of poppy seeds I had collected. It was going to be a pink and red and white oasis in the middle of the pond.

Poppy Island....a place where magic happens.

Well, the only magic that happened was the lightning speed at which the weeds took over once again. It was a complete failure and the poor flowers never had a chance.

This year, The Meadowbrook Farmer had the brilliant idea to cover it with landscape fabric to keep the weeds down, and plant the whole thing with pumpkins and gourds.


Voila - Pumpkin Island was born.

We are really happy with how the plants are doing.

So are the muskrats, or raccoons, or skunks or whatever nocturnal animal is eating all the pumpkins and gourds that are growing on the island.

Dear Eyesore/Poppy-not!/Pumpkin Island,

You are annoying.

Sincerely,

Teresa