Friday, March 4, 2016

Friday Photo Dump

I have some photos in my blog file on this computer that I have been holding onto, waiting to find inspiration to work them into blog posts ... inspiration has been elusive.  I just got the idea to lump them all together into one post.  No rhyme or reason, just little slices of life and images that I was fortunate to catch in the moment.

1.  Last month, I saw a link to the Sotheby's web site with the online catalog for the estate auction of the Duchess of Devonshire.  I was so impressed by the first few pages of the catalog on my iPad that I clicked over to their online store and ordered a hard copy to savor and to have forever.  The auction was on March 2.  Click HERE for a gallery of items and results.

The portrait of the Duchess on the cover of the catalog tells me that she must have been a very unique person.  Carefully staged with ancestral portraits, sculpture, formal gown, jeweled tiara ... and flopped-out sleeping dogs.  Love it!



2.  Here is an example of what water can do when it freezes.  This antique soft-fired brick (or what's left of it) is laying near the outlet for our rain gutter, so it was saturated.  Repeated cycles of winter weather freezing and thawing completely blew it apart.  This is the power of science in action.



3.  Early in the morning, I regularly run out to the front porch with my camera or phone or iPad to try to capture colorful sunrises when I see them.  This was one of the prettiest, and I was lucky that my photo captured it nicely.



4.  I snapped this photo of Ruby the other day.  I was reading, and she was in a sunshine spot at the other end of the sofa, sound asleep.

Yes, she was snoring.


5.  While Ruby was snoozing, Dorothy was behind me on her rug in the windowsill watching birds.



6.  This is my most recent awesome thrift store purchase.  Our grandson and I went to Salvation Army last week with a load of stuff to donate, and we cruised through the store to see what we could find.  At $3, this cordless electric wine opener was worth taking a chance on.  Plugged it in and charged it overnight, and found that it works perfectly!



7.  In winter, this girl's attention turns to boots.  These are my newest.  An ad for them popped up on someone's sidebar last week, and I loved them instantly.  I went to the Country Outfitter site, the boots were on sale with free shipping, saw overwhelming favorable reviews ... add to cart ... click!  They arrived yesterday, just in time to bring them along with me to this weekend's American Rose Society Colonial District Spring Meeting.  I love them even more in person, and they are really, really comfy.



It's easy to capture little moments as they happen, with a camera phone in my purse or pocket, or an iPad at arm's length most of the time.  I get the feeling that the Photo Dump, as an easy way to share, may become a regular theme around here.

25 comments:

  1. Heh, this was great ... I think you outta do many more of these Friday dumps because it's such a pleasure to see the mist-mash of this n'that! So love your animals in particular. And altho I'm not a huge fan of cowboy boots I gotta say that those are pretty darn terrific. Have a lovely weekend!
    Christi

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    1. I was thinking ... sometimes I don't have much to say about something, and the photo dump format fits that perfectly. I'm thinking that you'll see this again from time to time.

      I love funky shoes/boots best. These new boots are so comfy, and I love them!

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  2. I quite like your photo dump. Those sure are some snazzy boots.

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    1. What's most fun about these new boots is that the snazzy upper part is hidden underneath my pants ... it's our little secret.

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  3. Great dump of photos. That sky is beautiful with all of those colors.

    I 'love' your boots.

    Have a wonderful weekend ~ FlowerLady

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    1. On the morning when I took that sunrise photo, the whole 360 degrees of the rest of the sky was the most beautiful rosy pink.

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  4. Brilliant photo dump. Simple moments, each with meaning.

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    1. Simple moments is exactly it!! I am so thankful to have a camera of some sort nearby to capture stuff like this.

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  5. Love the picture of Ruby sleeping in the sun, boots are awesome, what a deal on the wine opener! Great sunrise picture, best part of Winter. Poor Brick!

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    1. We have had other bricks do this, but never as dramatically as this one. Respect the power of the freeze thaw cycle.

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  6. Loved all the pictures Connie -- especially the boots. But I clicked over to Sotheby’s because I am a total Anglophile. The duchess sounds just like the gentry I've read about in books from authors like Agatha Christie. Eccentric but loveable.Her love of poultry is one of those quirks. That Old Vicerage is awesome. I could downsize there. Thanks so much for bringing Debo to my attention.

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    1. Old Vicarage. And she collected Elvis memorabilia.

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    2. I'm with you! If I was a Duchess, I like to think that I would be exactly like she was. Such an interesting, eclectic person.

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  7. Love the photo dump idea!! This was fun!

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  8. Love the photo dump idea! And ooooh, those boots.

    She was an incredible person.. my favorite photo is that of her in pearls and gown feeding chickens from a bucket with a ladle.

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    1. I always feel a little bit of pressure to do something with photos that sit in my blog file, but that may not have enough to them to be a post unto themselves. Dumping them in one post like this felt like having a chat with friends.

      I know the photo you're talking about, with the Duchess and her chickens, and I loved it, too.

      You have the link for the boots ... and they come in tan and lavender pink, to tempt you even more. What I didn't mention in the main part of the post is that Country Outfitter took 29% off the price when I clicked the button to check out. $144 boots went zipping down to $102-and-change. Awesome leather boots for just essentially $100 ... sign me up!

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  9. Nice boots!! They're really pretty.

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    1. I'm at the District meeting right now, and I have worn these boots all day. My feet feel great ... and I smile whenever I look down and see the boots peeking out from under my pant legs. I'm easy to please. :)

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  10. #3 is beautiful. Winter holds few charms for me, but one is seeing leafless tree silhouettes against a colorful sky.

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    1. We have to take our charm where we can get it in winter, and winter skies are definitely one of them. I am very, VERY ready for spring.

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  11. Yes! Do the photo dump again!
    I love it.
    #5 is my fav.
    and I want those boots too!
    xoxo

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    1. It's a deal! I like the idea of dumping a load of Hartwood life out all at once. Gives everyone a glimpse into the way it is around here, AND gives a pretty accurate demonstration of how my mind works.

      I wore the boots all day for both days over the weekend at the conference, and they are still incredibly comfortable ... probably more so now than they were on Day #1 ... and I love how they look!

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  12. I, too, want the boots! Don't you just love how the dogs find the sun and then look so content in it? Here's my brick story... I did a large garden path out of bricks I found at my last house. Looked beautiful for about 6 months and then they started to come apart, just like in your photo. Wish I had known, because it took so much time to set them in place.

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    1. Until last spring, the border of my Hybrid Tea Garden in the front yard was made of this kind of antique brick. Surprisingly, most of the bricks held up very well in the years that they were in contact with the ground. A few froze and burst, but only a few.

      I think the ones that did this were the 'seconds'. The bricks that make up our house were made here on the property. The good ones make up the outside course of the house, and the seconds are the inner courses (the walls are three bricks thick) and were used for the basement walls. The really iffy ones are in-fill between the posts of our first-floor partition walls. I wonder if your bricks were like this.

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