~ Lens-Artists Challenge #334: Cats and Dogs ~

Posted on February 6, 2025 by Lindy Le Coq

Tina offers a bit of furry treasure this week (here), a theme I am most happy to embrace. Our life with Beagles began in 1986, when my husband’s work had him on the road much of the time. At the end of my workday I’d come home to an empty house and wish for companionship. I decided we needed a dog. My parents gifted us our first beagle, Scooter that year and we have had at least one or more Beagles in our home ever since.

Creighton and I adopted Jello in 2015 when she was six. A blue-tick Beagle, she is the only one of seven Beagles that have lived with us who could be trusted in open areas off-leash. Smart, playful and loving, we still miss her.

When Jello passed, I immediately began searching for another Beagle, adding my name to shelter websites. We were open to either sex, younger to middle age. After a couple weeks, I saw Daisy and Max who were being fostered in Texas. When we learned they were brother and sister, both available and that they had been together all their six years, Creighton and I agreed to adopt them both. They were transported by van, along with other rescues, to Portland. It’s been three years this weekend since they arrived, and we all are doing well and enjoying our lives together.

Rain or shine or snow, we go on our walks when we’re at the beach, or to the dog park when we’re at home in Vancouver. True to their breed, Max and Daisy generally have their noses to the ground and their white flag tails high in the air.

Max is happiest when he is sitting on or with someone, playing or teasing someone and when he can just plain lollygag around! He’s the bigger of the two and has freckles on his nose.

Daisy is adventurous and curious. Prior to living with us, she’d been a mama most of her years, so it took her a while to trust us and come into her own as a free-spirited Beagle, which clearly has happened!

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge (LAPC) – Cats & Dogs

Posted in Beagles, dogs, jello, Lens-Artists, Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, nature, nature photography, outdoors, pacific northwest, pacific ocean, photography, travel, weekly photo challenge | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

~ Wordless Wednesday ~ Snow! ~

Posted on February 5, 2025 by Lindy Le Coq
Posted in clouds, nature, nature photography, outdoors, pacific northwest, pacific ocean, photography, Report from the Edge of a Continent, travel, Wordless Wednesday | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

~ Wordless Wednesday ~ Reflections ~

Posted on January 29, 2025 by Lindy Le Coq

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Posted in nature, nature photography, outdoors, pacific northwest, pacific ocean, photography, travel, Wordless Wednesday | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

~ Lens-Artists Challenge #333: Complementary Colors ~

Posted on January 28, 2025 by Lindy Le Coq

Egídio takes the lead this week with an invitation to have fun juxtaposing the three primary colors; Red, Blue & Yellow with their complementary colors – hues on the opposite side of the color wheel. When our senses need a pick-me-up, these bright combinations come to the rescue!

Blue and Orange create a fierce dynamic on Yun Hsiang, a dragon carousel feature which was in its last phases of production when I snapped this photo. By now it is one of the rides available to visitors of the Albany Historic Carousel and Museum, Albany, Oregon. Brilliant autumn leaves silhouetted upon a bright blue sky always takes my breath away!

Where else would you find a Chinook salmon in a Carousel?! Albany, OR is only 90 miles (144 km) from the north Pacific Ocean where Chinook are native to the ocean and the river systems of western North America. Red blossoms of Major Wheeler Honeysuckle on the vine, and ripe raspberries resting upon green foliage present a vivid statement in my gardens. Red and Green are a happy pairing!

Purple and Yellow. Another match made of light! Above my sister Lori holds her grandson Micah, while her daughter Molly stands beside her at Long Beach, WA. It was 2017. We were initiating young Micah to the wonder of cold ocean water, fresh clean breezes and unconditional love.

Left is definitely an Aster, perhaps Douglas’ (Aster subspicatus) or Leafy (Aster foliaceus). Either way, it has a lovely purple flower with a yellow disk center. Right, a Lenten rose (Helebore) leans into a spring Jonquil.

Thank you, Egídio. Like music, color is a balm. Sometimes it’s bright and bold, other times it’s quiet and serene. It is our choice to fill our lives with the color, sound and spirit that sustains us in the moment.

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Posted for Egídio’s Lens-Artists Challenge

Posted in flowers, Gardening, Lens-Artists, Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, nature photography, pacific northwest, pacific ocean, photography, travel, weekly photo challenge | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

~ Lens-Artists Challenge #332 – Shoot From Above ~

Posted on January 23, 2025 by Lindy Le Coq

For this week’s challenge, Ritva invites us to have some fun shooting photos from above. Often when I’m walking along the beach or on a trail, I see small entities that have little importance in the whole scheme of things, yet they catch my eye and I snap the shot. Also, when I’m in places with beautiful vistas from on high, I take photo after photo hoping for one that captures what I’m seeing.

Looking out and down from inside the top of North Head Lighthouse is a thrill. From this vantage, as waves crash into the headland just below, in the distance beyond the trees we can see Long Beach stretching to the northern horizon for at least 10 miles (16 Km).

Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) is so fun to watch as it pops up and unfurls in my garden, a Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) butterfly, so beautiful at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. From Long Beach, WA sea foam bubbles sparkle in the sun, a shy Praying Mantis hides in the dune grass, and a small feather casts a long shadow on an early January afternoon.

I’ll finish off with this still life of Crab Salad, consumed a few years ago. The Commercial Dungeness Crab season is open now along the Washington and Oregon coasts, and I look forward to enjoying fresh from the shell (never frozen!) crab when I visit the first week of February!

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Thank you to Ritva for another challenge that brings out the best in all of us!

Posted in Lens-Artists, Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, nature, nature photography, outdoors, pacific northwest, pacific ocean, photography, travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

~ Lens-Artists Challenge #331: Resilience ~

Posted on January 16, 2025 by Lindy Le Coq

Anne Sandler of Slow Shutter Speed leads the challenge this week asking us to choose photos that represent toughness and an ability to spring back from adversity. After thinking about it all week, I decided to feature seeds. A few years ago I read the book by Thor Hanson, The Triumph of Seeds. Where would we be without them? “In the history of plants, no single event has ensured the protection, dispersal, and establishment of their progeny more than the invention of seeds.” Tough, durable, flexible, and resilient to many of earths climates and calamities, the plants we live with and use as food start from some form of seed.

From my collection of evergreen cones we see where the “naked seeds” of conifers develop, mature and drop onto the forest floor. Conifer seeds often are consumed by birds and other critters, and then dispersed in their droppings. On the right, a progeny of the mother tree grows at her roots.

“Dandelion fluff…helps seeds ride the winds in a delicate spindle tufted with lint – symmetrical, flexible, and perfectly spaced for maximum drift.” You have probably experienced the wonder of blowing dandelion or milkweed seeds into the air and watching the tiny parasols float away on the wind.

“Seeds endure…some species persist in the soil for decades…Dormancy sets seed plants apart from nearly all other life forms…manipulation of dormant seeds paved the way for agriculture and continues to determine the fate of nations.”

Our backyard Holly tree provides plenty of protection for birds visiting the feeders. It also produces a bumper crop of berries every year. In late spring, when the Cedar Waxwings return during migration, they strip off the remaining ripe berries. While cleaning my garden beds, I remove many little holly starts and I’m sure there are an abundance of them growing throughout the region.

I grew up surrounded by fruit orchards and listening to the story of Johnny Appleseed. Biting into an organically grown crisp autumn apple, just plucked from the tree is an absolute delight. As with other fruits and berries, apple Seeds Nourish. “Seeds come pre-equipped with a baby plant’s first meal, everything needed to send forth incipient root, shoot, and leaf.”

A big thank-you to Anne Sandler and all the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge hosts who give me a reason to enjoy a bit of creativity in my weekly schedule!

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Posted in Being, Gardening, Lens-Artists, Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, nature, nature photography, outdoors, pacific northwest, photography, trees, weekly photo challenge | Tagged , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

~ Wordless Wednesday ~ Chasing Rainbows ~

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Lindy Le Coq

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Posted in nature, nature photography, outdoors, pacific northwest, photography, Wordless Wednesday | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

~ Wordless Wednesday ~ Cloud Moods ~

Posted on January 8, 2025 by Lindy Le Coq

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Posted in clouds, nature, nature photography, outdoors, pacific northwest, photography, Wordless Wednesday | Tagged , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

~Lens-Artists Challenge #330: Best of 2024 ~

Posted on January 6, 2025 by Lindy Le Coq

On my previous post I featured several photographs that are among my favorite shots of 2024, for a variety of reasons. Now it’s time to winnow things down to “the best”. The word best has 33 synonyms, and of those I’m leaning toward “worthy and excellent.”

An unsettled cloudy sky with strands of sunlight in the west reflecting upon the sheen of a very low tide at Long Beach, is an enigmatic and captivating scene. I selected this one out of all my sunset and beach reflection photos for just that reason. Though it’s not as striking as others in my portfolio, it certainly sets a mood!

Above, two photos with very different qualities provide a glimpse into an icy period we experienced in Vancouver, WA during February 2024. I love the brightness of the ice-crusted berries, and used the shot for my holiday card. The bareness of frozen branches silhouetted upon a gray sky creates a stark image. The photo is in color, though it appears to be monochrome.

What is this bird? I wondered four years ago when it first landed on my back deck feeder. I searched the Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America and found one possibility; Snow Bunting. I included it in my weekly Project Feederwatch counts to Cornell Lab of Ornithology. They were skeptical, and asked for photos. Getting clear shots of this bird was hard, as it was an infrequent visitor and quite evasive when it did show up. After I sent in a good photo to Cornell, I was informed that this mystery bird is a *leucistic Junco.

In August 2024, the usually pristine surroundings of Odell Lake (37 sq mi/96 km) at the summit of Willamette Pass Oregon, were enveloped in wild fire smoke. The above photo of the morning sun rays trapped in smoke and reflected on the lake surface has an eerie beauty, as it bears witness to the ongoing ill-effect of climate change to our environment.

At the same time, there are efforts to protect and sustain the beauty of our Sweet Home Earth. I have so many photos of beautiful butterflies from my visit to the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House and the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St. Louis, it’s hard to choose the “best”. I selected this one because I love how fragile this Paper Kite butterfly (Idea Leuconoe) appears having recently emerged from its chrysalis. It rests suspended soaking in the light of life, as it continues its metamorphosis journey.

From first seeing it, I fell in love with this photo of horses in a 1924 carousel reflected upon the interior glass of the building. To me the image creates an impression of ghostly steeds galloping through the forest outside.

On the last day of December, 2024, I awoke to this glorious dawn light in the western sky over the Pacific Ocean, which also reflected on the swelling marshes in front of The Breakers Condominiums in Long Beach, WA. What a spectacular way to start the day and end the year!

*Leucism is not a genetic mutation, but rather describes defects in pigment cells that are caused during development, which may result in a reduction in all types of pigment.Cornell.

A big thank you to all the Lens-Artists presenters who encourage the rest of us to look for beauty through our cameras and to try new ways of seeing and presenting our images.

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Posted in butterflies, climate change, Lens-Artists, Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, nature, nature photography, ornithology, outdoors, pacific northwest, pacific ocean, photography, travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

~ Last Chance ~ Some Favorite Photos from 2024 ~

Posted on January 2, 2025 by Lindy Le Coq

Time to ring in the new year with photos that I especially like, taken in 2024. Each photo brings up the memory of where I was and who I was with at the time. The subject is only part of the joy in photography. I’ll start with images taken at Long Beach, WA where my husband Creighton, our two beagles, Max and Daisy and I spend a fair amount of time enjoying ocean air, beach walks, lovely dawns and sunsets.

Being out in natural surroundings always lifts my spirits and helps clear my mind, whether it’s at my Vancouver home, or other places. Birds and my surroundings are favorite subjects to photograph.

Many of my favorites this year are from the week I was in St. Louis. My older sister Diana, and I stayed with our younger sister Lori, who took us to many interesting and beautiful places; from being immersed in Butterflies to riding an old carousel. I treasure this time together with my sisters.

I’ll finish with the shot I was fortunate to get of sunrise on Mt. Hood, as Diana and I were on the plane from St. Louis, descending into Portland, OR.

On your walk with life, please honor our earth, encourage dignity and share kindness. 🐾

Posted in birds, butterflies, Lens-Artists, Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, nature, nature photography, outdoors, pacific northwest, pacific ocean, photography, travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments