Photography, family, faith . . . and life after depression in Lima, Ohio. By Michelle Cole
I feel so lucky that I’ve had flowers blooming in my garden for seven months this year. The forecast does not bode well for the garden in the next ten days. There are predictions for several nights dipping into the 30’s, along with the possibility for a little snow next weekend. Some of the tender plants in the garden may not survive the coming week. In light of that possibility, I thought I’d take a few more pictures than I usually do for my garden blog posts.
There were a few bumble bees feasting on the hundreds of these flowers I saw today at a local wildflower prairie, but they retreated when I approached. Usually bumble bees are good photo models. Maybe they were overcome by the bad hair blooms of bee balm.
The good light was brief today. By late morning, a storm front began weaving thunderhead clouds and gusts of wind.
In the backlight of weekend mornings, ordinary things look closer to the divine. I’m happy that I rolled out of bed in time to capture some of it.
As the official start of summer approaches, the heat-loving flowers are emerging, and tall grasses are have climbed halfway to their peak height. Milkweed is also in bloom, their banquet open for insects of all sorts.
I so wish I had a fine dashboard camera, for I tend to drive right past the more ideal photo moments I encounter. This evening I saw a full rainbow emerge from a sunburst between rain showers. The best vantage point was literally from my driver’s seat. I suppose that the optics of dashboard cameras are fixed focus and wide angle. I’d get home, review the pictures, and regret that I could not have zoomed in on whatever subject matter captivated my interest while I was driving.
I tried to cap my evening with some pictures of raindrops on the flowers in my garden, but I was not successful. The above picture was the best of the lot. It’s missing the rain I wanted to capture, but it does have some unexpected bokeh in the frame.
My petunias did not delight me as much as the oddball vehicle I spotted on the way home from work earlier this week. If I had a dashboard cam, I’d have blogged a picture of a full-size tanker truck clad with Dum Dums sucker graphics on the tank and the cab. This truck was blazing its fully saturated colors in the sunlight, and it wasn’t merely advertising this treat. This truck belonged to the Spangler Candy Company, the maker of Dum Dums. This company is located about 65 miles north of here in Bryan, Ohio.
I wondered if that tanker was filled with candy base and if it would be possible to supersaturate that solution with more sweetener by driving that truck through a heat wave. The temperature outside was 90 degrees at the moment I spotted it.
The Dum-Dums tanker wasn’t as strange as one vehicle I spotted while driving over an overpass last spring. It was one of those car carrier trucks, and its trailer was not attached. Instead, it was hauling two truck cabs just like itself. If I only I had a pictures of that oddity as it climbed and crested the overpass!
