A Stroll in the Garden

“All you need is love and a cat.” – Unknown

*Clicking on a photo will give you a closer look!

“I had been told that the training procedure with cats was difficult. It’s not. Mine had me trained in two days.” – Bill Dana

“Cats are connoisseurs of comfort.” – James Herriot

“Time spent with cats is never wasted.” – Sigmund Freud

“There are two means of refuge from the misery of life — music and cats.” ― Albert Schweitzer

“What greater gift than the love of a cat.” ― Charles Dickens

“Never try to outstubborn a cat.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

“I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.” ― Hippolyte A. Taine

“Cats leave paw prints in your heart, forever and always.” – Unknown

Kallie

RIP

March 01, 2017 – June 21, 2021

A Stroll in the Garden

 

Ordinary people who faithfully, diligently, and consistently do simple things that are right before God will bring forth extraordinary results. -David A. Bednar

*Clicking on a photo will give you a closer look!

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence. -Samuel Johnson

For dreams to come true, it requires diligence. Believing is the most important thing! -Yunho

“The natural consequence of diligence and persistence is competence and success.” ― Vincent Okay Nwachukwu, Weighty ‘n’ Worthy African Proverbs – Volume 1

Diligence overcomes difficulties; sloth makes them. -Benjamin Franklin

Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you. -Arnold Palmer

Diligence is not easy, but we can’t reach our goals without it. -Henry Cloud

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence. -Abigail Adams

The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools. -Confucius

Focused, hard work is the real key to success. Keep your eyes on the goal, and just keep taking the next step towards completing it. If you aren’t sure which way to do something, do it both ways and see which works better. -John Carmack

Stay healthy!  Stay safe! 

A Stroll in the Garden

“I spent my young adult years postponing many of the small things that I knew would make me happy…I was fortunate enough to realize that I would never have the time unless I made the time. And then the rest of my life began.”  ― Chris Peterson

*Clicking on a photo will give you a closer look!

“My barn having burned down, I can now see the moon.”  ― Mizuta Masahide (17th century Japanese poet and samurai)

“If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces.”  ― Shane Koyczan

“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”  ― Margaret Thatcher

“Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”  ― Nelson Mandela

“A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It’s jolted by every pebble on the road.”  -Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) clergyman and social reformer

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

“To be nobody but yourself in a world that’s doing its best to make you somebody else is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting.” e. e. cummings (1894-1962), poet, essayist, and playwright

“Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.” –E.B. White

Stay healthy!  Stay safe! 

A Stroll in the Garden

Do not blame the thistle that you see no beauty. -Johnathan Lockwood Huie

*Clicking on a photo will give you a closer look!

I see, when I bend close, how each leaflet of a climbing rose is bordered with frost, the autumn counterpart of the dewdrops of summer dawns. The feathery leaves of yarrow are thick with silver rime and dry thistle heads rise like goblets plated with silver catching the sun. -Edwin Way Teale

You can imagine thistle-down so light that when you run after it your running motion would drive it away from you, and that the more you tried to catch it the faster it would fly from your grasp. And it should be with every man, that, when he is chased by troubles, they, chasing, shall raise him higher and higher.
-Henry Ward Beecher

The thistle is a prince. Let any man that has an eye for beauty take a view of the whole plant, and where will he see a more expressive grace and symmetry; and where is there a more kingly flower? –Henry Ward Beecher

If your thought is a rose, you are a rose garden; and if it is a thistle, you are fuel for the fire. -Rumi

A crippled child Said, “How shall I dance?” Let your heart dance,We said. Then the invalid said: “How shall I sing?” Let your heart sing, We said. Then spoke the poor dead thistle, “But I, how shall I dance?” Let your heart fly to the wind, We said. Then God spoke from above “How shall I descend from the blue?” Come dance for us here in the light, We said. All the valley is dancing Together under the sun, And the heart of him who joins us not Is turned to dust, to dust.
-Gabriela Mistral

A man that hoards up riches and enjoys them not, is like an ass that carries gold and eats thistles. -Richard Burton

Driving down the wrong road and knowing it, The fork years behind, how many have thought To pull up on the shoulder and leave the car Empty, strike out across the fields; and how many Are still mazed among dock and thistle, Seeking the road they should have taken? -Damon Knight

When on the breath of Autumn’s breeze, From pastures dry and brown, Goes floating, like an idle thought, The fair, white thistle-down; O, then what joy to walk at will, Upon the golden harvest-hill! -Mary Howitt

Stay healthy!  Stay safe! 

Macro Practice

“You will never get better with the macro lens unless you use it!”

So says my daughter (and my daughter-in-law, and my niece).

They are right.  This post is for them.

I almost always shoot with my 55mm lens.  I have a macro lens and I whine to them that I have trouble with it.  

They are unsympathetic (Actually, they are sympathetic, but not enough to let me off the hook.).  Smart girls.

So the following photos are my practice…trying to overcome camera shake…trying to focus properly…trying.

Showing my girls that I am practicing.  I am using the macro lens.

*Clicking on a photo will give you a closer look!

Stay healthy!  Stay safe!