Foto Finish: Orange

 This week's theme for Foto Finish by Cat Patches was Orange. I guess I have to finally admit that I'm a crazy cat lady after all. The first thing I thought of were my two orange cats, Oliver and Lilly.  So here they are!

 First is a picture I absolutely love of Oliver as a kitten. He just looks like the definition of bliss to me!

This picture is of Lilly on top and Oliver when he was a baby. 

 I can't help it, I'm crazy about my cats. And my dogs too for that matter.  I'll be posting about Dal-loween and Diamond's award winning costume as soon as I get a chance.

Thanks for stopping in! ~Amy

Foto Finish: Leaves

 Thanks again for Cat Patches for her Foto Finish theme making me dig back through the digital archives.

 This photo was taken in Philadelphia in 2005, when I visited my friend Stella. I got up early one morning and walked around her neighborhood taking pictures. I loved the changing foliage. Being from central Florida, we don't have the privilege of visual season changes.

Yikes, It's been another couple of weeks since I've updated.  One of these days, I am going to sit here and update like I need to. It probably won't be until December at the rate I'm going. We're super busy at work and the rescue event season has started.  Most days I am too tired to do much more than scroll through the blogs I like to read and check on my Facebook friends. 

  I just got home from a rescue event with Diamond and I'm beat. I need to work on her Dal-loween costume for next Saturday's picnic.  If I get it done, I will post pictures. With that being said, I'm outta here for now.

 

Thanks for stopping in! ~Amy

Rainy Rocks

The theme suggested by Barbara at Cat Patches this week is "Wet".  Since my mind is on our three day, Labor Day weekend, I was going to use a picture from our last scalloping trip, but you seen plenty of boating and swimming pictures already from me, so as I was perusing my extensive photo collection, I came across these shots from our trip to Massachusetts in September of 2004. Bruce is from western Mass. and this is Balance Rock near Pittsfield. It was raining all day, but that didn't stop us from venturing out to see new stuff (new to me anyway). I'm from the west coast of Florida, where it rains nearly every afternoon in the summer, so what's a little rain? 

It was sad to see all the graffiti on it, but it was neat, none the less. Here are a few more shots of the rocks and the area immediately around them.  If it hadn't been so wet, I would've insisted on trekking off down one of the paths, but we were between rain showers as it was.

 I will never understand why people feel the need to desecrate everything with paint and their names.

 That blurry guy is Bruce, just for some scale on the size of the rocks.

 The balance point. And more graffiti.

A Fire Newt, or salamander. I thought he was neat and it was nice to see something vaguely familiar. Florida is home to billions of lizards and not seeing one every where you go is kind of weird, when you've seen them all your life. 

 Thanks to Barbara for this trip down memory lane. She is always inspiring me to take new pictures and re-live some of the past ones.

Thanks for stopping in! ~Amy

Getting caught up

Foto Finish: Show Us Where You Live

As many pictures as I take, apparently I need to take more, so I can be better prepared for future Foto Finishes!  Here's my entry for "Show us where you live".  I took this photo several years ago from behind our shop. There was a small canal, and thankfully this big boy stayed on the other bank. Alligators are quite common in our lakes.

With our house guest here, I haven't been able to get on my computer much, so I'm really behind in my posting.  My brother came down to visit my Dad, who had a mild stroke back in July. Dad's doing ok and seeing lots of doctors to try and figure out the cause.  We took Todd out on the boat for the afternoon. We went out to Egmont Key, just off the coast from Fort Desoto. Here's a few pics from the the trip to island. 

  

The lighthouse was built in 1858 and is still in use today.

 

 An Opsrey in it's nest. The pillar is what remains of an old building on the island.

  

This is one of the Sea Turtle nests that were on the East side of the island. They are endangered and protected. It was good to see so many out there, since the oil spill hit many of the northern nesting sites. The tracks on the sand are from a Gopher Tortoise that live on the island. They are also protected. 

  

Some kind of hermit crab hole. I liked the way the tracks left a pattern on the sand.

One of the brick roads that still remains.

  

A Gopher Tortoise. We came across two that day. Both were more interested in eating than having their pictures taken.

My big brother, Todd. In true big brother fashion.  

Thanks for stopping in! ~Amy

Remembering

Here's my first entry for Foto finish.  The theme is "travel"  I haven't traveled much, so this is from the trip we took to Ellis Island. This eagle is over the entrance to one of the main  buildings that immigrants were shuffled through when they arrived here. My Great Grandmother went through this very building and I had goosebumps and teary eyes as I walked up the steps and through the building. She traveled here alone when she was 20 in 1911. She came to find work as a seamstress and to send money back to Italy to her ill mother and to bring her sister over as well.

This is me pointing to my Great Grandmother's name that is engraved on the memorial wall at Ellis Island. 

I never knew my Great Grandmother, but I'm close with my Grandmother and grew up with stories of what a strong woman my Great Grandma was.  I called my Grandma from this spot, looking at her mother's name, looking out at New York and the Statue of Liberty. I was teary eyed and touched as I thought of this strong, young woman traveling alone to a strange country, with God knows what awaiting her. She did not have an easy life. She worked as a seamstress and did marry, but her husband was abusive, so she took her five children and started a new life on her own.  My grandmother learned to sew from her and while I taught myself to sew, I know that some of that comes from them.