It’s a bit grainy but it was a sort of grainy day on the Pacific Ocean in southern Oregon some years back. (It’s also a small part of the original photograph.) And I’d love to go back, as the Pacific northwest is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been to, and lived in for a few short years.

Link back to Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: It’s All About Nature

You’re welcome to visit my Barns! Barns! Barns! photostream in flickr where you can register for free and upload your own photos of old barns, farm houses and other farm-related items. There are currently 497 members and over 2,900 photographs and growing. If you love barns, you’ll love this website!

 

There’s not a lot of ABCs out here in the country, so I had to come up with a little ingenuity in order to meet this week’s challenge. I hope I passed the audition. Love to you all. Have a great day!

Comments are always welcome.

Link back to Weekly Photo Challenge: alphabet

You’re welcome to visit my Barns! Barns! Barns! photostream in flickr where you can register for free and upload your own photos of old barns, farm houses and other farm-related items. There are currently 315 members and 2,058 photographs and growing. If you love barns, you’ll love this website!

The ABCs of LOVE

 

Now is anything. Now is now. Here are some of the nows I have been enjoying over the Christmas weekend with family. I hope you enjoy them. Comments are always welcome.

Link back to Weekly Photo Challenge: Now

You’re welcome to visit my Barns! Barns! Barns! photostream in flickr where you can register for free and upload your own photos of old barns, farm houses and other farm-related items. There are currently 310 members and 1,955 photographs. If you love barns, you’ll love this!

Girl’s Room 1 (Mom painted)

Girl’s Room 2

Christmas mantle. Socks were too heavy. Too much coal.

Two faces of Christmas

Grandkids’ Christmas tree

Christmas tree loot. Those are newborn diapers in the tree. Just a week old.

Oops can take many forms. We’re going to skip the embarrassing ones for now. Enjoy these.

Link back to Weekly Photo Challenge: Oops

You’re welcome to visit my Barns! Barns! Barns! photostream in flickr where you can register for free and upload your own photos of old barns, farm houses and other related items. There are currently 305 members and 1,773 photographs. If you like barns, you’ll love this!

Here is a little piece of Smithfield Reservoir north of Kansas City, Missouri. I wanted to do this in black and white, which is something I don’t normally do, because color just didn’t do it for me. I beefed up the contrast 100 percent and cropped out the extraneous part of the photograph that I originally thought more highly of. I believe I sharpened it just a bit also. I hope you enjoy it.

Smithfield Reservoir, north of Kansas City, Missouri

Angels symbolize all things good to me. While typically thought of as female in the modern age, and even in the middle ages, they were male in the Bible. At least, I’m not aware of any female angels in the Bible. I could be wrong, however, as I haven’t read the ENTIRE Bible yet.

If there is anything honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, hopeful, virtuous, lovely, of good report, praiseworthy, we may attribute these qualities to angels — male or female. It is these qualities we must strive to obtain if we are to reach our highest reaches of humanity.

Angels are also protectors and providers of and for those who seek to do God’s will. At least, there are many examples of this in the Bible. And we certainly hear of many contemporary anecdotes of angels coming to the assistance of people in need in many different ways.

“Thou madest him [man] a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands.” (Hebrews 2:7.)

Now, what it means to be “a little lower than the angels” I am not prepared to say, only that with a little effort and a lot of help from God, we can perhaps obtain these qualities that would put us in the presence of angels and make them our friends.

Link back to Weekly Photo Challenge: Symbol

You’re welcome to come visit my Barns! Barns! Barns! photostream in flickr where you can upload your own photos of old barns, farm houses and other related items.

Angels we have heard on high

Downtown Altamont, MO is almost a ghost town, although the village itself sports a population of (I think) 209. Yet, the only business it has is a towing service, which has an old tired/retired gas pump out front. The village also has a post office that was almost retired by the USPS, but instead, it was relegated to a part-time service. It also has a fire department.

Altamont had a tire repair/sales business run out of someone’s home, but that has recently retired. If there are any other business goings-on, I am not aware of it.

These old doors were once part of (presumably) two thriving businesses located next to each other, kitty corner from the towing service. One was a grocery store. I am not sure what business the other door belonged to. If I remember correctly, DOOR #2 was the grocery stoer.

Link back to Weekly Photo Challenge: Door

You’re welcome to come visit my Barns! Barns! Barns! photostream in flickr where you can upload your own photos of old barns, farm houses and other related items.

What’s behind door #1

What’s behind door #2

Old barns are my first love. I always keep running back to them, although it’s getting harder and harder to find new ones in my immediate area. And it’s not like I can just hop over a barbed wire fence to go onto the property to get different views of them. I’ve already had a truck-load of rednecks (no offense to rednecks) chase me down the street because I was perfectly legally taking photos of a barn from the street apparently belonging to them. No shotgun so far, but I’m not going to press the issue.

The first barn below is one I took a couple of years ago, maybe, followed by two that I took earlier this year after a very powerful flat wind came charging through the neighborhood last summer. These are followed by two photos of a rather neglected old barn somewhere south of Blanchard, Iowa, just into Missouri.

Link back to Weekly Photo Challenge: Muse
You’re welcome to come visit my Barns! Barns! Barns! photostream in flickr where you can upload your own photos of old barns, farm houses and other related items.

Pre-flat wind barn

There wasn’t anything at left of the barn after it was visited by a very powerful flat wind, I believe, last year.

Take 2

South side

North side

Silhouettes come in all shapes and sizes. A sunset is a perfect place for a silhouette. This one was taken from the steps of my back yard as a lark. Which one looks better to you? Or do they all look crappy? 🙂

Comments are welcome.

Sunset in my back yard.
©2014 Cris Coleman All Rights Reserved

©2014 Cris Coleman All Rights Reserved

Link back to Weekly Photo Challenge: Silhouette.

You’re welcome to come visit my Barns! Barns! Barns! photostream in flickr where you can upload your own photos of old barns, farm houses and other related items.

This photo challenge foregoes the straightforward in favor of the twisting and winding.

One never knows what one can find when traipsing down the old gravel/dirt road that passes my house. So, I grabbed my camera and went exploring, expecting to take photographs of the small wildflowers that line the road’s shoulders.

I was nearly back home, after taking many pics, when I spotted this zig-zaggy tread that I had been walking over the entire time. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. Well, anyway, here it is.

Comments are welcome.

Tread ©2014 Cris Coleman All Rights Reserved

Link back to Weekly Photo Challenge: Zigzag.
You’re welcome to come visit my Barns! Barns! Barns! photostream in flickr where you can upload your own photos of old barns, farm houses and other related items.