Even though winter just got here, officially, I’m already thinking towards the bulbs of spring. These tulips were at the New York Bronx Botanical Garden last May. For more cheery splashes of yellow, visit Mellow Yellow Monday. Let’s have a dream of spring tulips, shall we? And hie on over to Scenic Sunday while there’s still a bit of Sunday left.

This is my first flower photo of the new year, and my first with the new camera. How appropriately a bud! It is an amaryllis, and should open to a big showy blossom with a bright red color (‘Red Lion’), very soon. I’ll keep you posted.

For more flowers from around the world, visit Flowers For Today.

I’ve tagged this image as Best Post of the Week.

This huge nest of a bald eagle is in Kent, Washington, near the Green River. The occupants were elsewhere at the moment, but it’s still an amazing sight, to me.

For more skies around the world, visit Skywatch Friday. For more blissful Pinkness, try Pink Saturday.

And have a happy, healthy and lucky New Year!

Yes, this is with the new camera, but unfortunately I did not have the right settings in place, and the quality of this image, which is straight out of the camera, is pretty poor. But isn’t it a lovely scene? There I was down near the water, with such a sunset and the ferry right there, as scenic as it gets, and fumbling around in the almost dark I just failed to get it right. Darn. Well, try to imagine it with sharp, brilliant edges, and all the water ripples showing.

Visit Thursday Challenge for other special images. This week is free choice as to theme.

We went to a new (to us) park nearby in Burien, WA. Hubby has discovered geocaching and of course I wanted to try scenic shots with my new Canon s90 Powershot camera. What do you think? This it totally straight out of the camera (SOOC). I am trying to master the manual controls, a very difficult endeavor. This had the ISO set to 80. I thought I understood cameras and settings from my old SLR film camera days, but these have so very many settings that there seems to be no logic to it.

In any case, check out Watery Wednesday for more cyberwetness. And you can always stop by Scenic Sunday (I’m early, I know) for more scenigasms.

This is my friend Lyle’s dahlia garden. You can see the telltale shadow of me trying to photograph with one hand while holding the bouquet I had just picked in the other. Oh, the warm and sunny days of summer!

For more lovely flowers, visit Flowers For Today.

A sunny patch in the weather made some lovely shadows the other day. Visit Shadow Shot Sunday for more interesting and entertaining shadows.

It’s also straight out of the camera, or SOOC.

And even a week later this photo still makes me pause, so I’ve tagged it Best Post of the Week.

Santa came a bit early and I got a Canon Powershot S90! Here’s a very appropriate photo of the dawn, taken yesterday morning in my backyard, as my first post with the new camera. The only benefit of the days starting so late is I get to see the actual dawn sometimes. Have you guessed I am not naturally an early riser?

It’s going to take me awhile to get comfortable with the manual control features (which were part of the reason I got it) of the new toy. And it’s very small, no bigger than the 3-yr. old Canon point-and-shoot it replaced. Another plus is it does REALLY great in low light indoor situations without a flash, which I prefer in most cases. But so much to learn! I prefer things simple but I am pledged to master this.

Can’t wait to see what it does in the garden with flowers. For that I must wait.

For more skies of happiness and inspiration around the world, visit Skywatch Friday. And have a great holiday.

This was taken at my old front yard in the Des Moines house. Glads closest, yellow and orange day lilies behind, and some Asiatic (Oriental? I always get those confused) pink lilies behind that. The glads were such a thrill, and easy, too.

Visit Flowers For Today for more floriferousness. And Scenic Sunday is a great photo browse as well.

There’s a Winco grocery store in Renton, not too far away, that not only has great prices but has a parking lot with very sculptural trees and a big sky, too. This was taken last week. We are now entering the darkest week of the year (in the Northern hemisphere, of course), and soon the days will be on the upswing. Let’s hear it for the Solstice!

For more skies seen round the world, visit Skywatch Friday.

And thank you so much for those who clicked through to the Photoblog Awards and left a comment or a vote. I appreciate it so very much. And thank you to everyone for putting up with all that repeated blurb about it! We are done now.