A Fish Fight

We finally have sun today! It’s so nice to see blue skies again.

But it did get chilly again too. I don’t mind as long as there is sun.

 

It was cloudy the day when I went to the dock with my husband. He did a little fishing and I brought my camera. I was hoping to get some shots of the osprey that hang out down there. I had actually forgotten about these pictures until I saw this shot of an eagle on Michelle’s blog.

photo from Emerald Cove

Isn’t that a great shot? She has a whole lot more photos of these magnificent creatures. Michelle took these shots at Lake Michigan. It looks like a gorgeous area.

After looking at her wonderful shots, I remembered about the day we went to the dock. 

I had to wait a bit but then I saw this.

I had just put on my new lens and I was fumbling trying to get this shot!

I was so excited to get it and then I realized that the osprey had company.

 

Someone wanted that fish!

 

 

It was amazing to watch.

We had heard there were eagle nests nearby but we had not seen any in awhile.

There was the one we saw last year in the neighbors yard eating something. 

That was freaky because he swooped by so close to us!

The osprey drops the fish but I don’t know if the eagle got it!

I just kept snapping away hoping I captured something.

I’m glad he found this fishing spot. I’ll be back for more pictures on a warmer and sunnier day.

The sun did start to come out just before we left.

 

The osprey was off to find some more supper.

Hope you stop by Emerald Cove and see her great shots too.

Have a great week.

Commenting Problems

Blog commenting.

This is what I want to ask you guys about today.

Not very exciting I know but I could use some help with this.

I will throw in random pictures of our very windy day at the beach because…..well, just because.

Maybe it will help keep you reading :)

(this was like a giant sculpture on the beach)

The other day one of my followers emailed me and let me know she could not leave a comment.

I was perplexed. I googled and googled and I think it might have something to do with browsers.

But then I decided to try to switch from embedded comments to a pop out window type.

And it helped her. I was thrilled because I figured there must have been others out there that were having issues too. I was so happy she took the time to let me know.

But then soon after I made the switch I started getting spam.

They are being caught by blogger and not getting posted. 

Well, except for that one dude that really hates women from the USA. Oh he’s a delight.

But the rest are just advertising type spam. They are going to my email but that's it. 

Good but still annoying.

 (tail of a shark that was getting weighed)

I’d still like to figure out how to get them to stop coming in my inbox.

I can not figure out the connection to having the pop out comment window and the spam. 

The spam usually comes from anonymous. Big surprise there. 

Should I just ban anonymous comments? 

Do you think that doing that will leave some people out? 

I usually just mark them as spam and then delete them.

But since they are anonymous they are sometimes connected to the same email thread of the “noreply” people.When this happens I can’t mark them as spam because the noreply people that are stuck in this thread will be marked as well. At least it's like that in gmail. 

The noreply people get lumped together.

Are you following me on this?

Those of you still in the “noreply” mode should read this post that Donna wrote on the how and why you should consider changing that. She also goes over a few other things  like getting rid of word verification!

I think that if you are having problems commenting on people’s blogs then perhaps you need to update your browser. I use google Chrome and I really love it. 

My son and I finally convinced my husband to switch over from Internet Explorer and he even said it was a lot faster. IE seems to have a lot of glitches when it comes to blogger. 

I may have to switch back to embedded comments and see if it helps get rid of those pesky spammers. I hope you’ll consider updating your browsers as well. It really helps.

I’d love to hear your opinions on this.

Embedded vs pop out comment windows.

Allowing anonymous vs blocking them.

Or anything you know of that might help out.

Thanks so much for all the wonderful birthday wishes for #3.

You guys are all so sweet. 

He read my post and got up and gave me a big hug! :)

Linking up with:
Kat Eye Studio: Exploring with a Camera/Opposing Lines

Camp Helen State Park

We took a drive a couple of weekends ago to Panama City.

 Hubby found a new anchor for his boat on craigslist. There was a mishap with is old one.

It seems there was a problem with a bolt that attaches it to the anchor line.

Yeah, it wasn’t there. So, anchors aweigh became anchors away.

Far far away.

On the way home we decided to stop at Camp Helen State Park for a quick look around.

This is the main lodge that looks out to Lake Powell. In 1928 Robert E. Hicks purchased 185 acres of land overlooking Philips Inlet, where he built a summer home for his wife, Margaret,

who named the compound Loch Lomond.

 

The stable is on the left and on the right is the old kitchen.

In 1945 Avondale Textile Mills of Sylacauga, Alabama purchased Loch Lomond from the Hicks family, renamed the property Camp Helen, and for 39 years operated a resort destination for their vacationing employees.

  Kim Klassen textures used above.

Subtly Yours and Warm Sun.

It’s a large park and we didn’t have time to walk all of the trails.

 

KK Subtly Yours (twice, multiply and soft light) and Warm Sun again.

  

I could have spent an hour just taking photos of all the butterflies.

We’ll have to make another trip so we can explore a bit more.

And bring some fishing poles.

KK Stained Linen and Subtly Yours.

These are the original cottages that the employees used when they vacationed here.

Aren’t they cute?

I couldn’t imagine staying in them during the summer with no air conditioning even though they say the location helps with the breeze.

It was so overcast that day. The skies look rather dull.

That is until it was time to go. Then the blue sky showed up! 

Do you have state parks near you that you love to go to?

Linking up with:
Kim Klassen: Texture Tuesday

End of Summer

Sadly summer is coming to an end. You can feel a change in the air.

But I’m sure we still have some hot and sticky days to come.

With the highs in the 80’s we spent Sunday on the water with some friends.

I was a little late for the sunrise but the morning light was still gorgeous.

I used a couple of Kim Klassen’s older textures. Chamomile and Water stain.

Kim’s Skinny Mini class is open for registration now. 

It is the best class to introduce you to the ins and outs of photoshop. 

I highly recommend it.  It’s self paced and it’s free!

Kim also has Photoshop Elements class and an Art of Texture class. Go here for more info.

It’s always fun looking at all the dreamy houses on the water.

They recently finished building this one.

I’ve shown you my dream house before. But lets look at it again shall we.

These aren’t as big but this one has an infinity pool. Don’t know how I feel about the elephants.

This cottage style home caught by eye. The stone fireplace is so pretty.

It even comes with a sailboat.

 

The enforcers were keeping an eye on us.

  

That is when they weren’t busy fishing.

They were better at it then us. I only caught a fat catfish.

It was a relaxing day and I sure slept well that night.

Hope you guys had a relaxing weekend as well.

Linking to: 

Kim Klassen Cafe: Texture Tuesday

The Sea Was Angry That Day My Friends

We had a little visitor this past weekend.

Lee stopped by and brought a some rain and a little wind.

Okay, well a lot.

We took a drive down to the beach to see what the waves were like.

It looked like a giant washing machine.

It was much more windy at the beach then at my house.

 

We had a hard time standing still.

And focusing was a bit of an issue.

Even the warning flags were barely hanging on.

 

But the birds seemed to be having a grand time.

They didn’t have to flap their wings much that's for sure.

They were just gliding along.

I felt bad for the tourists who I’m sure were not too happy with the weather.

But these guys were bound and determined to have some beach time.

They were having a cookout.

Might as well I guess.

Hope they like their burgers salty.

ps. Who can tell me where the title of this post comes from?