Remodel

Close to two years ago I posted a picture of Rogers Bakery & Cafe, one of my favourite places to eat in the valley. Last spring a fire starting in their attic caused them to close due to fire damage. While the roof was repaired relatively quickly, the rest of the building needed some work, and unfortunately they ran into several complications, forcing them to keep their doors locked for seven months. Yesterday morning they opened their doors for the first time since April, and wow, what a difference! They took advantage of the need for fire repairs and completed a much-needed makeover. I am impressed and excited to eat lunch there today. (This picture was taken yesterday morning when I went for coffee and a bagel.) Oh Rogers, how I've missed you!

Update

Some of you may recall my post last spring of my daughter at eight months old. It's one of my favourite pictures to this day and hangs in large version on the wall in my living room. I also posted a picture of when she was only three days old, taken back at the beginning of August 2009. Here is an update shot...she's now walking everywhere, dressing like a big girl and growing slowly but surely. She can say a few words now, and understands almost infinitely more than she did even a month ago. This is her walking with her daddy to the car after church this past weekend.

Good Morning

I just love the view from my front window on days like this. The snow makes everything clean and quiet, and the sunlight on such a scene makes me warm inside. In America it is now officially the Christmas season, now that Thanksgiving is over (though all the stores and many homes put up decorations at the beginning of November). This scene is quite fitting for that time of year, as all of us in the northern hemisphere imagine white Christmases! (Sorry, Aussies...I just can't imagine a Christmas on the beach!)

Fire & Ice

This was taken through my kitchen window earlier this week. The sun was just peeking out over the Blue Mountains and was making the icicles look as though they were glowing.

Frosty Morning

Earlier this week it got down to about five degrees (F) at night. When we woke up there was not only frost like this on the kitchen window, but in our bedroom there was ice on the inside of the window. Our house is old and not well-insulated, and the windows are old and drafty. The frost did create a pretty scene through the window, though.

Snow, Snow and More Snow!

It snowed practically all day yesterday and we had several inches by the time dinner rolled around. (I'm not sure what the official count was.) I took this photo from my (warm!) car; the central building on the Walla Walla U. campus is the administration building and the campus seems to fan out from this central point. It was, indeed, still snowing when I took this picture yesterday morning.

Tangled

The first thing that catches my eye about this photo is of course the bright red berries in contrast with the dark branches and white snow. But the next thing I noticed was the incredible woven "pattern" of the branches of this beautiful bush. This was taken at Walla Walla U. yesterday morning.

Perseverance

Yes, the snow hit the valley this weekend. We are forecast to have eight inches by tomorrow morning, and I believe it might just happen. I love the way the summer's last flowers look covered in snow. Their colours look even more vivid this way. This particular flower is determined to survive as long as possible on the Walla Walla U. campus this winter.

First Snow

A friend of mine grabbed this photo from what I call Mt. Hope Hill, as it is where Mt. Hope Cemetery is located in College Place. We got our first snow of the season on the Blue Mountains, all the way down to the base of the foothills, on Wednesday night. She took this picture on Thursday evening.

Layers

A sunset earlier this week had the clouds simply glowing and it was irresistible.

Unusual View

I had a meeting downtown earlier this week and it was held in a fifth-floor conference room. I'm rarely this far above the city (this may, in fact, have been my first time), so I had to take the opportunity to get some photographic memories. Unfortunately this window didn't open so I had to deal with the glass lines. I do, however, love the sunlight on the side of Banner Bank and the foothills of the Blue Mountains in the background. The intersection you can see there is the corner of 2nd and Alder in Walla Walla.

Solitude

I was driving from a meeting in town back to my office when I saw this scene and knew I had to capture it. Fortunately I was on a semi-back road and there were no other cars, because I quickly pulled over and snapped this quick shot from my car. The sunset last night was beautiful! One of the many reasons to love the WW Valley.

Awaiting Their Fate

The university grounds crew had come along and used their power blowers to push all the fallen leaves into one big long pile, presumably to pick them up and dispose of them. I liked the way it looked with all the oranges, browns, golds and yellows in an endless line.

Happy Birthday!

A friend of mine threw a birthday party for her little girl who turned one at the beginning of the month and my daughter and I spent an hour with them and the other guests, laughing, keeping the kids from fighting over the new toys the birthday girl got, and generally having a good time. Before she cut into it, I snapped this quick (blurry - sorry!) photo with my cell phone. She made this cake herself; the top and bottom tiers were applesauce spice cake and the middle layer was butternut squash cake. I tried the applesauce part and it was delicious! She's a fabulous cake maker. I feel like I'm friends with Martha Stewart sometimes.

From Under the Stormclouds

The sky was dark and foreboding when I snapped this quick photo with my cell phone, but the sun was doing its best to get below the darkness and light up the fall colours. Oh how I love autumn colours!

Wagons

Another photo editing experiment...Above is the original photo. It was taken at Klickers, which I've posted pictures from before, I believe. In the summer they sell strawberries, in the fall it's pumpkins and in winter it's Christmas trees. They also have an antique shop, fruit/veg stand and ice cream parlor, where they sell their homemade ice cream. It's quite tasty. Everything they sell is grown on their farm. These wagons are for use in hauling pumpkins; you pick a wagon, pull it down to the patch, choose your pumpkins and load up the wagons to go back to the shop and pay. They're 20 cents per pound this year. Below are the edited versions of this photo. Which one do you like best - original or one of the edits? And why?

Edit 1



Edit 2

Edit 3

Brunch

Perched on a fence at the side of our house, a flicker was munching on some late harvest grapes. The fall colours really make this picture, I think; the flickers have really been enjoying our neighbourhood lately and I'm not sure why. Flickers are common in this valley, and are related to woodpeckers, so they have hearty, thick beaks and can be heard hammering away on telephone poles and thick tree trunks throughout the summer. When they are in flight they have a distinctive wing-flap/swoop pattern, and the underside of their wings display a splash of rusty red.

Idyllic?

Evening light casts a warm glow on a College Place barn and the Blue Mountains in the distance on a chilly fall day.

Can't Get Enough

I seriously can't get enough of the fall colours in this valley...though I do understand they are nothing compared to those in the Northeast. I spent five days in upstate New York a couple of weeks ago and the foliage simply took my breath away. Though this weekend the peak colours around this valley have done the same thing. I will get more foliage photos for you in the coming week, before they all disappear (it seems to happen overnight every year!).

Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands

The parents of some friends of mine built this mini faux creek next to their house when their yard kept flooding due to spring swelling of Mill Creek, a small river that flows through Walla Walla and College Place. A lot of Mill Creek is underground in Walla Walla; there are several spots downtown where you can stand at a fence and look down into the swiftly-flowing water (in the summer) or shallow stream (in the winter).

Autumn Skies

The sun heading toward the horizon on a fall evening in College Place.

A Different Kind of Colour

Believe it or not there are still a few flowers blooming around the WW Valley. These gorgeous daisy-style flowers (I know, I'm terrible -I don't know my flora!) were quite prolific around a local front yard - in two different colours.

Stubbornness

These leaves are stubbornly refusing to give into the fact that it is fall and they should no longer be green. At least a couple of them gets it...

Evening Walk

Original Photo

This family was out for a walk on an autumn evening and I snapped a quick photo, then decided to play around with some effects. I'm just dabbling in photo editing, so it's nothing amazing, but I had fun.

Reduced Colour



Greyscale

2-Colour (Black & White) with Brightness and Saturation Adjustment

Comforter

This is a statue located outside the College Place Presbyterian Church. I don't know the story behind it, but as the man is holding a hammer I would guess it is something about the man being tired and needing comfort from the Creator.