The Old Massanutten School

Luray, VA

This building served as a school from 1875 to 1937. It was moved to downtown Luray in 1974 so that it could be preserved as a historical attraction.

Blue Jay Visits the Feeders

The blue jay is one of the larger birds that visits my deck. I remember as a child, I picked up their tail feathers from the ground and admired the colors. My mother cautioned me that feathers could have germs, but they were irresistible. 

The first picture was taken through a window using my Nikon. The second one was taken by the feeder cam a month ago. Jays don’t come to that feeder as often as the finches and cardinals, but this one was probably hungry when snow was on the ground.

Light Snow on a Greening Field

A Hint of Spring, but First:
More Winter!

Mural at Rutters

Near Winchester, VA

I found this mural on the outskirts of Winchester near the airport. The reason I was looking for it was that I have seen a few other murals by the artist Layton Scarbrough, and saw this one listed on his website. It represents Winchester and the surrounding area, including farms and the Shenandoah River. 

Monday  Murals / Mosaics

Rutters is a gas station/convenience store chain from Pennsylvania. I think this is their first store in Virginia. It reminds me of a Sheetz with fancier lights, but if you aren’t from the mid-Atlantic states, you probably aren’t familiar with those stores either. 

White Barn in Snow

Hello, March! Winter will be over soon.

Today the weather was beautiful, but it’s supposed to get cold tomorrow with snow or rain, depending on the temperature.These pictures are from a snowy day in February. 

The City Daily Photo theme for March 1 is “White.” Since not much is whiter than snow, I went back through my pictures to find a snow scene that I had not used. I took both of these in Woodstock, VA.

Final February Dog Report

Hi! Charlie here. I hope you had a good week.

One day we took a short walk on the wetlands boardwalk in Woodstock.

We saw some mallard ducks, but the creek was a muddy greenish color so Mom made the picture black and white.

Mom says that this is the last day of February, and soon it will be spring. We imagine that the colors will be bright and the ducks will celebrate.

Ducks can fly. If I had wings, I could fly with them and have adventures.

There are still birds that come to the feeders in our yard. The cardinals eat a lot!

Mom got this thing that is supposed to have a smell that makes dogs calm. The smell seemed okay to me, but it gave her a headache so she unplugged it.

Today we went across the river to Seven Bends State Park. The sun was bright and the weather got warm, so other dogs and people were there.

I like the smells at the park. And we saw children playing.

After that, we went to the car wash. I’m not scared of it because I’ve been there before. It makes noise and sprays water, but I stay dry inside.

I don’t have much else to tell you. I spent one day at the kennel and I spent an afternoon at Sadie’s house. Oh, I got a new doggy seatbelt and it’s short, which makes me sit on the part of the seat that makes the seatbelt alarm go off. Luckily, we still have the longer one. I like it because it lets me jump through the space between the front and back seat. That makes Mom frown, but I think it’s fun!

Tennis Court, Monochrome

 W. O. Riley Park

This was two weeks ago when the snow was melting. Now the snow is gone except for spots where it was plowed into big piles. 

The wet pavement lost color in the snow and puddles, so I went ahead and converted the first picture to black and white. I also took a picture of a dry detail because I liked the shadow. I wasn’t satisfied with it, though, until I angled it and cropped it.

Arnold Newman Exhibit

Museum of the Shenandoah Valley

Yesterday I went to Winchester to see a new photography exhibit of work by Arnold Newman. He was one of the great portrait photographers of the 20th century. 

The images are wonderful. After viewing so many, I could recognize techniques that he used repeatedly: dramatic lighting, posing a subject to show their work or personal life, using architectural features to build a composition, and cropping carefully. 

While I was at the museum, I also took pictures of indoor lighting for a local photo group challenge.

At the end of the day, I picked up Charlie from daycare at the veterinary. He still can’t stand to be by himself very long. Here’s a picture that I took outside the building. The shadow on the fence caught my eye.

Merganser Ducks

Shenandoah River

These pictures are from February 13. I took them with my cell phone and could not tell what kind of ducks I was seeing until I cropped the pictures. They are "common mergansers." They don’t seem that common to me because most of the time when I see ducks around here, they are either mallards or domestic ducks.

The females have copper-brown heads. I saw these from the canoe launch at Seven Bends State Park. 

I searched my photo files for ducks to see if I had other mergansers, but mostly mallards came up. Also, the word Duck came up on a couple of signs which I don’t really understand. This first one was on the rear window of a car.

There was also this sign at a country club.

South Fork, February

Shenandoah River State Park

Bike Repair Tools

Wordless Wednesday on Tuesday / Mosaic