Mushroom Fairy Rings

When I was in graduate school I had a boyfriend whose major was botany.  I still had a year to go in graduate school when he graduated with his undergrad degree.  Because his grades were so good they gave him a full scholarship to go to graduate school.  He took them up on it.  He had to come up with a thesis topic and he had always been interested in mushrooms.  He decided to do it on 'Fairy Rings.'  At first I thought he was joking but I now know he wasn't.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_ring ,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_ring_mushroom Sometimes when I walk I come across these rings and just have to get pictures of them since they remind me so much of him.

 I got this one because it had a fly on it.

I did this one because it was so typical of those mushrooms.

 The year before I had seen a fairy ring at this place and could see the circle impression of it still.

 A couple of weeks later when it started to rain I noticed the circle had some mushrooms coming up out of it.

 The circle again later in the day after it had stopped raining.

I was out walking again and got some more images to update this post
Heres the same fairy ring a week later

 These were in other yards.  I do notice that they have a tendency to show up after rains.

A Flash of Lightening

The other day I was at my son's first football game of the season.

 It was half time and I noticed the the sun was setting.  Since I had my camera with me I decided to take a photo of the pretty sunset.  To get a good shot that didn't have the press box in it I moved to the top of the bleachers. This is the first image I got and it was looking more to the northwest than due west due to the color play in the clouds.

 I was surprised that there was a flash when I took the next one since the first one didn't flash and I hadn't changed anything.  It ended up being a lot lighter than the other one.  I still thought it was pretty and kept it anyway. I headed back to my spot because the other areas of the sky were not near as pretty and it wasn't worth trying to get an image.

 Then I realize why I saw a flash, there was lightening in the distance to the north. And turned my camera on it and was able to get these images. (I know these aren't the best - but I was using a point and shoot camera and was surprised I could get anything at all since there's such a delay in getting images with this camera.)

 This one I cropped so that you can see it better. 

We only had those couple of bolts and no rain.You could tell it was in the distance and really wasn't headed our way but was heading north.  Yet, I was surprised that the game continued on- I felt it should have been cancelled.  I wished it had since my son's team ended up loosing.  But then again that's the nature of sports one team wins and the other looses.

I muse:  I've never had gotten an image of lightening before.  I'm glad I've finally gotten one.

I muse:  It was nice being up high and being able to see the lightening like that.

A mosaic of the Sun Setting on Lake Erie

This summer I ended up going back to Ohio to help take care of my aging parents.  My stepfather is 95 and my mom is 89.  Due to some health issues my mom was having troubles taking care of herself and him.  So when the call came I didn't think twice about going up there and helping out until other arrangements could be made. 
   My mom has a place on lake Erie and to rejuvenate ourselves we would go out to the lake and spend a couple of days there.  One of the things I loved to do with her was to watch the sunset.  Each day it was always so different from the next.

One of the reason's why the sunsets are so spectacular in this area is because of this:

The Perry Power plant.  As you can tell its not too far from the place we stay at.  In fact here's what it sometimes looks like when I step outside.

 Can you guess were the power plant is?

In both of these pictures the wind was blowing from the west to the east.  But sometimes in the summer the wind direction is from the south and the clouds of steam get blown over the lake, and when they do its amazing how pretty sunsets can be.  I might also add that sometimes lake effects also produce some spectacular clouds over the lake too for some different looking sunsets too.
Enough of my ramblings and here's what I'm trying to share with you.
A typical sunset  with the clouds coming from the plant.

 I don't know if you can see the sea gulls or not so here's a closer view, and one with more color to it.

 Here's what it looked like the next day. Quite a difference.

And this was a little later.
The reason the color is so different was due to the angle at which I took the picture.  You wouldn't think something like that would make such a difference but it does.  That and also the sun had a chance to go down more. 

  And this was the next day.  I liked this one because there were ore boats on the lake when I took this.

Ore boat on  Lake Erie

 This was a pretty blah sunset.

 The next day was a whole lot more interesting. I kinda like this one because it almost looked like an eye.

Sun setting on Lake Erie

 The next day was blah again but I like this one with the jet skier.

Jet skier on Lake Erie

And this one with the purple martin headed home.

Purple Martin heading home, with the sun setting on Lake Erie

And here are some from other visits that I never got around to using.

Sun set on Lake Erie

Here's one showing the lake effect, generating clouds and effecting the sunset.

 And one day this is when a storm was rolling in and my brother was showing me where it was.

 And here are the sunset pictures thanks to that storm.

  This was a different day with the same type of weather pattern.

 What amazes me is this is the way the images have turned out and I've didn't even have to auto enhance them since the colors that turn out are pretty spectacular in there own right. These are taken just a couple minutes apart but the closer the sun gets the water the more intense the colors become, and the darker the background gets.

  I really liked this one because it almost looked like it was eyes in the sky.

 

 I thought this was going to be another blah one but in the end the colors were so vibrant.  It surprised me.

 I just love the way the light sometimes reflects off of the water.

 And here are some that are just a couple of seconds to minutes apart yet it shows how rapidly things change with the sun setting.

 I really liked the way the light reflects of the clouds sometimes.

 Well that's it for now.  Now you can see why I like looking at the sunset on Lake Erie.

I muse; I wonder what the next one will look like.