Category: photography

daughter-in-law · grand-baby one · new beginnings · photography · son · wedding

A Floral Extravaganza

Joanne18 Comments

vase

For her wedding, Mary chose two beautiful flowers, baby’s breath and roses (we were too late in the season for peonies,) in a gorgeous peach shade, to match her bridesmaid’s dresses. To pretty up the rooms inside of the house, we ordered several bunches of matching flowers, in both long and short stems, so once the flowers that had decorated the marquees were brought inside and placed in various vases around the house, my home has been transformed into an exquisite floral paradise.

button hole roses

The two single roses in the foreground, above, were saved from a couple of men’s jackets, which were discarded once the ceremony formalities were over and the party had begun.

corsage 5

I, however, placed my beautiful corsage in a small vase on the table at the reception. These flowers are so pretty, I want to savour their beauty for as long as possible.

fishbowl flowers

Each table at the wedding reception had a lovely display of baby’s breath and roses inside a fishbowl……

roses & doiley

….which, when brought inside the house the next day, look just as stunning in a tiny vase on one of my coffee tables.

lotsa flowers

I really love to see several vases placed together on a table, in a mass display of white, cream and peach colourings, and isn’t the wedding candle just beautiful? I’ll tell you more about the candle shortly. Right now, it’s all about the flowers!

corsage & candle 2

Here’s my corsage again, looking lovely amid the peach roses. I must find out what type of flowers are in my corsage, as I’d really love to have these in my garden.

phlox

I’m quite sure that the flowers toward the centre and left of the photo above are called phlox. They have such delicate white petals and looked so pretty in small vases next to the vanity basin in the bathroom.

candle 2 (2)

Here’s the candle again, beside a floral display of whites and greens, which were a part of the decorations on the arbour, beneath which Adam and Mary exchanged their wedding vows.

roses

Aren’t the roses stunning? I have vases of roses everywhere, and have decided that you can never have too many roses in the house. 🙂

white flowers

The “ball” of baby’s breath (also known as gypsophilia) to the right of the candle, is one of the bridesmaid’s bouquets. Mary’s bouquet also contained roses, and she wore a simple baby’s breath headpiece in her hair. I’ll show you how beautiful she looked in a day or two.

corsage & roses

Here is another photo of all the shades of white, cream and peach together. I think I missed my calling in life, I should have been a florist! How I love these flowers. ❤

candle & base

And now to the story of the candle, a gift from our wonderful friend, Therese, who also happens to be a Marriage Celebrant, has known Adam all of his life, and officiated at the ceremony on Saturday. The candle represents new beginnings, and Therese has asked Adam and Mary to light the candle each year, on their Wedding Anniversary, to welcome another year of their married life together. And can you see the tiny glass bead in the base of the candle, with the letter “S” on it?

S

Here’s a closer look. Therese added the S for Samuel, Adam and Mary’s precious baby boy, stillborn just a month ago. The wedding ceremony began with mention of baby Sam, at which point several members of the wedding party, including the men, (and Mary’s mum and myself) became quite choked up with tears in our eyes, which were carefully dabbed away so as not to ruin our makeup. My precious little grandson will always be remembered.

arbour flowers

Next time, I will share a few photos of the wedding ceremony, in which you will see the arbour in all of its glory, but for now I hope you enjoy seeing a closeup of the crowning glory of the display, resting beautifully now upon my dinner table.

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Australia · Mount Warning · photography · Tweed Valley

Visions of Winter in the Valley

Joanne10 Comments

rising smoke

The back of my house overlooks the Tweed Valley, and the floor of the valley is covered in acre upon acre of sugar cane fields. Sugar production is one of the major industries in the area, just as it has been for many years, and during the winter, when the cane is ready for harvesting, fires are lit in the scrubby undergrowth, making way for a clear harvest run for the heavy machinery.

cane fire

Usually, we see the bright orange glow of the cane fires after night fall, when a strip of the valley can be seen first of all smoldering, slowly transforming into orange flames, and as the fire takes hold we often hear the crackling sounds in the stillness of the dark night. It’s a magical sight, and one which we never tire of seeing.

dancing flames

I’ve tried so often to take photos of the cane fires, but with the surrounding darkness of the night, rarely do the photos do justice to the sight we see. Recently however, I spotted a swirl of smoke in the valley, late in the afternoon, before nightfall. And it eventually developed into a doozy of a fire too!

blanket of smoke

As you can see in the final photo, at the peak of the blaze, the density of the smoke almost completely hid majestic Mount Warning, the extinct volcanic mountain, and overseer of the Tweed Valley.

I may complain ad-nauseum about the sweltering heat during the summer, but it is winter still, and all things considered, I do live in a beautiful part of Australia.

“Out on the patio we’d sit,
And the humidity we’d breathe,
We’d watch the lightning crack over canefields
Laugh and think, this is Australia.” ~ This is Australia, Gangajang.

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birds · blessings · grand-baby one · new beginnings · photography · winter

Up in the Clouds.

Joanne5 Comments
up in the clouds
Up in the Clouds

Drizzling rain has hung around on and off during the past couple of weeks here, and as it turned out, the drizzle was simply a rehearsal for the main performance. The unannounced showtime took place yesterday with a number of bedraggled birds taking their seats in the front row.

You may remember the view of a gentle sunset over Mount Warning that I showed you a couple of weeks ago, a “Wordless Wednesday” post. To fully appreciate the amount of cloud surrounding my home yesterday, take a quick look at the contrasting view in the link, to the one above….

Awaiting the main event.
Awaiting the main event.

Way down the back garden I noticed a kookaburra, sitting in the bare branches of the pecan nut tree.

Larry Arrives.
Larry Arrives.

The wet kookaburra in the distance turned out to be a cold Larry, who waited patiently while I took photos of him, fluffing up his feathers to look his best, before flying to the veranda for his breakfast. He’s been visiting me for so long now, and seems to know the routine ~ food for a photo.

The Currawong's Return.
The Currawong’s Return.

At nesting time, many of the old regulars return to the area, including a family of Currawongs. They are timid birds, watch the veranda from a distance, and fly away to the safety of a far away tree if I venture outdoors when they are in the garden.

My "regular" friend, Mrs. Magpie.
My “regular” friend, Mr. Magpie.

My regulars, a pair of magpies, are nesting nearby right now, just as they have done for the last few years. I can hand feed these two, and I suspect that I may have known them when they were tiny babies, brought to my garden by their parents, for a safe haven and an easy feed, between lessons on worm-catching.

Noisy Miner.
Noisy Miner.

Never far from the magpies are a flock of Noisy Miners. Watching the various birds flitting around my garden over the years has taught me that Noisy Miners are the protectors of the Magpie Family. I always know where to find one of my cats in the garden, as that’s where the miners will be kicking up a ruckus. And during summer, when we have Channel Billed Cuckoos in the area (they fly over to Australia from Papua New Guinea about mid spring,) the Noisy Miners help the Magpies attack the Cuckoos. It’s such a sad sight, knowing that the cuckoos, if they manage to get to the nests of the Magpies and Currawongs, will remove the eggs and newly hatched baby birds from the nests and lay their own eggs. We found three dead, featherless baby birds around our garden last year, and as a result we had no baby magpies in our area. That’s the sad side of nature. 😦

Larry and Shilo.
Larry and Shilo, posing, and waiting for food.

I had to go out shopping during the morning, regardless of the weather, and I left my home amid the rain absolutely bucketing it down! We are having a baby shower here on Saturday morning, and thankfully the weather forecast is looking a tad more promising for today and tomorrow, cloudy, with patches of sunshine. So far, the forecast is accurate.

Little Forlorn Bird.
Little Forlorn Bird.

I love the expressions on the faces of the Noisy Miners! Even on a beautiful sunny day, they have the most forlorn little faces. I watched this little fellow, above, for some time, as he ducked under the shelter of large leaves, stayed there momentarily, then ducked back out again. I wondered, did he expect the rain to suddenly stop?

As I mentioned before, we are having a baby shower here on Saturday morning, so today I am spending some time pre-preparing food for the party. In case you missed the news, my first grand-baby is due in November, and my soon to be daughter-in-law is now over her morning sickness, looking beautiful, and becoming more excited every day by all of the upcoming events. First of all the baby shower, the wedding in September, and the baby due in November, it’s a very exciting year for both families. 🙂

And for an update on our baby, I hope that Mary won’t mind that I “stole” a lovely photo of her that she posted on Facebook which she told me her sister had taken one day when they drove down to Murwillumbah, one fine-weather day. Mary is standing near some sugar cane fields, looking very pregnant and just lovely.

Beautiful mama-to-be.
Beautiful mama-to-be.

Happy days, filled with blessings. ❤