At Skylands the other day I found a few water lilies still blooming. As I approached the canal, I heard strange little cries, then a plopping noise in the water.

Upon closer inspection I realized that it was little frogs jumping off the lily pads! Only one of them was brave enough to pose for a photo shoot.

I’d say this little guy has his camouflage down pat.

The biggest ending is of course the loss of our sweet cat Sam. I still have not done a tribute to him here on the blog. Soon.

Assorted leaves hanging out before the pool was closed.

The pool is closed for the season. Its winter cover keeping it tidy for the autumn and winter seasons to come. It’s sad, but it was time. Next year we are looking to install a heater to add several weeks on to the beginning and the end of pool season.

Yesterday also was the end of my photography classes. I wish they offered a more in-depth class to hone the skills I learned but they don’t. So for now I’ll just have to take what I did learn and practice on my own. I was amazed how so many people can talk the talk but can’t walk the walk. They can go on and on about this and that about their camera, throwing all kinds of terms around, but when it comes to actually taking photos they aren’t very good! Yesterday we had to go out into the parking lot and take photos of textures, reflections, patterns, lines and etc. and then come in and do a slideshow. It was enlightening for sure. One girl who claims to have a job in a photography studio didn’t even know what the hot shoe was! She also did not share her photos with the class. (It was optional to share.)

It’s also the end of summer. Even when the days get up in to the 70’s the air is different and you can tell the heat has lost its punch.

My neighbor’s tree.

Little mushrooms are popping up in the yard.

Apples and fall fruits take over the farmer’s market.

In other news, Sam’s death kind of took away the excitement and pleasure of seeing my photo/s in print in two local newspapers. They actually did use them!

The Trends reaches has a large distribution and reaches our whole county. They used their staff photographer’s photo on the front page (boohoo, but hey they have to pay him!) but used my photo on the inside.

I was also surprised and pleased to see that their affiliated paper, Aim West Milford, that is local just to our township used both photos I submitted. (Also on on inside page.)

I was very pleased. And proud. I am thinking they had a lot of photo submissions for the fire and yet they chose to use mine.

So, that’s it for today. Kind of a mish-mash, but there you have it.

It would seem we don’t get much sleep around here. Fireworks. Sirens of twenty different fire companies. An owl.

We haven’t had any owls around since we moved to New Jersey. We always wondered why we never heard one given all the woods that surround our house.

We can’t say that anymore. We’ve heard this owl a couple of times over the past month. The hoo-hoo-hooing of some kind of owl we were not familiar with. It’s always around the same time in the wee hours of the morning, right around 4:00 to 4:30 a.m. Sometimes it sounds like it’s right outside our window, and since we have huge trees in the front yard, it probably is!

Last night the owl outdid itself. When it first woke me it was pretty close, then it settled in further away in the woods and kept hoo-hooing for a good fifteen minutes. Then another one joined in that was very close and it was a very strange noise. Even Rick woke up for that one!

This morning I looked it up and given I only had three choices of owl species to choose from it wasn’t hard to figure it out. Our choices where we live are Great Horned (which we knew it was not by the voice), Barred, and Eastern Screech Owl. No screeching, so I got out my bird song CD and played the voice of the Barred Owl. Bingo!

Here is our culprit, the Barred Owl. The link kindly provides sound!

I don’t mind being woken by Mr. Barred. It’s kind of nice to have an owl around.

I do hope you’ll bear with me. I am in a funk. Yesterday was pretty good, but today not so much.

Maybe it’s because I spent a good part of the day yesterday going through old iPhoto libraries looking for photos of Sam. Not only did I find plenty of Sammy photos, but photos of deceased dogs, my mom, and happy times at the cabin with all of them. Downright depressing.

Maybe it’s because the day after Sam died I had the patio doors open sitting in the sun room reading and I kept hearing what sounded like a cat meowing outside. I stood outside several times but could never pinpoint the sound. I think it might have been Aileen’s chickens next door making funny noises. Maybe not.

Maybe it’s because I keep catching things out of the corner of my eye that look like Sam in various places in the house. Logically, of course, I know this is impossible but my brain has yet to catch up.

He was just always there.

Maybe it’s because I can’t get the images of the last few hours of his life out of my mind. It was not easy to watch and equally hard being replayed in my head.

It’s a process and I know blogging about him will help. I’m just not quite there yet.

Photo above: My ming aralia plant casting its early morning shadow on the bamboo shade in the sun room.

Monarchs on Butterfly Bush, Skylands last week.