Flowers, Feathers, Fur and Friends

Welcome to 2014 everyone! Happy New Year!

In this first challenge of 2014, we were to make a list of favorites and let one or more things on the list inspire our pages about about ourselves.

Let's start with my list:

Favorite book: The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

Favorite subject to photograph: Animals (I thought-see below)

Favorite music era: C'mon...need you ask? 70s of course!

Favorite fashion item: That would be my collection of purses

Favorite place to visit: The Milwaukee County Zoo

Favorite restaurant: Common Grill in Chelsea, MI

Since two of the items on my list involved animals, I thought I would do a page about my pets. But when I started going through photos on my computer, I noticed that the number of photos that I took while working on the flower farm far outnumbered any other photos I had taken. Don't tell the dogs. Or Kitten.

So without further ado, here are some of my favorite shots from the spring/summer/fall of 2012 at Heritage Flower Farm in Mukwonago, WI, aptly titled, "Flowers, Feathers, Fur and Friends."

I chose Page pattern # 73 - "Two Page Spread with Title Strips" from www.snapncrop.com. I used Sunflower Grid Paper and one Green PaperTile, also from www.snapncrop.com. My title is printed in dark brown in Goudy Stout font on a simple strip of Kraft CardStock from Stampin' Up!

Page 1 Photos: (Left Row) The new tourism sign directing travelers to the farm, fresh eggs from the chickens on the farm, the chestnut tree in full bloom, Sherri driving the weed-flingin' truck, the pasqueflower in bloom. (Center row) The babies arrived in April (chickens, ducks and one baby turkey, my favorite-Stretch), me, Sherri and Jeannie in our weedin' hats, one of probably a thousand giant sunflowers in bloom. (Right row) I'm ashamed to say, but I don't remember which flower this is; just thought it was pretty, a chrysalis on a black-eyed susan and Pearl, my favorite chicken.

Page 2 Photos: (Left Row) The baby robins Rick found while taking down a dead pine tree, Mary after collecting a bucket of fresh flowers from the cutting garden, me with an adolescent Stretch still sitting on my shoulder. (Center row) The baby robins grew up so fast! And that's me and Bailey, the farm's golden. (Right row) An oriental poppy at it's finest, an Armenian basket flower, ice cream with strawberry rhubarb sauce made fresh from the garden, concrete stepping stones made with giant rhubarb leaves (hence the sauce above), and the potting shed in early spring...we'd have never believed that we would have run short on pots, but we did. Several times!

So that was life at the farm! I'm so glad I was able to capture these fond memories and share them with all of you!