A Stroll in the Park

SmugMug Daily Link

I'm feeling much better today...thanks.  The antibiotic seems to be doing what it was supposed to.

I know we hit at least 71 here yesterday.  Wow, right?!?  Shoot, the low at 6AM this morning was only 55.  This is definitely the winter that wasn't.  February is usually our most miserable month of the year with lots of clouds, wind, and precipitation mixed in with chilly for us temps.  So far...not!

Donnie helped me get my Mill as Muse photo submissions in over at Yates Mill yesterday, and we had another of our wonderful picnic lunches and did the 1 mile mill pond loop walk.  I did take it easy...promise.  Sun and warm temps mixed with Donnie is great medicine.  I took some shots, but we ran out of time to take more.   Although it was such a cheery day and the light on the path so pretty, somehow I thought my daily shot looked better moody, so I Tinted it in Picasa and applied a Vignette using a CoffeeShop action.  I also cropped to 8X10.

Here's the original:

SmugMug Link

I really liked this stump which looked like a heart:

SmugMug Link

Here's a collage showing more shots from our day:

SmugMug Link

The folks out on the canoe are most likely NC State University students.   If you visit this link, you'll read that NC State University actually owns the land and that Wake County and Yates Mill Associates work with NCSU to keep the mill in good condition and allow the public to enjoy the park.  Two of  the miller's were actually on the water flume yesterday doing some repair work.  See the photo on the second row far right of the collage.  They do a great job of keeping the mill repaired and in running operation.

Here are the shots I submitted for the Mill as Muse photo contest:

SmugMug Link - Mill Category - Titled Yates Mill Christmas Card

SmugMug Link - Park Nature Category - Titled Future Photographer

I entered this shot for Madi:

SmugMug Link - Park Nature Category - Titled Pink Beauty

Donnie and I will attend the reception on February 11th to see how we did.

Look what I saw this AM when I did a Google search on Yates Mill:

SmugMug Link

Notice the photos with the gray bar that say 'You'.  Yes, those are mine.  Best as I could tell, those images are uploaded to Picasa in one of my Public galleries and have YatesMill in the .jpg name somewhere.  There was one image that seemed to show up just because it was in a gallery with YatesMill in the album title.  None of these images was tagged.  I might try to get a few more images that would be ones I'd really want to see to show up...in my free time:-)