Jan 27
This gallery contains 6 photos.
I’m from Massachusetts, so I’m familiar with the long, wet, cold winters. The driving during this time of year used to be horrific. We lived on a hill and not a winter would pass where we were out on the street during a snowstorm trying to help push cars up the hill in the stormy […]
Jun 20
This gallery contains 52 photos.
We made the trek to Foley, Alabama for the second year in a row to attend the Gulf Coast Hot Air Balloon Festival. Now in it’s 8th year, the festival attracts balloon teams from Ohio, Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, Missouri, Louisiana and Alabama. While the real action takes place at 6 A.M. both days […]
Dec 31
This gallery contains 1 photo.
I love to walk around with my camera and take pictures of things of interest to me, mostly photos of sites I find attractive. Here is a slideshow of doors and windows (mostly in the French Quarter) that have caught my eye. Enjoy Here’s a sampling of over 30 pictures that are in my […]
Oct 30
This gallery contains 21 photos.
This weekend was the perfect time for outdoor activities. The sun was shining, the skies were blue and there was a steady breeze. With so much going on around us, we decided to stay close to home. We had breakfast at Sunrise on Second Street and then wandered over to Slidell’s Antique District to check […]
Oct 15
This gallery contains 1 photo.
This week’s post was supposed to cover the Crescent City Blues and BBQ festival which we were excited about attending. Unfortunately, the little criminal below decided to derail my husband from descending the stairs on Friday night, forcing us to spend Saturday morning in the ER instead of heading to Lafayette Square in New Orleans. […]
Sep 11
This gallery contains 2 photos.
After a rain soaked Labor Day weekend , we were very happy to be given a picture perfect Saturday. We headed out to Lafayette Square in New Orleans to attend the 5th Annual New Orleans Seafood Festival. We got there right when it opened so we could enjoy looking around without a large crowd. I […]
For as long as I can remember I have been in love with wildlife. My fascination with anything – from crazy mockingbirds to turtles sunning themselves on a quiet summer day – attract my attention a thousand times more than who’s the next American Idol. Or anything on tv.
Lately I’ve been blessed with several opportunities to get away from the fast-paced life of NOLA festivals (which I LOOOOVE) to enjoy the simpler things in life, like a sunset, or the exploration of a local nature park. In fact last week we had the opportunity to visit the Gulf Shores State Park on the coast of Alabama. Being the cheapo that I am, I refused to pay $5 to walk on the beach, so we opted to check out the Nature Exhibit of the park and I’m so glad we did! The taxidermy done at this place is second to none.
Beavers!
Bear, who was quite huge
Not sure if this is a cougar or a bobcat. Help me here, please.
This is a Gannett. I remember hearing a lot about this bird last year during the BP oil spill. I didn’t realize they were this big.
Cute little owl
One of my favorite birds of all time, the Louisiana Pelican.
After checking out that fantastic Nature Center, Billy and I took a walk at the some of the nature trails found at the park. This proved to be a bad choice, as the sand felt like it was molten and the sun was vicious. This is the only sign that made us laugh
After we left the Nature Center and were checking out another boardwalk I spotted a group of pelicans heading to the Gulf and shot this.
I love watching pelicans fly and dive. It’s a thing of beauty.
I googled things to do in Foley before our trip and learned about the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo . It was touted as a small zoo, so we decided to check it out. What a great experience it was. We spent 2 very happy hours there and would have spent more if it weren’t so hot.
One of the first sights we saw was in the lagoon right outside the visitor center
This sweet pelican with a broken wing found a home here. He was a tough little guy and didn’t let anything get in his way as far as moving around the lagoon.
Sharing the lagoon were several ducks.
A Blue Heron
Crazy monkeys (cannot remember their names)
Along the sidelines we caught the following
Camels
Lions….
These two guys reminded us of our cats at home.
A good variety of goats
Can someone please tell me what this animal is? It was driving the white tiger on the other side of the fence insane!
This zoo has a huge population of parrots too. My only regret is that all of the birds were in cages, which makes photographing them difficult. Here’s what I got:
There was a neat little reptile house at the zoo. I went in and made a bee line for the door when I saw the huge snakes living in there. No pix.
These precious little monkeys stole my heart
We couldn’t get this guy to turn around for anything.
This is Chuckie. He weighs over 1,000 pounds. The sign below tells his story.
It was a fantastic visit even in the 95 plus degree weather along with the sun. I recommend this zoo to anyone who visits Orange Beach/Foley/Gulf Shores. Support these people!
One last group of pictures and a shout out to local animal rescue people here in St. Tammany Parish. We attended the Lacombe Crab Festival (I mark it a 4 on a 10 scale for the food and lack of ambiance) and came upon a family of wildlife rescuers from our area that I never knew existed. They call themselves MF Wildlife Control/Animal Trainers. and they rock! they help wildlife such as Skunk/Armadillo/Bats/Bobcats/Possums/Otter/Snakes/Beaver/Fox/Squirrel/Raccoons and Nutria.
Here is one of their babies, a fox
I applaud this young man and would never get this close to a snake. But you know what? In time I may learn to love them.
Thank you profusely MF Wildlife Control. Glad to have you around.
Going back over my blogging during the last two years or so, I see that I have had several posts with train references.
While not as obsessed with trains as I am with photography, I ~do~ love the idea of traveling long distances via the rails. My husband works for Amtrak and I hope that one day before he retires we can take a long train ride and enjoy the scenery without the hassles of driving.
I recently posted about our visit to the New Orleans Botanical Gardens where we discovered an incredible section devoted to a small model train town centered around the City of New Orleans. I’ve finally taken the time to look at the pictures (we stayed near home this weekend due to my aggrivating my bursitis) and pictures from that visit follows.
But first some other train-centric pictures I’ve discovered while traveling through my picture archives.
as always, click on the pictures to see full-sized versions
We attended our first Gretna Fest last year and loved it! While walking around the grounds of the festival (which is huge and spacious, unlike a lot of fests), we came across this beauty
A genuine steam engine.
We also encounter remnants of trains from an earlier time every time we bike the Tammany Trace in St. Tammany Parish.
This old pole is assumed by us to be used by the train employees to hang mailbags or change signals.
One Saturday a few years ago we discovered a model train display at the Covington Trailhead of the Tammany Trace. I must admit that as a lover of doll houses as a child I was blown away at the details of this display. Check it out.
Here are two pictures taken in 2004 of an abandoned train in Abita Springs:
I think the Train Garden within the Botanical Gardens at City Park is so intricate and beautiful. From their website:
The Train Garden, located inside the Botanical Garden, features buildings made entirely of botanical materials in a layout approximating the layout of the city itself. As visitors walk on a pathway representing the water surrounding New Orleans, they overlook over 1,300 feet of track carrying streetcars and trains like those that traveled the city in the late 1800s to early 1900s, at 1/22 of their actual size.
We took so many pictures of the Train Garden! I apologize for the number of pictures shown here, but they represent a fraction of what this beautiful showcase to the city offers.
Do take half a day to stroll through the Botanical Gardens and at least half an hour for the Train Garden.
Without further ado, here are my offerings.
First the signs dedicated to the different sections of New Orleans. Each sign gives a brief history of the particular neighborhood.
Now on to photos of the buildings and trains. I was amazed by details of the architecture of the buildings.
By now I’ve pretty much established myself as a picture manic poster on this website. I revel in sights that delight my eye.
After spending Friday at French Quarter Festival (a great time), we decided to check out City Park’s Botanical Gardens. After this visit I will refer to it as the Garden of Eden. What a beautiful place it is. (note to self: go to thesaurus dot com to find a more appropriate word for beautiful).
Between the two of us, hubby and I took over 1,000 pictures. No kidding. I’ve only checked out what I took as of this posting. I have whittled down my 500 plus pix to 50, but don’t worry – I will not post them all here. Just what I think are the best.
So without much further ado I present you the beauty of the Botanical Gardens at City Park
If you ever visit the Botanical Gardens, there is a fantastic, secret garden for train lovers. It’s the Train Garden and I plan to publish my pictures from this wonderfully imaginative garden soon. If you’re ever bored on the internet – as my 22 year old daughter is wont to do – check out the rest of my Botanical Garden pix at my photobucket site
An Evening with Patti Smith
Patti Smith Presents a Talk Entitled
“On Photography” to Open
Patti Smith: A Donation to NOMA
DATE: Thursday, April 22
TIME: 6 p.m.
LOCATION: Stern Auditorium
* FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC*
On Thursday, April 22nd, artist and musician
Patti Smith will present a free talk at NOMA entitled
“On Photography” at 6:00 pm in the Museum’s Stern Auditorium.
Her talk will accompany the opening of an exhibition of 45 photographs
by Smith, donated by the artist to NOMA in 2009 and 2010. She will publicly address her relationship to photography, both in terms of her own photographic work and the history of the medium itself.
Patti Smith: A Donation to NOMAconsists of 45 silver prints made from negatives produced by the artist’s antique Polaroid Land 250 camera. These prints will be augmented by a few original, but unique, Polaroid photographs, which are also part of Smith’s generous donation to our museum.
Patti Smith: A Donation to NOMA will be on view in the 2nd floor Contemporary Art Galleries from April 22 until July 3.
Smith has excelled in the diverse fields of poetry, prose, music, drawing, film and photography. Her friendship and artistic relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe was recently documented in her best-selling memoir
Just Kids. Copies of the book will be on hand in the Museum Shop for Smith to sign following her talk.
The source of inspiration for much of Patti Smith’s poetry and music has often been key figures of French culture, including
Arthur Rimbaud, Nicole Stéphane, Jean Genet and Antonin Artaud
so many of the inspirational photographs Smith has taken derive from her frequent Parisian and French sojourns.
Patti Smith is especially inspired by the convergence of literary and photographic histories in 19th and 20th century France.
If her own identity as an American artist of the late 20th century was that of proto-punk, it parallels a similar defiant moment in cultural history: the underground art and literary movements of mid-to-late-19th century Paris.
~
The opinions expressed on NOLAFemmes are solely those of the individual writer.
PHOTO COPYRIGHT
Copying photographs from this site is expressly forbidden without permission.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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