As promised....... a DOUBLE PINK BRUG SEED CONTEST

It has been raining here daily forever it seems so I haven't even been out back in days. Today the sun is out so I scooted back there into my giant mudpie of a backyard and literally sunk in the mud!! My shoes are ruined.

But before I slipped and slid back up on the porch I saw my very first double PINK brug pod was ripe!! I grabbed it and ran.

So as promised back in February, http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/576455/, time for the SKY CONTEST!! I hope you all have been taking great sky pictures!

Rules:

1. Open to all Davers. Contest starts NOW. I picked sky so everyone no matter where you live and or how much you have thawed out from winter, you still have sky.

2. Contest ends Tuesday 4/11 at 6PM West Coast time.

3. Voting from 6PM West Coast time to Wednesday 6PM West Coast time.

4. I do not care when you took the picture, but you must be the one that took the picture.

5. Enter as many times as you want.

6. 3 categories. 1st - Blue or blue and white. The 2nd category will be for mixed colored skies. In these 2 cateories you can have anything that does not touch the earth and is not man made. The 3rd category = a beautiful sky with whatever else that is in it that has one end at least on the ground or manmade flyig objects. LOL

Both must just have sky in it, NO PLANTS OR ANYTHING ELSE but stars, sun and moon and birds will be allowed.

7. And I would appreciate it if you would share your brug if you get a good one with a few members of your choice that belong to this brug forum - hopefully with people who do not have a DP one yet. I am hoping everyone here will get to grow a double PINK in their yard soon if that is what they want.

PRIZE: I apologize but I have to be cheap because all of these seeds have been already promised out, I can only keep 3 for me too. BUT... if none of your seeds germinate, I will send each winner new seeds from my next double pink pod to ripen which should be soon.

3 seeds to each of the winners. They should germinate easily and fast since these were picked an hour ago!

I will have another contest when my next pod ripens!!! Any sugggestions as to theme is more than welcomed.

Edited to add a 3rd category to enter.

This message was edited Apr 7, 2006 7:38 PM

LOL. The picture got mini-ed. Try again!

it's beautiful Kell, I'll be searching my pictures so i can enter. Thanks for the contest.

Linda

kell I haven't any mature brugs yet but have young plants of Versicolor and D meteloides from last year, things are so slow here! I lust after a double pink like that! I forgot about taking pics, but have a 'colour' one from December when there was strange things happening with the moon

does jet streaks count as an aobject?

A moon shot with thin white cloud floating over, several rainbows surrounding it. The purple and green patches below are possibly from ice particles.

Taken 15th December

This one, yes again of the moon, was taken on 21st December, the winter solstice. The moon was said to be at the highest point overhead in the sky on that night, and larger than usual.

I haven't seen you lately, Janet!! Hope all is well. Jet streaks are fine. You know when I was little I was told people were in those jet streaks having been let off the plane and I believed it till I was in college and mentioned it and then immediately realized how ridiculous that was. LOL Great shots.

I hope it is fun for us all, Linda. A way to waste time till spring is really here for us all.

Hi Kell, That is beautiful!

This was a sunset that I shot last fall.

We had a beautiful sunset tonight and I didn't take a picture!

Can I include a sky picture with just the tops of some dark trees at the very bottom of the frame?
I love that sunset Picabo. :~)

- Tom

Kell, Do photos cropped to remove trees qualify? No other alterations.

Thank You Tom.
Oh, Sorry!! mine is cropped. I cropped out the trees, didn't even think about it. I will be glad to take the photo out. I really cut out the best part of the photo LOL. Most of the color was at the tree line.

Sorry! The reason I asked is because I have a few that I would need to crop to take out trees to enter the contest. I don't think I've taken any photos of the sky and only the sky.

I am with you Bettydee, lots of sky photos with trees or water in them, that is why I didn't even think about cropping out the trees. Some people may not know how to crop, so I have NO problem taking my photo out. We are expecting a BIG storm here tomorrow, should be some great sky photos waiting to be made. LOL

Me too! They all have a little land on the bottom. :~)

Hi, sorry I just got home.

Cropping is fine just please do not enhance the colors. I just do not want people to be influenced by a nice sky with a nice landscape. Unfair to those still with bleak yards, like me. LOL

If you need a picture cropped and do not know how to, send it to me and I will do it for you. Just put it in your D-mail to me in your biggest size and I will copy it from there and send it back.

Susie, you have a few days to get that picture but you already know you are getting seeds................

The seeds are drying as we speak!

Wow Kell..
Those seeds look like they are gonna pop and germinate right now.

Great shots Janet!!
Simply beautiful Betty almost looks like an oil painting.

This was taken late in the afternoon last spring right after a rain storm. The colors in the eastern sky were very unusual. I had to crop out most of the vermilion colors since they were mostly behind some trees. By the time I got my camera, most of the rainbow had disappeared.

This was the same evening but facing west. Cropped to remove trees on both sides of the photo.

Taken last May during a thunderstorm.

Another lightening photos. Same storm. Later in the evening.

Sorry about the size. I had to crop out so much of the photo.

This message was edited Apr 7, 2006 12:16 AM

Betty how on earth do you catch the lightning!? I sat through two hours of thunderstorm with strikes about every 30 seconds average. Tried everything I could but I just wasn't fast enough. Got lots of nice black screens. LOL

We call these God rays:

This is a pretty rainbow shot, I left it dark because it looks more natural. A hard rainstorm had just passed thru.

It was a double rainbow but the one above isn't showing up very well.

This message was edited Apr 7, 2006 1:04 AM

I will see what I can do but for some reason here in this small town we seldom get those wonderful colors I see in other pictures, just a lovely light blue, but I sure would love a seed so I better get busy.



Doris

Hi Kin. Not sure which Betty you were talking to so I will thank you for both of us.

I am a painter and love the colorful skys. I always keep my little digital in my purse and think nothing of stopping on the side of the road for a great shot. This one was made in my yard though.
Betty

Bettydee...I love your pictures the rainbow and the lightening are great.

From what I hear we will be getting that lightening all night here.

I like the lighting shots but I am always inside during STORMS!

I used to love lightning. As children, my sister and I would go sit out on the porch and watch the show. For some foolish reason, I felt safe until 4 junior high students were killed by lightning during PE. Apparently, the school had been built over an old junk yard and there was still metal buried in the ground.

Weather conditions in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area don't favor the formation of big whilte fluffy clouds often. Getting a thunderstorm with lots of lightning was a treat for us. Lightning strikes were not close and personal.

Here in central Texas, we can get some frightful storms. Lightning has gotten close and personal. During one storm last year, we lost 2 cows and their unborn calves and orphaned a calf one of the cows had by her side (was still nursing). A neighbor had an oil collecting tank on his property hit by lightning killing his registered bull, who happened to be standing too close to the tank. The whole thing went up in flames.

Colorful skies mean dirty air, unfortunately, and we have seen some spectacular sunsets — where the whole sky turns red and everything turns rosy red for a short moment. I'm usually too far away from my camera and I'm too awestruck to go get it. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does... WOW! I lucked out with the rainbow and happened to be just outside the house that evening and was able to run in and get my camera.

I know it wasn't the smartest thing to do, but lightning is so awesome. For the lightning photos, the aperature settings was given preference and a tripod used. The camera was set for multiple 3 or 4 second exposures and controlled with a cable to avoid moving the camera. This is when its nice to have a digital camera. Out of about 250 shots, a small handful were worth keeping. Most showed nothing or, if lighthing was captured, too blurry to keep.

This message was edited Apr 7, 2006 10:36 AM

Kell,

Here is my first entry. It is a sunset from our back deck.

Sheral

Kell,

Here is my second entry. It is also a sunset from our back deck. In fact, I think that it is the same sunset, taken about 20 minutes later.

Sheral

Those are beautiful Lily13!
Here are my entrys.
This was taken from a plane. I can't think where I was going but Im glad I got this shot! I had to crop one side to remove the wing lol!

My second is Family day when DH was in the USMC. I can't think of the ships name but this was taken from the flight deck. Croped to remove aircraft. Thanks for the fun Kell!!

kell I have been around, mostly posting on the bulb forum with spring bulbs, and PF. Now we are getting the occasional day I can get out and do things, it has been dreadful weather! I've been running around the last couple of days after my grandchildren, one has damaged her ankle on a trampoline, the two shin bones have spread away from the top of the foot and torn ligaments. She has an extra bit of bone, like a primitive toe, that has fragmented and a piece has got stuck in the joint pushing her foot down. After seeing several doctors who stroked their chins and said "Hmmmm", none of them had come across it before, a senior surgeon gave her two options. She could walk around on her tip toe and hope it would come out, or they would operate. She's not yet 12, but as tall a her Mum and much bigger. I took them home today, she has to go back on Monday for the op. Her 14 year old brother had come home yesterday just as I was leaving (I had to collect younger 2 from school), he was looking very shocked. He'd fallen on his arm, after being back for an hour today we took him to the hospital, he had some splinters off his wrist and a fracture further up, so has a temporary pot on until they can do it in 3 weeks time. He had been jumping off a swing with his mates to see who could jump the longest, went on his head before his arm but that seems OK! I'm shattered!

GGKin thanks, I took mine free hand on the 'scene' shot, it takes perfectly for night skies but I have to keep very still and hold my breath, surprisingly I get quite a few good ones. It takes around 3 seconds to shoot and it is difficult, my balance is not good either! The jetstream shots I took on Dec 13th on the way to one of my grandchildrens birthday, there was a blaze of colours but I can't get the effect without the tree or ground in it. I had stopped earlier on a ridge near where I live and took some good shots as the sun set, but with electricity pylon cables in front (hardly enhancing!). Half an hour later I watched it set again about 12 miles away, this time it was spectacular. The 2 jets had crossed paths above and the sunset glow went through the streaks. I can't explain how the sun managed to set twice a few miles apart, even with the lay of the land it seems very strange!

I love all the shots, the rainbow is breathtaking! I have some really vibrant colours taken from my bedroom window over winter, but if there isn't trees in the way there is a telephone pole with cables going off it. It's just across the road but is right in the middle of some beautiful skies, again hardly enhancing but is an 'object'. Actually I think it has it's artistic merits! I'd love to show them but they are not just skies!

Kell some ordinary backyard objects can look quite good, I took one not long ago through the outlined tree trunks and between the rooftops and chimney stacks of two houses opposite us. The sky was clear but with a sharp, colourful small cloud in the middle and it is really artistic.

Just saw the last ones from liliy and heavin, they are great!

Kell,

Thank you for doing this, it is great fun that helps us newbies/lurkers in the group get over our shyness about having little or nothing to contribute to the forums.

I absolutely love ALL of the photos of the sky!

Sheral

Yesterday I said "We are expecting a BIG storm here tomorrow, should be some great sky photos waiting to be made. LOL "

Sorry I said that. It has been a heart breaking day in our area. 35 confirmed tornadoes 12 dead so far. Many more in critical shape. Business, homes, churches, cars destroyed. So sorry. More storms are on the way. Say a prayer for the area and the people involved.

This was made from my deck 5 minutes ago

Betty





This message was edited Apr 7, 2006 8:14 PM

Sorry the photo is so big. Got to go the storm is here.

Betty

That one went over quick. No damage here. I am going to try to check on some of the DG members in the hard hit area.

Betty

This is the only thing I could get today, beautful Carolina Blue skys.The storms that have hit you tonite, Betty will be getting to us tomorrow, I don't think we will have the lightning that you all have had, but we will have the rain. Betty and all DGer's stay safe.
Melanie

Because I live in the mountains, it is hard to get a shot without trees in it. My deck is up as high as a second floor although on the other side of the house, and on the same level, is the entrance. So you can tell how steep my land is just from the front to the back door.
I realize because I have trees in this, I might be disqualified but I had to give it a shot.