Creating Art From a Walk in the Woods

Our treasures from the woods.

Fall is one of my favorite seasons of the year. I love all the beautiful fall colors or red, gold, orange and yellow. Sometimes, I want to bring it all together and create something from all of it.

During a walk in the woods with our granddaughter, she would spot a pretty leaf on the ground, a pine cone or an acorn, among a few other things that I really didn't want to bring home. We saved the "good stuff" and when we got back to the house, she spread them out on the table to admire what we had found.

I decided then that I wanted to show her how we could create something to keep our memories of this walk forever. We arranged and re-arranged our treasures until we came up with the picture above.

She thought that was pretty cool and we printed the picture out for her to take home and show her mom.

You never know what memories become precious and walking among nature is always special to me. I hope I instill this in my children and grandchildren.

If you like the picture that Jazzy and I created, I have also used it on some products in "My Zazzle" store

Bacon Cheeseburger Pie - A Delicious Quick and Easy Meal

Delicious Cheese Burger Pie

Are you looking for something a little different to fix for dinner? It seems like sometimes I cook the same old things and if I get bored with it, I know my family does. This is a quick and easy meal that is a little out of the ordinary and my kids loved it! This bacon cheeseburger pie has everything that we love in a bacon cheeseburger, bacon, ground beef, cheese, mustard, pickles and you can leave out the onions if you prefer.

This recipe takes about 15 minutes to prepare and another 15 minutes to cook, so you can have a delicious meal that your family will love in just about 30 minutes!

Ingredients:
1 regular pie crust
4 strips of bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled
1 lb lean ground beef
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
1 8 oz can of tomato sauce


1 teaspoon dry mustard
3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/3 cup chopped onion
1 pickle, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1.  Bake the pie crust as directed, but just until it begins to brown, then set aside.

2.  Brown the hamburger meat, drain and mix in the salt, pepper, dry mustard, bread crumbs, pickles, onion, bacon  and 1/2 of the can of tomato sauce and 1 cup of the shredded cheese, mix well.

3.  Pour this mixture into the pie crust top with the remaining shredded cheese. Bake this at 425 just long enough for the pie crust to finish browning and for the cheese to melt.

4. Mix the remaining tomato sauce with the Worcestershire sauce and pour over the top just before serving.

Now you have a delicious meal in a flaky pie crust! Add a healthy green vegetable or a salad and you have a quick, easy and healthy meal that is not the "same ol thing"!  I hope you enjoy! 

A Herd of Turkey

A Large Rafter of Wild Turkey

Actually, a group of turkey is called a “rafter”, but when I called hubby to the window yesterday I told him there was a whole “herd” of turkey in the front yard. For some reason, that just sounds more appropriate to me! From what I could tell, this is a group of “jakes”, which are young male turkey.

The light wasn’t very good for taking pictures of them and you can’t see the beautiful colors of their feathers, but they were really quite colorful. Females don’t have the coloring that males do, the females are a rather dull brown.

These turkey were on the move and there were so many of them, they were hard to count. Several of them would take off running, chasing bugs or each other. They best we could count, there were 32 of them passing through the yard. That is a lot of Thanksgiving dinners!

Apple Blossoms in Spring Tote Bag

This is the newest addition to "My Zazzle" store.  This is a small tote bag with a picture of apple blossoms from our apple tree. I took this picture this past spring while out tree was in full bloom.
This would make a really handy tote bag to give as a gift, or keep for yourself!

If you haven't visited my Zazzle store yet, come and see everything I have to offer there. There are products of all kinds and you can even customize them!

Cardinal in Snow Christmas Card

Pink Cone Flowers and Bee Mouse Pad

Too Many Coyotes?

Photo source:  sgbrown aka Rockcreek Photography

This picture was taken several years ago, but it is the best picture of a coyote that I have. As I'm sure most people know that coyotes are very shy creature and are mainly seen either early in the mornings or late in the evenings.

Coyotes tend to hunt at night and usually hunt in packs. Coyotes can be heard "yapping" and "howling" at night in many part of North America. They hunt mainly smaller mammals, such as rabbits, squirrels, mice and sometimes small deer or even small dogs and cats.

I have been noticing that there are not very many squirrels, rabbits or even deer around out place lately, but I have been seeing more coyotes than usual. I am wondering if we have too many coyotes in our area and they are killing all our squirrels, rabbits and other small animals.

TSU – Is it the New Google+

As anyone who knows me knows that I love taking pictures. I will take a picture of anything from a beautiful sunrise to a snake in my yard! I just love photography!  I used to take wedding pictures and sports pictures, but I didn’t like the stress of it. Now that I am “retired” I just take pictures of what I want to.

I love nature photography, landscapes, flowers and animals. I do sell some pictures to stock photography companies and I use my pictures on a site called Zazzle where I can create and sell products, such as mugs, t-shirts, tote bags, greeting cards, etc. I make a little money here and there on Zazzle and it’s fun to create things there using my photography. If you would like to check out my “Zazzle” store, the link is: http://www.zazzle.com/sgbrown56

I have now found another site where I can make a little money with my photography and that is a site called Tsu. It is pronounced, “Sue”. It is a lot like Google+, where you can post just about anything you want and share it with people who follow you on that site. The big difference is that on Tsu, you get paid for it!

You make a fraction of a cent per view, but the more followers you get, the more views and comments you will gather and the money just gets better and better. One of the main things I like is that I can view others photographs and get ideas or learn something new from them.

You can post anything you want! Some say it is the next FaceBook. I don’t know about that, but I am really enjoying posting there and making a little money at the same time.

If you enjoy taking pictures and sharing them with others, you may want to check out Tsu. If you decide that you want to sign up, I would appreciate you using my referral code: https://www.tsu.co/sgbrown