Hello! I'm Joanna, author of this photo journal. My husband, Mark, and I are professional photographers in Asheville, North Carolina. The name of our company, Tuesday's Frog, is based on an almost-wordless children's book about mischievous frogs that go flying on lily pads one night. We love this book because the illustrations are truly the heart of the story. Speaking of mischievous, Cole & Harper are our children, and frequent, though not always willing, photography subjects. Here you'll find not only the stories of our everyday lives, but of those we've photographed in our capacity as professional photographers as well. Please feel free to browse the links above, check out the archives at the bottom of the journal for more photo stories, or subscribe and receive email updates of all our antics. Enjoy!
December 1, 2008
a romp in the leaves
In between the snowfalls we've had more than our fair share of fallen leaves to contend with, too. So one day last week Mark raked them into a big pile and asked the kids to help "mulch" them.
Since the kids didn't have school yesterday we headed over to the NC Arboretum to soak up some color.
This photo is so accurate...
Obviously, I had to institute a bribe. This time around it was: if you smile for me, you can take your turn behind the camera, too. (Photos by Cole & Harper -- yes, I should have ditched the sippy cup. And yes, I set up the camera first -- so not just any 3 year old can take my job...yet.)
It wouldn't be October without a visit to the pumpkin patch! Not really a patch, per se, but more like a Methodist church roadside stand.... This boy has been so, so sweet & good lately.
I moved here exactly 10 years ago today. In celebration, I took a drive along the Parkway this morning, and thought I'd share with you one of my favorite spots -- if I were a cat I'd curl up in the grass right under those sunbeams. (At a safe distance from the road, of course!)
Okay, technically I don't know if butterflies have a "baby" stage, but since they were born yesterday and we witnessed their first flights I'm calling them babies. This first shot was taken at 9:30 am, and again, I shot it through the glass...
At 11:30 am... we missed the actual hatching but caught this right before we left to have lunch with Cole at school.
At 1:27pm after we'd returned from lunch... Harper said, "He has a friend!"
At 2:33pm, shortly after Cole got off the school bus...
At 5:06pm, right after Mark arrived home from work, this one decided to climb out the hard way...
...we ended up helping it a bit since the edges of the case were slippery...but then it didn't want to let go of us.
Drying off a little more....
...Mark took these last two shots while it perched on my arm.
Just in case you're keeping track, here's the current state of our butterflies... (I shot this through the glass of their terrarium, which is why it looks a little fuzzy.)
We decided to bring two caterpillars indoors this year in an attempt to observe the whole caterpillar-to-butterfly process. They're rooming in what is really a cute little house for candles but I don't think my sister, who gave us the gift, minds too much that we've turned it into a terrarium for now. Unfortunately, we missed the transformation process from caterpillar to chrysalis last night as it fell right over dinner/bathtime/bedtime for the kids. But later Mark was able to watch the process with the second caterpillar, who managed to hide itself at the cupola of the house, making himself (of course) very unphotographable.
The title comes from one of our very favorite Eric Carle books, and here are a few more that may suit your child's fancy: The Very Quiet Cricket The Grouchy Ladybug Brown Bear, Brown Bear From Head to Toe Dream Snow PS. The board book versions of these make GREAT baby gifts.
...remedy bags (which Cole helped decorate) for his teachers, stuffed with things to keep the sniffles, sneezes, and sickness at bay (kleenex, chapstick, cough drops, hand sanitizer, etc.) I can't remember if I got this idea from Melissa Deakin or not...but as she's the queen of gifts I thought I'd link her site so you can get some sewing/crafts/card ideas for yourself.
...and finally, Miss Harper's accessory of the season -- knee socks.
I was worried about our little monarch friends. But Mark spotted multiple caterpillars on the milkweed plants today, so I guess they're just a little behind schedule compared to last year.
That big white blob in the front is my thumb - I was trying to give you a visual size comparison to the little guy on the leaf. It's sort of hard to hold a heavy camera/macro lens combination with one hand while holding my thumb out with the other hand...
...also hard is leaning over so that you're almost folded in half and holding your breath (to remain still) while waiting for an upside-down caterpillar to stop munching on the milkweed plant long enough to look up...on second thought I guess I really didn't need to lean over so much but I wanted to be able to relate to my subject.
As always you can track the monarchs' journey to Mexico here.
We doped Mark up on Dayquil this past weekend and headed to the Apple Festival in Hendersonville. We've been enjoying the fruits of our labor ever since (and Mark is finally feeling better...something to do with the apples, perhaps?)
Harper thought that our bird bath was looking a little bare, so she decided to make it "pretty" by plucking all of the blooms off our mums. The bird bath did, indeed, look pretty, though I'm not sure what the birds thought.
I rarely say this about bugs but we are glad to have a bunch of these monarch caterpillars visiting us. Mark discovered them on the milkweed plant as he was weeding the front garden...and I was sitting inside enjoying the airconditioning...
We counted at least 10 this morning -- here's one of the smaller residents.
Then there are these guys -- milkweed aphids, apparently. I think we need to invite a few ladybugs over for lunch!
Anyway, that was our weekend. Pretty laid back and restful. I hope you had a great one!
Yesterday was perfectly overcast..but not yet rainy. We had to be out of the house for an hour for a showing, and with Harper still sick, I didn't want to contaminate anyone else. So we went to the park. (A little fresh air is good, right?)
