Across the top of our website we have banners made from photographs we have taken. Mandy and I both take a lot of photos, and have done so all our lives. It’s art for both of us, and we take them seriously. We rotate the banners (actually we don’t rotate… we replace old ones with new ones) frequently, and lately we’ve taken to missing the old ones and wanted to see them again.
So here is our gallery of banners, more or less from newest at the top to oldest down below. These aren’t the full-size versions that we use at the top (as you can see) but they’ll load faster for you to browse this way.
Ye Olde Banners of Dragonwood
Frosty days bring frosty leaves, grass, and colors galore. P took this on morning chicken rounds, November 2011.
Sunflowers, way above our heads, keep a constant flock of goldfinches in our market garden in the late summer. M caught these against a sky preparing to storm, in August 2011.
Free-range eggs in the summertime show off such wondrously dark, orange yolks. Mmmm. M shot this in the kitchen before breakfast, before I ate them. (Aug 2011)
Kittens in a box. On a pillow. Purrfect. (Jun 2011 by paul)
Poppies followed the lilacs, in several places around the house. Come fall we always have a little vase of the poppy seed heads drying. M caught this specimen in June 2011.
The lilacs are beautiful this year, we are in peak season at this very moment. We are also in quite a rainy stretch, and this photo by Mandy is the result. (May 2011)
This French Sorrel has been a staple of our early greens these past weeks. (Mar 2011 shot by mandy)
The hens they are a laying (picnic table of snow, Feb 26 2011 by paul)
We had a nice ice storm two days ago. Nice for us… few broken branches, no lost power, just beautiful sounds during the storm and sights afterward. I took these two pictures this morning, ice still everywhere. I’m only using the icy branch for a banner right now, but I like the icy queen anne’s lace too. Ice storm and maple snow… cold enough to reset the maple tree clocks a bit after that unseasonable warm mid-February we had that got the sweet waters flowing. (Feb 22 2011 by paul)
Squeaky snow at sunrise. Temperature about -6 degrees F, early February 2011, trudging toward the East Flock at Dragonwood. And you thought snow was white.
The woodpile gang. This was taken in mid-December 2010 of the woodpile and its denizens under the overhang of the West Flock Coop at Dragonwood. Boy George was tired of posing, and gave me one last look to say “I’m outa here” while the others continued watching the snow fall.
Coldframes protecting little greeneries. We just got these all in last week or so, and today (Dec 1) was the first snow of the season. Tis from under the likes of these that we extract our greens of February. The snows will cover them soon and help insulate what’s inside so they can warm up and get an early start. (late November 2010, shot by mandy)
Ye woodpile kittens. Born of Gina in the garage/barn in October 2010, moved to the woodpile after about three weeks to be away from other kittens/cats (perhaps), or to be closer to a steady supply of rodents. Gina is a great mouser, and we believe this is in evidence in the fifth kitten toward the back of the photo, who seems to be gnawing on some remains. (late October 2010, shot by paul)
Boy George (born mid-2010, with a normal number of toes) on quality control duty during pumpkin and squash harvest, just before the frost-that-didn’t get here and the fine Indian Summer weather that lasted well into mid-October. (early Oct 2010, shot by mandy).
New chicks all in a huddle: black australorps, buff orpingtons, and auracaunas. Under a week old, but they’ve already eaten a whole zucchini or two. (early Sept 2010, shot by Paul).
Tree frog on the siding of the house next to the window shutters. We used this as a horizontal banner, but of course the house siding is nearly vertical along with the shutters and this frog was hanging onto the siding, but it looks so good this way. And this banner went live to accompany Mandy’s post about chemicals in the garden, called “Do You Spray?”. There were very few frogs and toads here when we first arrived, and things are much different now. (circa June 2010, shot by Mandy).
Gina (Georgina) suddenly ran up the redbud while we were eating at the picnic table. The kittens were all around being kittens, and all of a sudden she became a kitten again, playful with the others and ran up the tree, higher than the rest. I snapped several with my cell phone, but this (the first) was the best. (circa July 2010)
Boy George. Boy was sitting in my lap, and I took out my cell phone and snapped this. Pretty kitty. (circa July 2010, shot by Paul)
Lettuces grown and shot by Mandy, eaten by Paul (circa spring 2010).
Chick on a hen. This mother Speckled Sussex got broody, and we set her on eggs… this chick is mostly Delaware by the color, which probably means it grew up to be a rooster (we don’t have any white hens right now that aren’t full Delawares from a hatchery). (circa summer 2009, shot by Paul)
We do. (circa late summer 2009, shot by Jessica for us)
Queen Anne’s Lace with water drops in the East Garden (yes, we have Queen Anne’s Lace in the garden. And we sell them at the market in our wildflower-flavored bouquets). (circa summer 2009, shot by Paul)
We do love raising chickens, whether for egg laying or for roasting. Our last batch for roasting was a straight run of Cornish Rock (not the crazy-fast-growing Cornish-X or their lot), so we had both hens and roosters. Cornish Rock forage well on free-range, keep themselves clean, come back to the coop at night, grow crazy big, and look good doing it. (circa summer 2009, both shot by Paul)
Redbelly woodpeckers frequent our birdfeeder in the winter, along with the chickadees and juncos. But the redbelly has a harder time eating, since he won’t perch up on the edge or go inside like the others. (circa January 2008, shot by Mandy)
The cyclamen always blooms in the winter, and looks so nice on a window sill. I didn’t get the depth of field just how I wanted it, but I just love the little dragon heads looking back at me. (circa January 2009, shot by Paul).
Eggs in the winter snow. We set the bowl down outside for a moment, and the picture took itself. Our Auracauna chickens have been among our better winter layers, as the blue and green eggs here attest. (circa February 2009, shot by Mandy).
Asparagus fronds turning their autumn amber. Asparagus makes such wonderful fairy forests compared to anything else in our garden that I look at ours and wonder just where in the world did those crazy New Yorkers come up with that “Enchanted Broccoli Forest” cookbook name? (circa September 2009, shot by Paul)
Greens (and reds) in February! We’ve been hooping our greens planted in the fall and by late February we’re getting the first, earliest regrowth of wonderful greens to break our winter fast. (circa February 2009, shot by Mandy)
Winter window frost (circa January 2008, shot by Paul).
Cabbage in the garden. I remember right where this one was in the south side of the West Garden. (circa summer 2008, shot by Mandy)
One of our Welsummer roosters (circa fall 2008, shot by Paul)
Tippy sleeping in the garden. Paul was weeding, and started throwing the weeds onto Tippy who looked up the first couple of tosses but then went back to sleep and just let them all pile up. (shot by Paul)
Potentilla in the garden border (shot by Mandy)
Snowscape out the bay window (circa January 2008, shot by Mandy)
(enjoy, but don’t steal them please; they’re all copyrighted here at Dragonwood :-)
