Auburn County Courthouse Visit 12/6/2015

In my last post, I shared my wonderful rainy-day visit to Nevada City.  On the way home, I decided to stop and photograph the historic Auburn Courthouse, something I've always wanted to do, but managed to never accomplish.  It's a pretty magnificent, yet intimate feeling building.

Construction on this version of the Placer County Courthouse was completed in 1898. 

I love the combination of brick and granite from the aptly-named Rocklin; what a beautiful contrast.

There are magnificent stairs on the North and South side which lead to the 2nd story, although you can't get in this way any longer. 

From the article linked at the top of the post, "This building is one of four surviving northern and central California courthouses which retain most of their architectural ornamentation and magnificent domes.

I ventured inside, not sure what to expect.  What I found was a jail-turned-museum with displays on the courthouse, local history, and nature peoples of the area. 

This is the old courthouse office. 

 Thar's GOLD in them thar hills!

There was also a lovely quilt display for Christmas. 

I'll finish up with one last picture outside.  This is from the 2nd story veranda at the top of the stairs.  Love the columns. 

It's a a beautiful building and I would definitely recommend a visit to any history or architecture buffs out there.  Or photography buffs for that matter!  

Cheers!

xoxo

Nikon D3000

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas! In Nevada City 2015

Need to get away from birds for a minute?  I think I do.  Although I'm dying to get out birding this weekend.  haha 

I figured that since Christmas is almost here, I would do a "throwback Thursday" post to that time last year I drove to Nevada City, California for a meet up that didn't happen.  

It was a cold and rainy weekend day and I was supposed to meet up with some fellow amateur photogs to take some shots in the beautiful Sierra Nevada foothill town.  It was the time of the annual Old-Timey Christmas Faire and photo ops should be good.  I got there about the right time, but didn't see any group of people that met the description.  So, me being me, I happily decided to just set out on my own.  Did I mention it was raining?

I parked my car about 3 blocks from historic downtown and quickly started taking photos of interesting tidbits. 

There are several amazingly picturesque churches in town.  One of which I had to walk right past. 

Being on a pretty steep hill, the angles (I mis-typed that as "angels" which seems pretty appropriate too) were so cool with the stone wall and white fence.  I FLOVE this next shot which I edited with black and white and low-contrast except for the gold crosses. 

I don't do much low-sat or low-contrast.  I need to experiment with this more!

Back to a higher contrast and sat in order to fully capture the very cool stone wall. 

Once I was finally in the downtown area I found a much needed ladies room (long drive!) and beside it was this beautiful tree decked out in festive pine cones. 

I began walking around and found this beautiful Methodist church. 

And this gorgeous boy who was loving all the attention!

Sometimes you can find beauty in the most mundane.  This building corner spoke to me with it's rich, red bricks, black roof, and greenish, ornate iron railing.  

And of course, this being a Christmas fair, there were carolers.  I took some video of these guys, but it was lost in my phone that blew up. 😒 They were really good!

I love animals.  I really do.  And I'm all about conservation and trying to make the Earth a better place.  That being said, I'm a little bit torn about a few things. Carriage horses are one of those things.  I hate seeing them and I love seeing them. 

Of course this is a historical mining town and so there was an ode to mining equipment. 

Several of them, in fact. 

Oh look!  I found another church!  This one was the First Baptist Church. 

There is also a replica Maidu Indian teepee to honor the local tribe. 

There was some irreverent (of course) but also pretty considerate advice written inside:

Needless to say, I hightailed it back out into the rain. lol

And found this eccentric garden on my way back to my car.  I love it!

One more shot of the beautiful church...this time from the bottom of the hill, in the misty rain. 

And then, I was off.  I decided to finish my trip in a decidedly un-Victorian fashion...by getting a Salted-Caramel Mocha from Starbucks!  Yum!  And I'm glad I stopped, because just as I was pulling out of the drive-through with my hand-warming mocha, the sun broke through the clouds and a resplendent rainbow arched over the sky!

What a fun day!  Maybe I'll do it again this year!  In the snow!

xoxo

Nikon D3000

Bird Watch 2016: Colusa National Wildlife Refuge

I'm pretty much piggybacking this post on the Colusa National Wildlife Refuge to my PREVIOUS  THREE  POSTS on the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge as I visited them on the same day and because it is one of the six complexes that make up the Sacramento Refuge. 

The Colusa Refuge has a 3-mile auto-tour and I just had time to complete it before the Heavens opened up once again.  

But all this very welcome rain made for happy birds which included ducks,

Red-winged blackbirds, 

Egrets,

and hawks.

Thanks to the recent rains and ongoing cloudy skies, the landscapes were quite beautiful.  The Main Canal runs right through the Refuge and adds a beautiful waterway for the birds to enjoy along with the ponds, fields, and marshes.  

The Canal with Egrets and Black-crowned Night Herons hidden along the left bank.

And of course, you can't drive 2 miles in the country without seeing the graceful Turkey Vulture. 

The next picture is full of Red-winged blackbirds, male and female.  

It's easy to look past this fairly common bird, but not only are they completely beautiful, they also form a musical yet raucuos chorus when gathered in large numbers such as these.  It's fun to hear and see. 

Next we have a lovely portrait of a White-fronted Goose with a Mallard couple.

This next photo is a little confusing to me.  The two on the left are definitely Mallards, but what about their friend on the right?  He has the curly feathers above the tail and some of the coloring, but looks mixed with a Gadwall or something else.  So, hybrid?

If you've been one of my readers/visitors for any length of time, you can probably tell that I love high-contrast photos.  So you just KNOW how much I love this next one.  I think it looks amazing. 

Mallards on Logs with Bokeh

There were literally hundreds of Pintails and White-fronted Geese at Colusa.  

This next photo is similar to the one above, but I really like it because, if you think about it, it shows most of the different habitat on the Refuge.  The ponds in the foreground, the rushes in the middle for the blackbirds, and the trees in the back for hawks and owls. 

The storm clouds were gathering in the distance and sprinkles of rain were starting to fall, so I knew that my time out birding today was coming to an end.  

On the way out I saw a ton of Ibis cleaning the field.  It really did look systematic as this group walked forward in almost a straight line while eating. 

This Great Blue Heron hunkered down against the cold and wind...

And so I, like these geese, flew away. 

TTFN!

xoxo

Nikon D3300