Steampunk and Makers Fair Part 2

 These are a couple steampunk styled guns made by one of the vendors, posing in the previous post with his steampunk rifle, these ones he made out of bottles, and other scraps that I couldn't identify, his work looks great, and would probably make a great compliment to a Steam Punk styled costume

This was a couple making the rounds, and I love everything about their outfits.  Top Hats tend to play a large part in many steam punk styles, but this ladies top hat is actually a styled birdcage, and I believe it really goes well with her outfit.

I think what I liked most about this ladies outfit is that the umbrella also serves a real function, with sun protection, it gives a little shade which can really help with little to no cloud cover.

 This is a Dollmaker who was present and showing off some of her work, she makes her dolls by hand, and without molds.

 Here are a few examples of her wonderful craftsmanship, she makes all of the clothing that goes with the dolls, also.  I will leave a link at the end to her Etsy page, Majestic Thorns.













This was my favorite piece of hers, not only did I like it the most, but the whole setup for it was great, from the way it is positioned even down to the direction it is looking.

 These were some more of the wonderful costumes at the 2016 Steampunk and Makers Fair in Lafayette.  I have still more photos to come in the next post, but that one will be primarily items from the shops and vendors that took part in the Fair.

For those interested in looking at Majestic Thorns Etsy shop, this is her shop on Etsy.com:    Majestic Thorns

The Steampunk and Makers Fair

 I went to the Steampunk and Makers fair in Lafayette, and it was awesome, there were great costumes, great booths, great artists.  The Steampunk and Makers Fair, as I found out after going, is an annual fair that started about 4 years ago, sometimes the actual location changes, this time it was at the Parc International and the Lafayette Science Museum, but it is always in Lafayette. 

Steam Punk is a genre of science fiction that typically involves the American Wild West or Englands Victorian era inspired aesthetics and melds them with aspects of the era of Steam powered machinery for wonderful effects and usually has a distinct 'Do-It-Yourself' feel to it

Some of the outfits were amazing, and incredibly elaborate, like that of  The Captain, who is the man on the right in this photo.

 The vast majority of the items, with a wide variety of things from jewelry to soap to costume parts, were handmade by the vendors, and while the prices would vary depending on the piece, I think most of the prices were very reasonable for the amount of detail put into them.

Of course, for me, the greatest part of the Fair were the costumes, I love the detail and work that the wearers put into them, and some of them turned out  to be incredible.

 In this photo, the man was modeling one of his creations, a steampunk styled firearm, which he made himself, from scraps.  He also made a few which included parts like bottles, faucet knobs, and various other ingredients.


I will be breaking the pictures into a couple of posts to hopefully make it a little smoother, since I have a lot of photos. 

What do you think, do you like the flair of the Steam Punk style?

Little Towns of Louisiana: LeCompte

Went around the nearby small town of LeCompte (pronounced: Le-Count) and took some photo's of some of the landmarks or scenic views.   

For LeCompte, first up would probably have to be Lea's Lunchroom. Purported to be home of the best pie in Louisiana, and the Pie Capital of Louisiana, there's even a Pie Festival in LeCompte every year.

Lea's is a small, family owned restaurant off the main highway through LeCompte, so it's got a nice location to stop off at while heading through town.

 Lea's Lunchroom has been around since the 1920's, and is actually kind of famous, and has been featured on some tv shows, as well as being part of some tours in the area.

 Another well known restaurant in LeCompte, at least to me, is Don's Cajun Kitchen.  Their hours are a little more sporadic than Lea's, but as small as LeCompte is, that's somewhat understandable.  They have some pretty good Crawfish Etouffee, which is somewhat like a gumbo dish, typically being served over rice.

 This is a photo of what might be called...main street, in LeCompte.  As a town with a population of around 1300, it's pretty much the definition of the rural town.

 This is a mural on the side of, I am sure you guessed it, the Water Street Market, but I thought it looks really nice.  The Water Street Market is a fairly typical small town convenience store, providing small, varied sundries.

 A small bit of a river running through LeCompte, pretty close to the previously named Water Street Market, but I just couldn't help myself, as I thought this scene looked great.



This last one is technically from LeCompte, but actually from our yard, hanging out on one of our small yard carts.  I think it turned out even better than I thought it would 

 

Out in town and down the tub.

Took a few more pictures out in downtown Alexandria today, this one is at the Alexandria City Hall, the flags being flown at half-mast is a tradition performed when mourning fallen soldiers and police officers, this time in particular for three fallen police officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

 I don't know any of the information on this piece, but this is a piece of 'modern art' outside the Alexandria Art Museum in downtown Alexandria, which also includes many other shops, bars, and antique stores.

 On the wall of one such antique store, is a wonderfully detailed mural of a train and horizon.

 My last few are of something I put together here on the farm. This is one with the screen rolled back.  Even though it's just thrown together really, and it's a bit too late to help the tomato plants that are in there now, but I think it will help out quite a bit with the next things we decide to plant in this tub garden.   I am thinking of putting something somewhat similar together for our other tub/table gardens, with a few modifications for each piece.      

And these are with the screen rolled forward, to help shield the plants inside from the direct sunlight, which I think was doing some real damage to them.

Thank you all for stopping by.    If anyone in the Alexandria area plays the phone game, Pokemon GO, there is some sort of pokemon related thing near the Red River, where the photo of the Alexandria City Hall and the Alexandria Art Museum were taken, as there were a lot of people there doing it when I was walking around taking pictures.

 

Egrets and Red Rivers

So, the egrets are back again, they love to come around, especially when we're mowing, since all the bugs are riled up from the mowers.  They're not terribly afraid of them either, since they've been around them so long, I guess,  they will get right next to them and run along with them, or follow right behind them, with no worries.

 I don't really know what these are, the smaller seeds/fruits/nuts look kind of like the Elderberry plants, but the plant itself is more tree-like than the Elderberry, but it's pretty prominent in one small area near one of our fences.


My next two photo's aren't from around the yard, but from out in the nearby city of Alexandria.      
                

This was a photo of the sun setting over a nearby medical center, and I thought made for a pretty good photo.

This river is known as the Red River, it is, in my opinion, a rather large river that runs right through Alexandria, or, technically in between it and the neighbor city of Pineville, which is right on the otherside of the river.     During another time of year the Red River is the sight of quite a few different festivities, one of them being the Alexandria River Fete, usually during March I believe it is.


I plan to start taking more photo's from out in town also, to add to photo's from the farmyard, so if you like the 'in town' photo's, please let me know, although the next ones will probably be from different places.

Elderberry and Traps

So, I took some more pictures of one of the quite a few spouts of Elderberry bushes we have, because I think the flowering on them looks very nice

 And these are the actual Elderberries, or, at least what will become them if they grow long enough.  Elderberries are used quite often in pies, jellies, and even wines for their unusual taste.  However, caution must be used as all parts of the Elderberry plant are considered toxic, according to the LSUA Agriculture Center   Source Links to LSUA Ag PDF at LSUA site :  http://www.lsuagcenter.com/~/media/system/f/7/c/8/f7c8e5621f22d1959b0c8f3f147a8441/listpoisonousornamentalplants.pdf

 This poor wasp here got caught in a really big web, that spanned a good 7 or 8 feet from the ground to a tree branch, I assume it was made by a very tenacious spider, as the web at that location has been destroyed at least twice during mowing, but it keeps putting it back up.   This time I decided to pay honor to the tenacity of the insect and left the web alone and just didn't mow that patch of grass at all.

This is a very small pink flower, the Shameplant, known by many names, such as the Touch-me-not, or the Tickle-me, 'The Sensitive Plant' is a plant which will actually move and respond to touching, though it's only similar to a muscular reflex, and not actual conscious response.

 This butterfly here is known as a Black Swallowtail, a member of the Dark Swallowtail group, consisting of this kind and 3 other types.  It is, to the best of my knowledge, a male. Swallowtails tend to fly higher and move faster than some other types of butterflies.  They tend towards hosting with members of the Carrot family, such as hemlock (very poisonous, caution is recommended), Bishopweed, and Roughfruit Scaleseed.

 Which of the pictures do you think was the best or your favorite?   Personally, I liked the first Elderberry one the best, Elderberry is just a very photogenic plant, and looks great in pictures, in my opinion.   

Just some snake skin

Only a light post today, just a few pictures of a snake skin in a nearby tree.  I actually saw the snake shortly after it molted, but by the time I got my camera, it was gone, and I'm not in the business of chasing things down to get pictures of them, sometimes they get mad, so, if I see them while I have the camera, I'll take them, but I won't antagonize them just to get the picture.

  I do think the pictures of the skin turned out well though.   They belong to a Black Rat snake, which is not poisonous, and, like the name implies, eats mostly small rodents such as rats and mice.

The bugs and the trees.

 So, for the first few pictures, this is a young cicada, even if you've only seen the husks, you've probably heard them, this was the first time I saw a live one, and I think the wings on it look amazing.

                                        From the little research I've done, this is one of the 'Annual Cicada' group, specifically a "Dog Day" cicada.  Annual Cicada's have a life span of 2-5 years, and are the norm for most of the world.  In the North Eastern United States, there are types known as Periodical Cicadas, which swarm every 13 and 17 years, depending on the type.

       

This picture was just to show off how big it was,  I'd say, length wise was probably about finger-length, maybe finger and a half (very scientific measurements)

 This was just a picture that I took artistically, I thought the contrast of the shadow in the middle and the white flower/buds was pretty nice.  I don't know what kind of plant it is, but they are pretty common in the yard, I've seen them on their own, around pecan trees, pretty much anywhere.

In our backyard, we have an orchard with a couple apple trees, and they seem to be doing fair, we also have a pear tree near by, however, it doesn't bear any fruit yet.

Sorry this one looks a bit off, it's a small bug that was climbing on my shoulder while I was out mowing our yard, and I tried to take this photo with a regular camera.  This little bug looks like a leaf hopper to me, which are slightly bad for plants, but not terribly so.  Fun Fact:  There are more species of Leaf Hoppers than all species of mammals, amphibians, birds, and reptiles combined.  That is, a lot.   Source:  Planet Natural's webpage on Leaf Hoppers.

 This is one of our young pecan trees, around 7 years old or so I think, shown here with a person to show it's size.  The power lines are actually a good bit farther back and are in no danger of hitting the tree.    Pecans are a huge business around this area, when it's pecan season you can't turn almost a single corner in nearby Alexandria without going past someone buying them.  While they used to buy them to make stuff with them, most of the buyers just buy them to make Pecan Oil now, I think.


How do you think the photo's turned out?     Which do you think was the best?   Personally, I liked the first Cicada photo on the top left the best, because the wings in that one are very nice looking.   

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed the post.

The Dance of the Spiders and Rustic Morning Glory

 A nice arrangement of spider lillies out in the yard today, with a couple morning glories in the background.

Both of these are just about EVERY where in the yard around now haha.

This is an old fence post for a fence that has been partially removed, which has been reclaimed by the Morning Glories







This one was one of my favorite recently, I think the picture itself of this Spider Lily came out great.

A few 'normal' pictures from everyday life around here

This picture is sort of an update, this is a picture of those 'web-ball' caterpillars.  It's actually called the Fall Webworm, and the web-balls is a cocoon for what becomes a white moth, and they tend to nest in pecan trees, among others, and are, mostly, not dangerous, according to the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center at https://www.lsuagcenter.com/en/our_offices/research_stations/Pecan/Features/Pecan_FAQs/index_seriespage-18.htm

 This is a picture of a couple of our 'house-cats' in our screen room, where we put up a few shelves, for them to climb around on, still inside, technically, while also still sort of being outside.

 Saw at least 4 of these girls out in the yard today, the Red Eared Slider, a fairly common turtle that is quite often kept as pets.

 The family across the way has at least 2 horses, as well as their neighbor has at least 2 horses, and also a couple dozen cows.

Sorry for the quality of this Egret, I will definitely do better, this one was done at 32x magnification, so, he was pretty far away.

And here is my favorite one, I call it 'To the Setting Sun'  Even though it was taken at around 8-9 this morning, haha.