When recently walking down the historic Commercial Street,  I was struck by the uniqueness of the area. The variety of the architecture, the eclectic feel of the shops  doing business that make the street feel like you are traveling back in time. While taking with you the hopes and dreams of a modern society wishing to make it's mark, along for the ride.

Springfield was founded in 1838, and this area located  north of the city became  North Springfield, (also called North Town, or Moon City) ^(link),  was incorporated in 1871, one year before the construction of the  St. Louis San Francisco Railroad (Frisco Railroad). They  had located their headquarters along the tracks, which are just north of Commercial St.  In 1887, 17 years later,  the two towns decided to merge and would be called Springfield.

Today I have quite a variety of images to share. Weird clothes to a wonderful sunset. The weird clothes are from a window display on one of our city streets that used to be the center of activity for the city. Since then, it's slowly declined but recently has had a rebound of sorts. The metal art is from an artist that has her studio there on Commercial Street.  I'll be posting more images from this historic area in a later article but until then I'm offering some of the roadside sights.

Today I want to review the copyright  policy here on Newsvine as it pertains to Newsvine Photographers. As far as NVP  is concerned, we are all about presenting our own work. If you feel it's necessary (for illustration purposes) that  you use someone else's image as well,   then you need to give credit. Per the User Agreement and Newsvine Code of Honor, you retain all copyright to content you submit to the site, but you also agree to allow Newsvine to use that image. If you haven’t read them I suggest you do!
 
The Newsvine Code of Honor Section 4a states this:
 
 

“Plagiarism and copyright infringement will not be tolerated. If you did not write something, do not portray it as your own (use the "blockquote" tag and cite your source by linking to the original content). If you do not have the right to republish the content in question, do not post it to Newsvine.”

 
The User Agreement states this under the Prohibited Conduct section:
 

The following non-exhaustive list describes the kinds of illegal or harmful conduct that are prohibited on our Site. You agree not to:....potentially infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any person or entity;….

   
Now that seems pretty clear when it comes to the written word, but for our images you should  interpret  that as meaning any image you post to Newsvine should be one of your own, if it’s not you should give credit to whoever owns it.
 
As for marking your work as being copyrighted, it’s not actually necessary but if you do, you can say something like: “All rights reserved” or use the symbol, the year  and (your name). IE:

© 2012 by Rottlady

I found the following on the internet and think it pretty much covers it all.
 Things to remember about copyright:

• Copyright is a property right.
• Just because you buy a print does not mean you have purchased the copyright.
• Professional photographers are the smallest of small copyright holders.
• Under the Federal Copyright Act of 1976, photographs are protected by copyright from the moment of creation.
• Photographers have the exclusive right to reproduce their photographs (right to control the making of copies).
• Unless you have permission from the photographer, you can’t copy, distribute (no scanning and sending them to others), publicly display (no putting them online), or create derivative works from photographs.
• A photographer can easily create over 20,000 separate pieces of intellectual property annually.
• Professional photographers are dependent on their ability to control the reproduction of the photographs they create.It affects their income and the livelihood of their families.
• Even small levels of infringement—copying a photo without permission—can have a devastating impact on a photographer’s ability to make a living.
• Copyright infringements—reproducing photos without permission—can result in civil and criminal penalties.

After writing all of the previous stuff, now I want to discuss how you can protect your images on the internet. One thing is of course posting a watermark copyright statement on the image. However most don’t know how to do this or find it too much trouble. So one way, is to never post an image in it’s full  size. I generally re-size my images to fit the area on the article. 660 pixels wide and whatever length is appropriate and proportional  for the image to appear in full on the screen. You  don’t want one  so large that someone has to scroll down to see the entire image.
 
If you need help on the resizing of an image I would be glad to help guide you through it, or you can attend one of our Virtual Vinemeets and get help.
 
 

Tomorrow is the night to capture the Supermoon and I'd like to offer some suggestions gleaned from the internet that will give you the best picture. Number one is that you really should have a tripod, but baring that, try to get somewhere that you can steady your camera such as a beanbag on the top of the car, leaning your arm against a tree or even using your camera strap pulled tightly to keep the camera from moving. Another hint is to make sure you don't miss it, you'll need to check the timing of Moonrise, because you want to try to shoot while the moon still has a horizon reference like beside some trees or just over your roof.

Today I'm posting a variety of images I've taken around the house lately. The weather has just been glorious and I've set out some flowers. I've been visited by my stray cats on a regular basis and even gotten to see a few good Sunsets, and an almost full Moon setting. I have a few more photo projects in the works, but until complete I won't be showing those.

I had a great opportunity on Saturday to visit our local zoo. They were celebrating Enrichment EGGstravaganza, which means that some lucky animals got to have some tasty treats wrapped up in a healthy package that looked like a Papier-mâché ball. And since that is French for "chewed paper", very appropriate. 

I was privileged enough to have a "ride along" with the gracious Melinda Arnold the Public Relations Manager for the zoo to each of the exhibits I visited. Which of course made my visit so much easier to snag pictures of these wonderful creatures. Heck, I even got to go behind the scenes a couple of times when it was safe. It was perfect weather for most of the day, partly sunny with a nice temperature in the 60's. We did have a threat of rain that finally showed up mid-afternoon. But that didn't dampen the spirits of all the excited kids and parents. The park seemed packed!

I got  a chance to go by the Xeriscape Garden the other day and get pictures of some of the plants, trees and flowers. I've been there in past years and am never disappointed. The folks that maintain the plantings there are the best! Seems there is always someone there weeding or just available to answer questions. They are all volunteers, most have attended the Master Gardner classes available here in town. The paths are mostly wood chipped, but some as you will see are nice flat stones. They are laid out in a pleasing manner through out the garden. The garden isn't big, but it's jam-packed with every sort of plant that tolerate low water conditions.

After a long period of not posting sunsets, I decided it was time to get back to my favorite thing. The sunset is always special to me and it seems to be special to lots of folks. I have a pretty cool experience with one of my sunset images the other day, as you probably know I post my pictures over on Flickr. I usually post only to my page. I had one of my sunset images chosen by a group on Flickr that I hadn't been aware of before. They asked my permission to add it their group. The funny thing is I have no idea how they  found my image unless someone did a tag search but once I approved it the viewers came en masse to my image and started commenting. I ended up with a ton of comments from folks all over the world!

I attended the 32nd Annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Celebration in Springfield, Missouri on Saturday. The weather was stellar, the scene was green and fun was had by all! Before the parade started there was a Irish Pet Contest with all sorts of animals dressed in their  best "Irish" costumes, there were many different critters donning the green, such as a pot-belied pig, a goat, alpacas and even a green iguana and of course a bunch of fun loving dogs!

I'm not sure I believe in aliens, but after looking at these images-one has to wonder... Each of these pictures has at least one element that could be picture proof of something strange, you'll just have to judge for yourself.

There is a guy by the name of John Lear, that along with others that believe there are a race of peaceable humans some 7-8 ft. tall, with pale-blue skin and large ’wrap-around’ eyes which are extremely sensitive to light called The Moon Eyes.

"They claim to be descendants of Noah who traveled to the Western Hemisphere a few centuries following the deluge and discovered ancient antediluvian cavern systems and ancient technologies which had been abandoned by the antediluvians in deep subterranean recesses."

Reportedly they reside in deep cave systems beneath the general region of the Ozarks-Arkansas and surrounding regions.

I guess they think they could be of alien decent?

Possibly I have proof?

It's finally here! Our Leap Day Sun posting and I'm already seeing the sun from all over the world! This has been a long month for me, since we decided to do this challenge way back at the first of February. But it  has been a lot of fun and hopefully we can plan to do something like this again.

I want to thanks everyone that has participated and helped advertise the effort across the web.  Dowser helped out by creating a map for us to mark where our sun shots are from, etva and HollyKl helped write reminder articles and to the folks that helped brainstorm the original idea. Newsvine staff even tweeted about it and linked it in Facebook! It's been a group effort and one well worth the time we spent. Thanks everyone!

Now, be sure to visit every article that has the tag "leap-day-sun" and see all the great images!

It's almost here! In case you've forgotten, we're planning an all out  sun review this Wednesday! It's called Leap Day Sun Challenge and we're hoping to get everyone that wants to participate to do so. It's easy, just go outside at dawn or sunset and capture your view of the sun on Wed. Feb 28th and post those pictures on Friday, March 2nd. Using the tag leap-day-sun so everyone can find your article. You don't have to belong to a particular group to participate, as long as you add the tag, everyone will be able to find the article. Hopefully we'll have a record number of folks participating and get to see the sun from a whole bunch of locations!

Besides the single addition of a stray cat I have my usual fare of end of the day shots of the sky. No surprise, huh? I just can't stop myself of checking out what nature provides us, I hope what I captured provides you with a smile.

We finally got a little bit of snow this week so that's my theme for foto-friday. Because I'm staying close to home, all of my shots are from my front porch. The first image of the clouds is a panoramic shot of the horizon the night before the snow. Then I was able to capture some of the birds that visit my feeders even if most of what I got was the backside. *grins* The remaining shots are of the snow and what I thought might be interesting for you. The snow was here for only one day, then we got some rain and warmer weather. I don't mind snow storms like that at all!

I finally cleaned my windows so I could get some bird feeding pictures and it's amazing how much better the images turn out when you don't have to look through smudges.

I was surprised when I was able to capture these birds either with a mouth full of seed or as you see in the first image, a bird tongue! I did a little Google search this morning on the House Sparrow and found this per Wikipedia:

Sparrows are physically similar to other seed-eating birds, such as finches, but have a vestigial dorsal outer primary feather and an extra bone in the tongue.^[2][3] This bone, the preglossale, helps stiffen the tongue when holding seeds.

I also found this description of a bird's tongue here:

Most birds have tongues, though unlike ours. A bird's tongue has 5 bones in it that support and strengthen it, together they are called the 'Hyoid apparatus'.

There is also a great deal of variation in bird tongues. A bird's tongue is generally harder and less flexible than ours. Most birds have a relatively simple tongue, a flat triangular blade in shape with a few backwardly pointing papillae at the back of the mouth which help to ensure food only goes in one direction.

Or maybe this one is just wagging it's tongue with a bunch of gossip? I only wish I could come up with some really good captions for these images. So, if you want to help out just post your captions below and help me out.

After having a conversation with some other viners we decided we would like to have everyone that want's to, shoot either the sunrise or the sunset on one day and all of us publish on the same day. So we've picked the last day of February the 29th, (Leap Day) to do this. In short, take pictures of either your sunrise or your sunset or both if you like on that day and then publish your article on Friday, March 2, 2012.

I'm thinking it will be really cool to see one day that Newsvine is flooded with images of the sun from all over the world! So let's see if we can get all of our friends that have a camera and want to participate. For ease of finding the articles, I suggest you add the tag " leap-day-sun, " (you can just copy the tag right from here) to your article so all we'll have to do is "watch" that tag. You don't have to belong to a particular group to participate, as long as you add the tag, everyone will be able to find the article.

So to sum it up, take your pictures on Wednesday Feb. 29th, publish on Friday March 2, and add the tag " leap-day-sun, ". Let's see how many folks we can get to do this and see the sun on one single day from vantage points all over the world!

I call this a sampler because I have a little bit of everything here today. A sunrise, some sunsets and some inside-scapes as well.

It's amazing to me how a "dust up" with a friend can affect you. I don't know if I got sick because of it, or I was sick before but I really hate how I've been feeling. So I decided to get outside and try to remedy the mood. Somehow seeing the sunset in all it's glory always seems to help. So finally after a week I believe I'm on the mend. Hopefully I can clear the dust too! Anyway, I offer my  sunsets for all to enjoy, hope it lifts your spirits too!

Hello friends! I'm posting some sunsets from the end of last year and the beginning of this year today. I have had some really wonderful times viewing and trying to capture the glorious colors of our Ozarks sky, and even though it's turned off cold, leaves have fallen from the trees, and some nights there are no clouds in the sky, I believe every sunset I watch is special. I can only hope I've done them justice.

We went on our annual drive to search out Christmas light displays this week and instead of hitting the same ones here,  we drove to a nearby town to see what they had to offer. We weren't disappointed, although there weren't as many folks putting out lights, the one's we saw were quite nice.

As it turns out my Sister, her husband and I have done this now for about 5 years now, and we always have lots of fun. We go to dinner and then off to find the "lights". This year we drove about 25 miles west of our town to Marionville, Mo. I had read about a home that has 130,000 lights that cycle to synchronized music. It takes them around 4 months and lots of help to assemble, they even have a fan page!

It was another great night for viewing outdoor lighting, and if the lights  could talk they would say, Merry Christmas everyone!

When I was out to see the Christmas parade last weekend, I also toured the square to capture some of the sites. The future History Museum had a display of old pictures  and then I captured some of the buildings there now. The old pictures weren't dated so I had to guess, but I thought they were interesting none the less. I titled this with "new" because they just finished remodeling the public areas of the square this fall. That's why all the trees you see are new. Too bad they didn't just work around the old one's, I hate to see them take out existing trees. Hopefully these will grow soon.

I attended our annual Christmas parade last Saturday and tried to capture it on film. The theme for the parade was "Rockin' Around the Square" which I thought was appropriate considering some of the floats entered. It was a lovely cool day with lots of sun and of course tons of fun!

Here is a sample of some of my pictures.

Maybe I should have added that "yes, I know my windows are dirty" to the title, rest assured it's on the list as soon as it warms up. No sunsets this week, just some images of my bird feeders and all the visitors I've had lately. Mostly Northern Cardinals, House finch, and Mourning Doves but I have seen the Tufted Titmouse a few times too.

It's been a while since I've had any sunsets to share, so I decided to show you what we have been seeing around here lately. It looks like it's going to turn off cold here pretty quick, but at least we haven't had any snow yet.

I just received an email from a Newsviner that needs our support. Bonnie-1034943, hasn't been able to comment on Newsvine for some time, she's having computer problems. She is able to access and read, but not comment. She has had a devastating loss recently and would like to reach out to her friends here for support. If you can, contact her via the Contact button on her home page and show her you care! If not, please leave a comment here and I'm sure she'll see it. I'm including the note she sent me, (with her permission) so you can know what's going on.

Dear Rottlady, I need my friends from NV. My computer is not working so that I can post on newsvine, but I can read stories, etc...and emails would be welcome! My son Charles passed away Friday. He was 34 years old. He overdosed on something and by the time the ambulance got him to the hospital and onto the table he was gone. My heart is shattered!!!!!!!! I am in agony for my boy. My sunshine. I love him so much!!! Charles has been mentally ill for many years. He was schizophrenic although on medicine he was doing well. He stopped taking his meds and used illicit drugs because he felt better than on the meds the doctor gave him. I did what I could to help him...it was not enough. I need my friends from newsvine. I have gotten to know so many wonderful people on nv, but when my computer stopped allowing me to post I was not able to talk to anyone. It helps me to write, but facebook is so hard right now because everyone has pictures posted of my son, and it is ripping me apart... Charles left behind me and his two brothers. John and Joshua. He also has his dad, 4 children and his partner of 12 years, Amber. We don't know how to cope with this loss. We are trying to get funeral plans together, but I have never walked this way before, it is all so much at once...(I edited out a small portion here) ....Please would you tell my friends, and would you let them know I need them all now more than ever? If they would just send me emails since I cannot post anything back to them until I get another computer... Thank you so much!!!!!!!! Love Bonnie

Bonnie lives away form a lot of her family so if you can contact her via email I know it would be appreciated!

This month's challenge was Simplicity, which turned out to be a fun one to try to accomplish. I tried to find something original to capture, but not so sure I did that. However, I was able to get some I liked.

Simple Steeple

© 2011 by Rottlady

I took a short walk this last weekend down the street and found some nice fall flowers to show today. It was a nice sunny day, not too cool even though the wind was blowing fairly hard. I fear we may not have many more days as warm, so it was time to get out there and find something to share.

Today you will see some of what I call "moody" sunsets. The weather around here has turned off cold and rainy lately and as a result we've had some really great sunsets.

This weekend I was able to attend a really cool event full of horses! The Springfield Greene-County Parks put on an event at the Valley Water Mill Equestrian Center. It was the first time I'd been out there and I was really impressed with the Center. Back when I had my horses there weren't events/parks like this, I know if there were I would have been out there for sure!

I used the experience to shoot some video with my camera, it was an amateur move as I haven't used the video feature on my camera much at all. So please bear with me when you see some things out of focus.... It's not easy to follow fast moving objects!

The Easy Rider Drill Team has won National honors so it was a pleasure to see them in action. All in all it was really a fun event that I plan to attend again!

Happy Friday everyone!

Today you will see the Autumn sky in all it's splendor right from my porch here in the Ozarks. The days are getting shorter, almost 3 minutes a day! Seems I have to adjust my shooting time a lot these these days. It won't be long before it'll be dark before folks get off work! Fortunately, being retired I don't have to worry about that. Anyway, here are some of the skies we've seen around here lately.

We had an interesting week here in the Ozarks, some rain and lots of cool weather. Which makes for great photo opportunities. I did a little search and they are called cirus clouds, and generally occur in fair weather and point in the direction of air movement at their elevation.

I only have a few photos to share today, but hopefully that will be changing soon. With the season changing I'm hoping to get at least some Fall colors to share. Until then, I have to fall back on my regular fare, sunsets with a bonus waxing crescent moon. I hope you enjoy them!

Since today is Good News Wednesday, I wanted to share something really good with everyone. Yesterday I had the rare opportunity to see some "Hula Chicks". It's not everyday that you get to see these elusive birds, they are, as you might think, hard to find and although not very camera shy, they usually don't display like this.

I tried to do a little research on this unusual bird but wasn't able to find much, hopefully I'll get more opportunities to observe these interesting birds in the wild, if I do, I'll be sure to keep you all updated!

It sure feels good to be back online! In case you hadn't noticed I was offline for almost a week due to computer problems. But after a thorough cleaning and a small fee, I'm back in business. I have to admit, I felt almost like I had lost my best friend when I looked over at my desk and didn't see my computer tower. Once it was returned to it's place, I promise to be more diligent about properly keeping it dust-free.

Hello Newsviner's! I have a few photos to show you today and and explanation. First off I'll start with the explanation as to why I haven't been online much this week. I'm having computer problems, one day last week I'd been online to most of the day and all of a sudden my computer quit. What I mean is it turned itself off! I was kind of surprised by that and promptly tried to turn it back on, that's when I got the message that I had experienced a CPU overheating event. I talked with some friends and they say I've probably got problems with the fans that keep the thing cool. They suggested to remove the cover and clean the dust out, which I have since done. The two fans I can see were indeed very dirty, but they both seem to be working. But I'm pretty sure there is one that I can see because it's behind a large box.

Today I have an assortment of photos taken in the last week, some Clematis I found blooming close by, a view of my building at sunset, and of course some Ozarks sunsets. I'm going to start off with something I think is pretty cool, an example of Crepuscular rays. Per wiki, "Crepuscular rays also known as God Rays), in atmospheric optics, are rays of sunlight that appear to radiate from a single point in the sky. These rays, which stream through gaps in clouds or between other objects, are columns of sunlit air separated by darker cloud-shadowed regions."
I've had better images of this but it's been a long time, you don't get to see these too often.

We had a great week here in the Ozarks for sunsets, lots of color and clouds. The temps have been a little hot, but it finally cooled off yesterday and the forecast is average temps for the next week. Which means somewhere in the 80's! Much better than the high 90's we were getting. I have some sunsets to show you as well as a Full Moon shot this week, the moon was actually last week, but since I didn't post an article then, I'm showing it today.

I still haven't taken many pictures yet, so I only have a few to show this week. Our weather has finally improved, we've had rain and much cooler temps so that's good news. I have a couple sunsets and something I was playing around with a couple of weeks ago to show.

It's still really hot here in the Midwest. I'm so ready for it to cool off a bit!

Yes, it's my Birthday! And look what I got for a present, the full Moon! So far, this it turning out to be a great day, I mean how many folks that are called Moon Children and get to have such a lovely companion in the sky?

I did a little search and today's moon is called the The Full Buck Moon – July is normally the month when the new antlers of buck deer push out of their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur. It was also often called the Full Thunder Moon, for the reason that thunderstorms are most frequent during this time. Another name for this month’s Moon was the Full Hay Moon. Farmer's Almanac

I also found this.

Cancer— June 21 to July 21

Good Wednesday morning everyone! We are finally getting some badly needed rain! I stepped out last night to see if I could get a few pictures for Good News Wednesday and was pleasantly surprised to see some clouds in the sky. So my first image is of the sunset. I also got a couple of shots of my front porch of the few plants I have growing this year. Then this morning I wanted to see if I could get a decent picture of the sky after it rained all night. The sunrise shot was taken looking west rather than east because the sky was more interesting in this direction. So, without further ado, here's some pictures for your viewing pleasure!

If I can stop laughing I've got to tell you all a story. I found a perfect way to get woken up. It all started this morning when I woke way too early, it was approximately 3:30 am, I knew the moon was almost full so I wanted to get some pictures of it. So the first thing I did was pour me a little coffee and step outside to see where it was. Mind you, it's very early, and I'm not completely awake... Well, I opened the door, looking up to the sky and the moment I stepped out, someone said "Good Morning!"

I only have a few since I'm still waiting for the sun to move across the sky for better viewing, but when I saw these I had to capture them. We finally are getting some rain! Everything seems more happy now that it's had a drink, the grass was getting quite brown.

My final article about our trip to Kentucky. We were on the road for about 10 hours each way, which gave me lots of time to take some pictures of the sights. I took lots but am only showing you the best or most interesting.

We had wonderful weather for our travels both to and from Kentucky, Which made our Vinemeet trip even better!

Finally! I have some sunsets to share with everyone. Because of the season, the sun is generally hiding behind a large building blocking my view through the months of May and June, but I was able to get a shot the other day of some clouds on the horizon at sunset. I also have a few from Louisville Kentucky!

Part of the fun of the Vinemeet last week was discovering all the souvenirs inside the Welcome gifts bag and the door prizes we won. You can't imaging all the neat stuff Dowser found for us! I believe most of the welcome gifts were all the same, but the door prizes were all different. I've taken some pictures of my memorabilia brought home form the meet, some I bought, and most were from Dowser.

Most of you know that Bella is Augur Well's trusty jeep, if you didn't now you do. Well, I have a story that you might enjoy so I'm sharing it today. It all started last Friday, the first full day we (my sister and I) were in Louisville for the Vinemeet. It had been agreed that Augur would kindly take us to a nice restaurant for lunch, Dowser had been invited but she felt she didn't have time to spare. My sister and I preferred not to do any driving in the city since we had no idea where to go. So Augur graciously  offered to drive.

I've been working furiously to get my pictures in order to show you all how much fun we had this last weekend. I finally got them ready! I'm going to break them up in order to not make the videos too long, I plan on writing some articles about each event later but at least you can see the pics now. To see the captions, once you click on the video, look up on the top right and click on Show info. Or you can go to my Flickr page of the whole collection and click on each group. Your choice.

I've been working non-stop to get some pictures up and have finally got some presentable. I'm planning on writing a real article about our wonderful visit later, but I know everyone wants to see pictures! So I've put together a slideshow on Flickr I'll post here. Now, to see the names of who you are looking at, you'll have to click here and it'll take you to the page. Otherwise, just sit back and watch all the smiling faces and lovely hats we made! Edit: I just discovered if you want to see the titles, just click on Show info on the top right of the video!

Since I'll be busy later this week visiting Dowser and friends at the Vinemeet, I'm going to show you some pictures for Good News Wednesday. My potted lilies are blooming finally and they are just so lovely and as an added bonus they smell good too! I also have a sunset that complements the colors of the lily that I thought was nice.  Hope you enjoy them!