The Traveling Widower

Tag: flowers

  • A Rosey Sunday Morning

    A picturesque garden pathway adorned with colorful rose bushes, leading through neatly trimmed hedges and an arched trellis, under a clear sky and palm trees.

    May 4th, 2026

    Earlier this year, I joined a local photography organization, the Viewpoint Photographic Art Center (located in Sacramento), which hosts exhibits for photographers, and also offers workshops and classes for members. A great local organization for photographers. I visit the gallery at least once a month to view the latest exhibits and chat with the docents – gives me something useful to do when I’m home between trips. 

    I signed up for one of the workshops which piqued my interest – a morning photo shoot at one of those relatively unknown gems in Sacramento, the McKinley Park Rose Garden. I used to do some flower photography many years ago, but mostly of alpine flowers when I was hiking in the Rockies. I figured now that photography is my primary hobby and source of amusement, it would be worth getting a little hands-on training once in a while.

    So, (extremely) early Sunday morning, I chugged down my morning coffee, grabbed the Sony A7RV with the Sony 25-105MM lense, also my fancy monopod,  threw another lens in a small backpack, and headed off to the park – only a 20 minute drive. I figured I could survive 3 hours without any extra food.

    The Rose Garden covers a 1.5 acre section of the large park, and has over 1,200 rose bushes, managed and maintained  by volunteers. It is a beautiful place to wander through, and is rented out for weddings and events…but most of the time, it is just open to the public 24X7. Just about all the bushes are bursting with blossoms this time of year, so this was a good day to take some photos. 

    This turned out to be a very small workshop – myself, one other person and the Viewpoint lead. This was also sort of a casual affair with such a small group – the leader gave us some challenges to work on, some ideas on what we should try out, and then set us loose. We checked in every hour to discuss the conditions and things we should look for, and then went off to try them out. It was great. The lighting conditions kept changing, so you could photograph the same target, and then have a completely different look if the sun ducked behind a cloud. There were so many different flower shapes and colors, with lots of dense leaves to provide nice backgrounds to the colorful blooms. A fun time – it was nice shooting in the daylight (as opposed to my astrophotography trip), and seeing the difference you get by changing the depth of field on the same subject.

    I did have one non-flower subject. A bluebird decided to hang around the bushes close to where I was standing, so I switched gears for some bird photography – these came out pretty nice.

    A bluebird perched on green foliage, surrounded by out-of-focus plants in the background.
    A bluebird perched on a branch surrounded by greenery.

    We kept at it for about 2 1/2 hours until we all ran out of steam. I sat and chatted with the docent for a while, and then headed home. I really did not have much in the way of expectations for the results – I was happy with the bluebird images, and had a  lot of fun so it was already a worthwhile endeavor. But when I downloaded the RAW images to Lightroom, I was shocked – there were quite a few really nice images. Not just the settings and focus, but the composition as well. Maybe I’m finally learning something….or maybe it’s just luck. My next planned photo trip is at the end of the month – hopefully I’ll remember some of what I’ve learned the past few weeks. It could happen.

    Close-up of a vibrant yellow-orange rose with pink edges in a garden setting, accompanied by a blurred background rose.
    A close-up view of vibrant red roses with yellow edges, surrounded by lush green foliage.
    A vibrant red rose in full bloom surrounded by lush green leaves, with a smaller rose bud nearby.
    A cluster of vibrant red roses in full bloom, showcasing lush petals against a softly blurred green background.
    Close-up of a vibrant passion flower surrounded by green leaves.
    Close-up of a vibrant red rose with layered petals, showcasing shades of orange and pink against a dark green background.
    A close-up of a vibrant red rose bud with a green unopened bud nearby, set against a blurred green background.
    A vibrant cluster of orange and red roses in a garden, with green foliage in the background.

    If you live in Sacramento area, it’s really worth a visit to the garden – free parking along the street, and the rest of the park is nice for a long walk.

  • Scouring Spotted Spurge – gardening, a widowers hobby

    OK, so this has nothing to do with travel, But there is that other word in the domain name which this does relate to (widow, not garden), so I may throw some odd posts in related to my journey through the grief wilderness since my wife passed. And besides, as I’ve said before, it’s my blog! I can make up the rules as I go along!

    Close-up of a large yellow dahlia flower with numerous petals and green leaves in the background.

    I do not think of myself as a gardener – I’m more of an amateur landscape designer, that likes to plant things. I rarely write down what I plant, so I have no clue after a year as to what’s growing in my yard and have to use Google lense when someone asks “what is that?”. I love the way it looks in the spring and summer when everything is blooming, and find it relaxing to just sit in the shade and watch the pollinators and hummingbirds buzzing around. I spent a lot of time in my little haven while Jan was beginning to decline – my own little sanctuary, most of the time worry, cry or both, when Jan was sleeping or talking on the phone.

    As it turns out, a lot of the widows/widowers I know are more serious gardeners and even know the names of what they plant. Imagine that. It’s a time consuming hobby which requires planning and effort….all good things. There is a real sense of accomplishment when everything is growing. And, there are clubs to join, which provides another source of socializing, again, something important when your prior social world has collapsed.

    Aside from puttering around on my own property and helping reconstruct a friends sprinkler system, I have also been a volunteer in the Garden Guild of the church I joined after my wife passed (Trinity Episcopal Church in Folsom). We have a wonderful professional (pHD) horticulturist  who designs the grounds, and relies on volunteers to help with the planting, pruning, mulching, and all the various tasks required to maintain a very large garden. It’s fun for me – it gives me something else to do, and I get to socialize with the worker-bees. It’s been important for me during periods when the only social contact I have is with the checkout clerks at the local grocery store. Nice people there.

    Today was a maintenance day, with a small group planting a few things, and doing a lot of weeding and cleanup. I volunteered for weeding an area overgrown with my unfavorite weed – the dreaded yellow spotted spurge. It’s sticky, and grows into thick mats. I guess you could consider it free ground cover. The rest of the crew worked on other areas. The really cool thing about the work we do, are the results. The gardens on this property are absolutely gorgeous. The church is set in an old neighborhood of Folsom, and the neighbors all comment on how absolutely beautiful the gardens are, especially now that everything is blooming. You get a sense of pride in being part of the effort to maintain this. That’s something important when you are sad and depressed a lot the time. 

    A white house with green windows, surrounded by pink flowering trees and shrubs, under a clear blue sky.
    View of a white building with blue trim, featuring a directional sign near a walkway, bordered by blooming white flowers and surrounded by parked cars under a clear blue sky.
    Side view of a white house with yellow trim and a porch area, featuring a garden with sunflowers and colorful flowers along the path, surrounded by power lines and parked cars.
    View of a landscaped garden featuring colorful flowers and greenery next to a walkway and building.
    A landscaped garden featuring white and pink flowers, ornamental grasses, and greenery along a sidewalk on a sunny day.
    An orange bucket labeled 'DO THIS' filled with cut grass and weeds, placed in a garden area with various flowers and a car in the background.

    That last one shows the mass of spurge…there were about 3 buckets worth. The rest are just a few photos of the garden areas. There’s lots more which I did not photograph.

    OK, end of gardening. I promise the next post will be about travel. I’ve got two more caves, a Sequoia forest, an old railroad tunnel filled with graffiti, and possibly another old mining site lined up in the next few weeks. Plus, I’m free from the medical constraints which kept me from being far from home (woo hoo!). I’ve got eight weeks before I leave for Alaska. I think I can fill that time with some fun things.