PHOTO-A-DAY CHALLENGE
A Swan Family on the Lake and Celebrations in the Sky
Week 94 of the photographic documentary of my daily life
Nature is full of surprises but so is our life. You never know what’s waiting for you around the next corner. Just stay awake and curious. If you keep your eyes open for the small joys in life you’ll find beauty in every day.
This week was once again a great mixture of exploring nature, being surrounded by singing birds and humming bees and falling from the sky.
There were things to be celebrated and spring remained moody. We had lots of sunshine but also rain, clouds, and even a storm.
When I started out with this week’s photographs and was forming the descriptions I came up with words ending to -ness and decided to keep this going for the whole week. A bit of a language challenge for me.
Day one. Nothing spectacular happened. I captured a sky covered in clouds.
On Friday afternoon we had finished work a little earlier and I asked my husband if he was up for a paddle on the lake. I was very excited when he said yes.
I don’t mind going paddling on my own and as he always says we don’t have to do everything together since we live and work together but it is always nice to go out on the boards as a team.
I was inspecting a canal leading away from the lake when I discovered this swampland. I would have loved to stay longer and paddler further into it but the mosquitos were eating me alive.
A big storm was blowing over Germany and had already done lots of damage. In some parts, the storm developed into a tornado.
In the end, I must say we were very lucky. The storm hit us early Saturday morning with strong winds and some light rain. But that was it. Of course, we had canceled the day since flying with a parachute in such conditions is not an option.
The winds were so strong it never rained for longer than half an hour because the upper winds were pushing the clouds with approximately 70 knots.
I was hiding in the trailer listening to the wind rushing through the nearby forest and the raindrops falling on our roof. That was when I captured the water dropping off a roof in front of the lilac bushes (purple and white blossoms in the background).
We didn’t want to believe the forecast but we had a beautiful Sunday. No wind. No clouds. Nothing to stop us from jumping out of planes. The storm had vanished.
We had a busy day ahead since some of the customers got moved from Saturday to Sunday and started early with the jumps.
It was a special day on two notes. It was the 2nd wedding anniversary of my husband and me but we’re both not really celebrating our anniversaries. When we first got together we forgot every single year about it. And getting married didn’t change anything.
My mom called yesterday to wish us all the best for today. That was when we found out it was our wedding anniversary. But surely we did no celebrations but jumped out of planes.
We actually did 3 student jumps together since we had a new course over the weekend and 8 students doing their first-ever skydive.
And then I also did my 2000th skydive today. It was the below jump together with my husband even though I didn’t know about it but only found out when I did admin on Monday and wrote down all the jumps I did over the weekend.
So yes, a Sunday full of celebrations but not really. Because we were too busy to realize any of it.
Monday is our off day and of course, I wanted to head out with my paddleboard again. Not a long one, just to loosen the muscles and spend some time in nature.
I explored a new canal leading me past garden plots, a few ducks, and countless birds singing in the reeds.
And Tuesday I was back to work.
Got some cloudscape for you.
I took this photograph on my way to altitude.
Wednesday was a beautiful day but somewhere during the day, we got some massive clouds surrounding us. And that was the exact moment we launched from the airplane.
The customer was from Switzerland and had jumped once before in Interlaken but thought it was really boring over there.
I couldn’t believe that. Seriously. Skydiving in Interlaken is on the top ten list of the most beautiful places in the world to skydive from. I’d love to do a jump between the massive mountains of the Alps.
But this guy got lucky. He said mountains are boring to him since he grew up in the alps and he also didn’t like the blue skies on his first jump. Well, here we go. Beautiful flat northern Germany with a load full of clouds for you.
And because skydiving wasn’t all I did today I decided to share a second image that represents my time after work.
It was around 5 pm when I got into the car to drive to the nearest canal. I pumped up my board and jumped on it for another sunset session on the reflecting stillness.
This has been my week in photographs. 7 days. 7 photographs. Anyone can join. Once. Or weekly. It doesn’t matter. We welcome everyone! Dennett started this photography challenge in 2020 and many have participated ever since.
Erika / Eileen / K. Barrett / Juan / David / Mia / Susan / LensAfield / Kim / Barbara / Diana / Barb / Sandra / Shruthi / Ellie / Pene / Olive / Gustavo / Jane / Penny / Jillian
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