summer's end ....

so good to be back with kim at 'the cafe',
nancy at tuesday muse,
and kent at sweet shot tuesday!
yes, i am covering the basis this week, and anxious to be visiting again!



seems just days ago that spring had sprung, and now, summer days are winding down.
oh yes, i'm sure we'll have a few more days of hot balmy breezes left, but still,
things are taking on that look around town, in my yard, and in the country.

it was a beautiful summer day when hubby and i took a drive along
the back roads and happened upon this old barn.

i do love old barns!

it brought back memories of my childhood-summers
when we would stay with friends who had a farm.
such fun we had on those long ago lazy summer days ...
wearing over-sized cowboy boots, riding bikes on the dusty, dirt path,
chickens squawking around the yard, collecting eggs, running from the family cow,
and that one-of-a-kind-and-only-in-the-country smell of corn ripened fields,
fresh vegetables from the yard garden, and yes,
the hay loft where we spent hours on end with the farm cats and kittens
watching the shadows grow longer as the day came to a close.

wish i could turn back the clock ...
but no, we can only do that in our memories.

time moves on, and today my grown-up summer is coming to a close,
the shadows are growing longer, the fields are getting riper,
and i, for one, am going to enjoy every moment we have left of these warm and wonderful days,
even if i don't have a hayloft!

and now, here is the old barn we saw, still standing strong, solitary,
smack dab in the middle of a soybean field.
oh how i wanted to explore behind those weathered boards ...
i might have heard the whisperings of other long ago childhood summer memories.



i worked for awhile on this image and had a recipe when i added the texture,
but as i was reminiscing, i got a bit lost in it all and missed recording a few of the steps ...
i even went back to try to recapture the process, but alas,
what i came up with looked quite different from this!

please, do tell me that i am not the only one this has happened to!!

i do recall the easier steps of cleaning up the image, color, contrast, etc.,
then layering it, twice, with kim's kk_love texture, but that is all.

i may try again to see if i can redo what i did to achieve this effect.
in the meantime, do come on over to join in here, here, and here:

texture tuesday

tuesday muse

sweet shot tuesday . week 32

hope to see you there, there, and there ...
have a blessed week! :)

deborah
xoxo

... the moment when you realize
summer is almost over.