Autumn Golden glow
Terri Webster Schrandt

Sunday Stills Monthly Color Challenge: Nature’s #Golden Yellows

This week, let’s explore the zesty colors of yellow and gold. I’m focusing on the colors found in nature, but these colors are found anywhere. As always, I look forward to your interpretation and creativity with the challenges.

“The colors red, blue and green are real. The color yellow is a mystical experience shared by everybody.” – Tom Stoppard

Goldfinches and Yellow Sunflowers

During August, I am surrounded by sunflowers. Yellow is everywhere I look. The local sunflower farms are easily seen along the rural highways.

Field of Sunflowers
Sunflower Field

“Summer’s meadow, flowers aglow, warmth and romance touch my soul.” ~ Angie Weiland-Crosby

This year, our backyard has quite a few volunteer sunflowers.

Rain on Half-opened sunflower

The various finches love the feeders and the seeds fresh from the sunflowers.

Goldfinches at feeder

Even the hummingbirds are attracted to these yellow toadflax weeds.

Hummingbird and yellow flower

“Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.” ~ A. A. Milne

While I Was Away…I Found Gold

I took a short blog break to join my family in the high country of Yosemite National Park the first weekend of August. We gathered to honor my mother, who passed away in early 2020, and finally scatter her ashes. Today, I’m sharing brief excerpts of my trip with these images. More later next week.

For the first leg of my trip, I flew to San Jose, California. My daughter picked me up, and we walked to downtown Mountain View for dinner. The evening sunshine lit up the trees.

Golden light on city street
Downtown Mountain View

“Yellow-colored objects appear to be gold.” – Aristotle

Being pampered with Neapolitan-style food at their favorite Italian restaurant was a wonderful experience. Especially after I glimpsed the bill! 😱

three plates of food

The next day, we drove from the San Jose area to Yosemite National Park, where we had lodging reservations in the town of Lee Vining, CA, near Mono Lake (on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas). Once we entered Yosemite, we detoured from Tioga Road into the Valley to check out the “tunnel view.” I caught this view of the Three Brothers decked out in yellow wildflowers, which I shared last week.

Three granite peaks
Back of 3 Brothers Above field of gold Yosemite Valley

“I don’t like formal gardens. I like wild nature. It’s just the wilderness instinct in me, I guess.” ~ Walt Disney

PSA! For those planning to drive into any part of Yosemite National Park, you need a driving permit for every day you drive into the park. This is in addition to the NP entry fee at the gate. My family members who drove had theirs, and anyone can purchase them online. But you must purchase them in advance, preferably two weeks before your planned dates. The Rangers and staff at each gate entrance will turn drivers away who don’t have their permits. Sadly, we saw lots of this at the Tioga Pass entrance.

Saturday was the big day to honor Mom. As we strolled through Tuolumne Meadows to the area where we wanted to scatter the ashes, I caught the golden meadow framed by the iconic peaks.

Tuolumne Meadows Yosemite

My younger daughter made a little memorial of my mom framed by the golden meadow, her favorite place in the world. Later in the afternoon, we drove to another location at Lembert Dome.

memorial photo
Remembering Mom

By then, the summer thunderstorm typical of this time of year poured upon us. As it eased up, I saw my daughter and brother walking along the dome.

man and woman hiking
My Brother Gandalf 😉

“In the world of safe hues, like black, red and white, yellow shouts: ‘Look at me. I’m happy!’” – Joy Sewing

The rain was welcomed in Yosemite after a long, hot summer here at home. As we continue with our summer heat, I’m ready for more scenes like this:

stormy summer sky
June’s Stormy Summer Sky at Home
gold paint swatch

Sunday Stills Photo Challenge Reminders

The Sunday Stills weekly-themed photo challenge is easy to join. You have all week to share and link your post. Please use your own original images, whether new or from your archives.

  • Remember to title your blog post a little differently than mine.
  • Please create a new post for the theme or link a recent one.
  • Entries for this theme can be posted all week.
  • Tag your post “Sunday Stills.”
  • Don’t forget to create a pingback to this post so that other participants can read your post.
  • I also recommend adding your post’s URL to the comments.

Sharing for What’s On Your Plate, Cee’s FOTD, Johnbo’s Cellpic Sunday, and Lens-Artists: gardens.

Please join me for the rest of August as we explore the themes “Reunited” on August 18 and “Before and After” on August 25.

I can’t wait to see how you interpret the various shades of gold and yellow this week! Creativity is encouraged, so please share your own photographs (old or new), poems, original short stories, and music inspired by the theme. Have a wonderful week!

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146 comments

  9. What a sweet post. Love that you used the color gold in a post to honor the memory of your mother. We are planning to scatter our parents in Colorado next summer. Was it a terribly emotional day? The little memorial your daughter created is precious. I would like to think she was there with you shining in all that gold.

    The sunflowers made me smile. They remind me of the faces of little kindergarteners who are peeking out at the world from shy faces.

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    • Thank you, dear Leslie! It was quite emotional to go through this but necessary. I’m sharing more about this on Sunday in an uncharacteristically longer post. And what a sweet metaphor about sunflowers being like children’s faces!

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  21. Gorgeous post, Terri. I’m so glad you had a great time. I love the peaks, and you had so many of them. I didn’t know some of the names of them, so I learned something about the area I still consider home in some ways. 🙂 We have golden friends coming to stay with us tomorrow for a couple of days from Woodlake. Let’s catch up soon. I’ll be in Scottsdale for many appointments part of next week. I’ll get back to Sunday Stills soon, I’m sure. 🙂

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  23. Terri,

    Good to have you back. Even though the circumstances weren’t ideal, anytime you can gather with family in lovely surroundings, it’s a good thing. I love your pictures, and the sunflowers are amazing. The best I could do this week was a cactus flower I found in AZ. Have a lovely weekend. Joe

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  28. Neapolitan-style food looks fantastic, Terri. I won’t ask about the cost, but I must ask what octopus tastes like. Do you eat it like it is in the picture, or do you need to remove the tentacles?

    The sunflowers are superb. Can you imagine taking a slow-time-frame picture as they follow the sun across the sky?

    I’m so pleased that everything went as planned with the scattering of your mum’s ashes. That looks like a beautiful final resting place.

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    • Thanks, Hugh! My daughter loves that Italian restaurant, walkable from their home. I believe the octopus was steamed so it was easy to cut and chew. It really has no taste, but rather absorbs the flavors around it.

      I’m loving our volunteer sunflowers! I saw the fields the other day, amazing! The act of scattering mom’s ashes was a needed as final closure. I’m sharing more about this this coming Sunday.

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    • Thank you, Kirstin! I’m sitting outside on our deck admiring so many of these volunteer sunflowers now. My dahlias and gladiolus are also blooming. I’m writing more next week about my experience scattering my mom’s ashes. Enjoy your week.

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  49. Hi Terri, what a lovely way to spend time with your family and honour your mother, such beautiful scenery! I love your sunflowers and think they’re the happiest of flowers. Your photos show nature at its best.

    I love yellow for many reasons and the main one is that it says hope to me. I’ve featured a few yellows in my post and my first daffodils flowered just yesterday!

    Thanks again!

    https://debs-world.com/2024/08/12/glorious-yellow-daffodils-and-sunshine-a-symbol-of-hope-sundaystills/

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    • Thank you, Debbie! We started planning our trip to Yosemite last February by getting a permit to scatter ashes, my plane flight and hotel reservations. It was symbolic for our family to finally do this 4 yrs later. I’m sharing more about this next Sunday (theme reunited), get it? 😏

      Like you I love yellow and hope is the prefect word to describe it’s color. I’m off to read your post. Have a great week!

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  55. Welcome Back! What a beautiful tribute for your Mom. So happy it was as beautiful as described and photographed.

    Yellow is such a cheerful color. I enjoyed all your photos but the sunflower just opening up is my favorite.

    Thank you for the challenge! 💛

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  58. I love this whole post, Terri. I love sunflowers and goldfinches. We used to see fields of the former when driving to Wyoming if we went at just the right time of year and there were lots of goldfinches at the park in Illinois. Is the daily driving fee at Yosemite a rather new thing? It certainly takes away the possibility of a spontaneous visit. 😢. Many parks seem to be moving to reservations, which does the same. I understand why, but it’s a shame.

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  64. Great photos, Terri. I especially like the one of the stormy June sky. Thanks for the heads up about needing a driving permit for Yosemite. I don’t think we’ll be going there when we head home from Canada, but it would have never occurred to me. I’m glad they are doing it, though. The traffic was getting out of control.

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  67. I like the sunflower field you have showcased here Terri. Wait ’til you see the sunflower field way at the end of my post – you’ll laugh at it. Now I’m embarrassed to include it and, since I have a yellow butterfly for Wednesday I should remove the photos. I did pass by that same sunflower field Friday and there were more sunflowers.

    I can’t say I’ve ever seen a quotation by Walt Disney that pertained to nature before. But then again, he brought us “Bambi” …. I like the quotation.

    A fellow blogger and her husband have an RV and since retiring spend the late Fall/Winter in warmer states. They wanted to visit Yellowstone and learned there was an 18-month waiting list to visit!

    I like the memorial to your mom.

    I like the Summer’s Stormy Sky photo as well.

    Sigh – my post did my publish at 4:30 like it was supposed to. About 10 days ago WP did some changes to the site, adding in a lot of AI features and I can no longer create a post on my Windows 7 computer. So I had to go to the Windows 10 to do the post, but I left it in draft as I was waiting on your link so I could not actually schedule it. I added your link, but the set-up is different for me and didn’t work. Looks like I may have to jump on the Windows 10 to schedule it. It’s been a pain, transitioning as I have a lot of stuff here, but to further complicate things, I have a new Windows 11 laptop I got last month, but I’ve configured it, but not ready to use it yet. Too much to do in the Summer. Stay tuned.

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    • Thank you, Linda! I look forward to seeing your post. We just got home from a day-trip to the Canadian border to a place called Metaline Falls. Cute place and the falls are pretty cool to see, but it took some driving. I’m catching up on comments now.

      We want to visit Yellowstone some day, although I think the waiting lists are for high summer season. Last year my brother (the one in yellow) drove to the park in an RV rental with few issues, although they had reserved a camping spot with no problem.

      I got the latest computer software I can use, WP has to constantly update, so I make sure I have the newer themes, and software for my PC.

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      • Metaline Falls sounds nice Terri. I just Googled it and it looks picturesque and a small town like I wrote about tonight.

        I know they were going to Yellowstone in late September or October. Maybe they should try again? I had no idea that the National Parks would need reservations until she mentioned that and now you tonight with your post.

        Well, my post finally published, but I had to help it along by re-launching it. I have had the Windows 10 laptop here since 2019, purchased by my boss when we got Windows 10 at work. But I preferred my Windows 7 laptop and I had so much stuff on it it was a pain to transfer it, so I just did the updates every few weeks or so. WP’s latest upgrade still allows me to view posts and comment, but freezes up if I try to create a post so I had to break down and use the Windows 10. I bought the Windows 11 laptop as I wanted it before Windows 12 debuts later this year with a lot of AI features. I HAD intended to mess with the computers in the Winter when I am not out and about as much, but WP intervened.

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      • Well, that’s no good. You relied on Google Reviews, like I do sometimes and what you see there is not always what you get in real life and especially after going on a protracted trip to view them.

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      • Yes, I try to make the most of each adventure too. I’ve gotten a lot of walks in and photos taken despite our fickle weather, so much so that I stopped and made a grid for where I was and a summary of what I saw to carry me through the Winter for Challenges. I was pretty excited about the muskrat at the marsh today. He/she was actually kind of cute, not boop-on-the-snoot-cute, but cute enough. 🙂

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  71. Lovely memorial for Mom! And your brother wears his golden rain gear like a champ. My old poncho is a nice blue as I know I could never pull off the yellow. The Mountain View area brought back a few memories. Whenever I’d travel up for work and stay more than a day, that’d area was an evening hangout for dinner with good work friends. I’m not sure how my post intro got into your comments section above, perhaps you can delete it?

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    • Thank you, Cheryl! Mountain View is lovely, my daughter can walk to that downtown from their current home.

      I’m commenting from my phone…we’re on the road visiting a new area with my other brother who’s visiting. I’ll take a look at that comment once I can get to my computer.

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  83. Terri, what a wonderful thing to do for your mom. I have made a similar request of my daughter, when that time comes. Yellow is a happy color and these photos have certainly brightened my day. I love the way you caught the sunlight hitting the trees in Mountain View. Beautiful.

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