K-Scope Pictures or Getting to Know Your DigCamera

I decided to play around with the settings and scenes on my camera this weekend. I discoved the "sport" scene setting is great for capturing Moomin coz he's always moving. The 16 shot setting is very fun. Not sure what to do with the picture itself but it looks nifty. I also played around with the new K-scope that my lens actually fits into and got some really good pictures while the sun was shining through the windows. Next weekend I plan on trying the black'n'white, sepia, and the blue tint that makes everyone look like they've just been deprived of air. Should be good times.

Lovely shot of my Sharpie markers.

Hobbes in the sun.

Moomin all dark and mysterious.

Doodle gazing out the window.

This is the 16 shot setting. Makes sort of a "flip book picture".

Dog and Butterfly

Sunday morning butterfly in my front garden. It spent a lot of time on this flower, must have had a lot of nectar.

My friend J2's new dog. An adopted Greyhound named Lizzie. When I came over on Saturday, I apparently got the "pyrotechnic greeting" - huge sniffs and major tail wagging which is unusual for her. She also "stimmed" on my car - sniffing, resting her nose on it, and several tasty licks while gazing at the red color or her reflection. We're not sure what the attraction was. Inside I got some nose rubs and licks on my chin which made J2's husband jealous. She usually presents him with her butt. I tried to explain that was sort of a compliment but he wasn't buying that. I don't blame him.

Slambo's Wild Kingdom Take Two

I'm not sure what exactly is going on in my backyard that has caused it to be inhabited by these bad ass bright yellow spiders that can apparently take me down if they felt like it, but here is another in the B.A.B.Y. spider series. I found this one yesterday after I came home from my tramautic unplanned unforeseen visit to the dentist because I've done something to the newly filled in area that was not pleasant and almost caused me to blow lunch chunks and did make me call the dentist's office in a panicked snit. I could have sworn (after the three quick episodes of sharp pain) that I felt movement, but after the dentist tapped, poked, wiggled, scraped, and pressed with a sharp metal pointy object and didn't find any movement, I've come to the realization I must have hallucinated the barely imperceptible movement and slight "click", damn unreliable finger tip grooves. He determined it must be a "surface issue" after all the poking and prodding and biting down on blue paper and reclined the chair even more in preparation to grind away at the tooth enamel and filling to see if he could rectify the problem in that way. I was not prepared for that (but I did have Taz to hold onto very VERY tightly and a co-worker came with me for psychological support in the waiting room) and so I had to listen to it and feel the pressure and tingly feeling when he got close to something I have no idea what. It was probably a quick procedure but in my tweaked mind, it took forever. I'm pretty sure he forgets WHO I am until he starts working on me and then it all comes back to him that I'm "oh, THAT patient". He told me to keep him posted if I continue to feel anything as that may indicate a "crack and require pictures and possibly a crown." Needless to say, I approached dinnertime with major trepidition and am not fully convinced he fixed the issue as steamed cauliflower caused a few minor twingey episodes. And so did oatmeal this morning.

ArtyFarty Pictures Yet Again

Picture courtesy of Moomin who can't stay still for a minute unless he's zonked. I like how his eyes look like those trick glasses with the eyes on springs.

This is a picture of my dad taken through a new k-scope, the lens actually fits into the k-scope. This one is the best. The other one was taken in a hurry and isn't so good, see below. I deleted the failures and there were lots of them.

I need to work on the technique a bit more and also take the pictures when it's bright and sunny. The flash tends to show up in part of the picture which is annoying.

The First Harvest!

Here is my first harvest from the garden. They are small but oh so delicious!!

According to the News,

we (read: good ole US of A) don’t have enough money, food safety inspectors, border patrol*, military, doctors, medical insurance, oil, water, home buyers, elder care services, recycling, time for ourselves, vacation, special needs services, mental health services, rehabilitation services, jobs, cures, teachers, intact families, quality education, police, jails, alternative fuels, pollution controls and enforcement, good shows on TV, funding, and and and...

What we do have in excess is garbage, pollution, politicians, mass consumption, low incomes, medically uninsured, unemployed, Katrina Ice, FEMA trailers, wildfires, drought, flooding, gas-guzzling vehicles, vehicles on the road, weight issues, junk food, huge servings, artificial ingredients, preservatives, over-scheduled kids, lack of parenting skills and/or appropriate parental oversight, media in the form of TV/videos/videogames/computers/Blackberries, loss of individual privacy, cell phones, identity theft, un-neutered pets, abuse, crime, drugs and alcohol, cigarettes, shootings, prisoners, mental health issues, divorce, “teaching to the Test” education, illiteracy, cancers, high cost prescription drugs, plastic surgery, being sued, reality shows, appliances that don’t last, diets, self-help books/gurus, taxes, and and and…

*Why doesn’t Canada have an illegal immigrant issue? Or are we just not hearing about all the Americans attempting to illegally cross their border to find a better life? Sarcastic much?

I Should Just Crawl Up Their Noses

and call it good.

My parents' new pup, named Riley. He was comatose so he didn't know I was taking the picture and he's so mellow, he doesn't mind the shiny object at all although he'd like to lick it.

Handsome Hobbes' patient expression slightly tinged with disgust. Probably thinking "enough with the shiny object already!"

Doodle trying to ignore said shiny object to continue her interrupted nap.

One of the rare moments that Moomin is in direct bright light and not moving.

Slambo's Wild Kingdom

So I come home from work and take my usual wander around the perimeter to admire my landscaping and garden, when something "out of the norm" attracts my eye. I go closer thinking "how in the world is that bee hanging from a flower? and if it's stuck, I guess I will have to repress the dumb-ass tendency and free it." When I get close enough, I see that the bee is not hanging coz it got it's foot stuck in the flower somehow or stuck in a web, but a bright yellow spider has it's neck in a literal death grip. Of course I had to drop everything and rush to get my digcamera to document the wild kingdom that apparently is my backyard. If you are at all squeamish, you may want to pass on viewing them. I personally think the pics are cool, but I do feel sorry for the bee. This is the type of bee that's made it's underground home beneath my garage.

Anticipation... It's Making Me Wait!

So the squash plants have grown tremendously in the past week and a half, I can no longer see the jugs unless I kneel down and look under the leaves which are bigger than my head!

And under the leaves are actual squash. Little tiny baby squash with big-ass blossoms on their butts. I was drooling yesterday taking these pictures because my mind's eye, combined with the mini-gastrobrain, were thinking about all those squash sauteed up and being eaten in large quantities!

Next we visit my pumpkin plants, again they've busted out all over. I am busy training the vines to go in the proper directions. Otherwise I'd mow them over and that's not good. Not good at all. So I'm directing pumpkin traffic to go on the woodchips or over to the compost.

And I even have starter blooms. I can't call them blossoms yet because I don't see any color, but they have places where the flowers will be if they do decide to bloom any time soon.

Next up on the virtual tour of my garden, we come to one third of my tomato plants. Much taller and still no sign of the great green horned beasties.

But I do have some blooms. Again with the anticipatory drooling. Cherry tomatos, I'm gonna have them in bountiful amounts. I may even have to share the abundance...

And finally we stop at the sunflowers who have grown much bigger in the last week and a half. I have no expectations, just very pleasantly surprised two germinated at all and are are growing quite happily and living. I'd like for them to reach their maximum potential as claimed on the seed package ("Mammoth Sunflowers") , but I'll settle for anything as long as they keep growing.

What With the Dick, the Doves, and the Ducks...

it was an exciting drive to work this morning.

The Dick was a older dude in a burgundy station wagonesque type vehicle who was driving 10 miles below the speed limit in a sort of “speed-up-slow-down” sort of way which made it extremely difficult to stay a safe distance away from him, either I was inadvertently jammed up his ass or very far away from him. And apparently this was not enough for him in spreading the road rage joy. He also double-stopped at STOP signs. Meaning when his brake lights went off indicating the car was going forward and I started to move into the space he was leaving, he would stop again, check for traffic, and then go. Good thing I was awake this morning and quick on the draw. The Dick got quite a few aura flicks. Here's hoping he gets a big Kharmic bitchslap.

The Doves were constantly in the middle of the road. There was nary a worm, a bug, a seed, or anything remotely resembling bird food so I can’t figure out what they found so damn fascinating in the middle of a sheet of asphalt. Yet every one of them (and there were 4) was on the painted line and luckily they flew off in time as I approached.

Then the Ducks were around another blind curve in the process of crossing the road to get to the other side. One duck who’d already made it was on the sandy verge frantically a’flappin’ her wings at the slower ones still in the road. I honked the horn to encourage the dawdling duo and once they were on the grass, Frantic Duck stopped flapping and went into the ditch with the other ducks. She must have been the momma duck.

I’m feeling a bit alliterative today. Could you tell?

Gardens Gone (sort of) Wild

The squash plants get bigger every time I turn my back!

The pumpkin plants are really loving the jugs o' water.

Nothing creepy or scream inducing on the tomato plants... yet!

The baby sunflower plants. I'm kinda thinking they aren't going to fulfill the "mammothness" as pictured on the seed package which I am okay with, I'll just remember to start them sooner next time.

Warning, Pictures Could Induce Mashed Potato Mountain Making

A view of the lovely tinted clouds one evening last week. I have to say, I kept expecting to have to run into the house and watch my appliances go all crazy and then hold the cats by their hind legs as they are sucked out of the door. Watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind in my impressionable years was probably not a good thing.

When It Rains, It Pours

We’ve been having what the Maine meteorologists like to term “unsettled weather” - it will be partly sunny, partly cloudy, chance of showers, chance of thunderstorms, chance of rain, and temps will veer between upper 50s to mid 70s. Basically this means they have no clue and need to cover their asses by running the entire weather gamut in one day. And really the past 3 days have had weather for every type of person each day at some point. If you like sun - you get several hours of that, you want rain for your garden and poor parched grass - you get that a couple times, you like boomers – you get one of those complete with very dark clouds/lightening/power flickers, and you need a light jacket in the AMs, short sleeves/shorts for midday, and another light jacket for the PMs with the occasional umbrella usage.

I much prefer “unsettled weather” instead of weather that resembles the environment in someone’s mouth.

My garden is loving the weather. Since I have put the upside-down jugs in the garden, the squash and pumpkin plants have taken right off. So big and some baby blooms that haven’t opened yet. I plan on getting pictures soon. I have some from last week, but they don’t look like that any more.

I have a honey bee nest under my garage. I have been trying to make up my mind whether I want to cope with that and live in peace with them or smoke ‘em out to find a new place. They enter a small hole that I unsuccessfully tried to block/make inaccessible by my garage door rails, down at the bottom, which means they most likely have a massive underground network. Typically I “encounter” one pollen-loaded bee at a time and they and I have been very avoidant of each other - me because of the huge urge to act like a scared dumb-ass and the bees because I haven’t angered them to the point where disemboweling themselves is worth it. I’ve been leaning towards “living in peace” as they aren’t swarming the hole, I’m not home when they are busy, and when I do “encounter” them, it’s one at a time and they are more interested in going down the hole then bothering with unblossomy me. And they are the cute fuzzy black and yellow bumblers.

Now if it was wasps, that’s an entirely different matter, their asses would be grass. I’m all about spraying those suckers with an instantaneous toxin. They’re always pissed off and out for stinging the shit out of you for NO reason. “Oh, you’re running AWAY from me, let me chase you down the driveway to see if I can catch you and sting the crap out of you BECAUSE I CAN. REPEATEDLY!!!”

Berry Pickin' and Bowlin'

Saturday I went berry picking with J2 and TJ. Sorry no pics of the actual pickin' and grinnin' but I forgot the digcamera in the vehicle. But here are some very red pictures of the flat of strawberries I picked!! YUMMY!!!

On our way to bowling!

TJ is one awesome bowler. He makes me and J2 eat his talented candle-pin bowling dust. He likes to make sure he gets them all down before pressing the button. Can you believe this 2.5 year old has the patience to roll ball after ball to hit the last damn pin? He does!!!