I was recuperating after a strenuous (and productive) weekend:
I dug up another 40 lb (18 kg) load of weeds and the green bin is again full until trash pickup day.
I sowed seeds (thanks again Steve) of 6 varieties of heirloom tomatoes (have another 7 or 8 more varieties to go), and potted one seedling heirloom tomato plant. I also replaced the soil in my small raised bed and sowed seeds of 3 varieties (Thai Hot, Poblano, and Big Thai Hybrid) of hot peppers, leaving room for a couple more varieties.
With the old soil from the pots and the raised bed I leveled some areas in the front yard where I intend to sow seeds of Gaillardia and Ice Plant.
I also got in about 5-1/3 miles of walks.
Yesterday I cooked up a big batch of bean & ham soup; enough for 6 or 7 meals. I followed my usual practice of making this rather bland, so that each time I decide to heat some up I can season that meal'
s serving differently.
But all this activity came at a cost - my back became so stiff and sore that I have used up nearly all my Salonpas patches.
On March 31st I walked out the side door of our house and a wee bit of a dog ran up to me from behind our neighbor’s fence. It was soaking wet and shivering up a storm. I walked over and though the dog cowered when I approached it, I was able to grab a skinny broken leash and picked it up in my arms. It was soaking wet and shivering. We had thunderstorms the night before and it had heavy downpours of rain in the morning. It also got as low as 33 degrees overnight.
I brought it in our house and announced to my husband, “Look what I found”, can we keep it?”. We wrapped it in a towel and started to dry it off. We never even checked to see if it were a boy or girl, but I kept calling her “SHE” because of that pretty little face that was staring at me.
Our neighbors do not own a dog but we called one of them to see if they knew who the dog belonged to. He said that before he went to work, he saw two people walking past his house that looked like they were calling out for a pet. But that was already about 3 hours earlier.
My husband decided we would take “HER” in the car and drive around to see if we could locate the owners. But before we left, my husband got on the neighborhood FACEBOOK site and immediately saw a message about a LOST DOG! We got the owner’s address, grabbed the dog, and off we went. On the way, we passed several signs on trees and light posts that read “LOST DOG, LUCY. Very Skittish. Do not approach. Call this number:$%#@$%%”. So Lucy was a girl! I told you so!
Her owner was walking her late the evening before when a sudden sound made her take off. She was on one of those retractable leashes and as she ran off, the plastic “leash winder” bounced behind her making her run away even faster. Her owner tried chasing her, but Lucy ran and disappeared. That happened at 10 pm and I discovered her at 11:30 the following day. From her escape to our block, the retractable leash holder had been torn away.
It was a happy ending. Lucy’s owner was beside herself when she saw us. She only had Lucy since November when she adopted this rescue dog from a puppy factory. She told us that Lucy is really skittish and easily spooked, I cannot imagine what it was like for her to be outside in the thunderstorms the night before
It was such a good feeling to see the tears on the owner’s face when the two were reunited.
When I saw this beauty two mornings ago I immediately wanted to get a good shot of it. The situation and conditions (car moving fast merely two blocks away from me, low light due to earrly morning overcast sky, and camera handheld) weren't ideal so it turned out rather soft, but I did my best to make it presentable.
Good morning all.
I have been working on sewing a quilt, which takes up much of my free time.
But I am enjoying sewing again, and my latest hobby of Machine Quilting has given me so much satisfaction.
This morning I finished the toughest part of putting together my latest creation, so I will take a break in the action and maybe spend a little time with my camera. I might go to the community college nearby to view a display with photos and artifacts from the mid 50's to the 70's. Usually I can get a few pics of the artifacts that might be worth sharing.
Here are some artifacts from the Detroit Historical Museum (DHM). Remember going to a portrait studio to get your picture taken? Whatever happened to OLIN MILLS, which was a big photo studio back when my kids were little, come 35 years ago? But I bet some of you had photos of your parent's wedding when they got their photo taken as a couple by a professional photographer at a studio. I am sure I can dig up my parent's photo, but in the meantime, I hope you will enjoy this one taken at the DHM.
I cut the grass today! Yes, things are starting to grow around here. My sweet magnolia tree has big buds on it and by tomorrow afternoon, the petals should be breaking through. I cannot wait to smell the fragrant blossoms.
But until I can go out there an capture of some those beauties, I will share these two pale pink orchids from the orchid show.
Welcome to the weekend, everyone. May it be a good one for us all.
I decided to try something new (and overly-ambitious}: hand-coloring a B&W image.
I started with a rather mediocre photo of a fence lizard and did some minor adjustments in Camera Raw...
Next I took it into PSE where I converted it to grayscale. One or two adjustment layers tweaking brightness & contrast. Then converted back to color mode (but it stayed looking B&W because I had earlier eliminated all color). Then 9 layers of Photo Filter, choosing different areas of the lizard, using 2 different colors, and in different intensities. Another adjustment layer or two to darken the background. Then resized for posting; another layer to sharpen the lizard; and one or two final layers to fine-tune the color intensity. I think I ended up with 18 layers total before I saved it for Web posting.
It was fun, and I learned a lot. The main thing I learned is that 18 layers isn't nearly enough to produce a sophisticated image that applies many colors
TGIF everyone. I hope it's a great weekend for all of us.
It's been a good day so far, in spite of two very early telemarketing/phishing phone calls; I won $100 on a Lotto scratcher with my $10 change at the grocers, then got some decent photos on the walk back home. Here's one...
Greetings Foto Friends!
Did you get to see the "Pink Moon" last night? So named as it is the first full moon in April. I shot this through a window so not real sharp.
Named After Pink Flowers The Pink Moon in April gets its name from pink wildflowers that bloom in the early spring. It is thought that the name comes from the brightly-colored pink phlox wildflowers that are native to North America and that often bloom around the time of April’s Full Moon.
