The Beauty Of The Changing Seasons

Cannafan said:
You got it Radogast! Yes, a very very tall onion. LOL I first saw these many years ago outside a cemetery while driving by and thought they were so beautiful. I don't even know where I managed to finally find them and get them here, but they have done okay.
Problem where they are located is the danged feral cats and the rabbits keep short cutting through them and must actually lay down in there, they keep bending them and some even break.
I'm going to have to relocate them I'm thinking.
I believe I posted a pic of them last year after the blooms had turned to seed. I'll look through the pics today and see if I can find them.

On the phone camera question, the settings I make sure are on are the "tap to take pics", "picture stabilization", and I make sure "face detection" is off.
The setting for "Selective focus" is used sometimes, but I find that you have to be sure there is a fairly busy background or you will get a definite line showing in the photo where the focus starts and stops. Looks hideous. LOL

When getting close up, it may take some time to wait for the camera to focus on your subject and you may have to move the camera around a little bit to get there. That part of the camera can be frustrating, and I often have to back out of the camera program and go back in the get it to start over. I usually have to sit down or rubber band my phone to a monopod or something sturdy to avoid shake and jitters. Windy days are all but impossible to get really close up. Patience is needed for sure. LOL

After I get the pics, I upload to my computer and open them with Paint Shop Pro. That's where I do my cropping and enlarging/resizing to find the area of the pic I want to feature.

Hope that helps some. :)
Click to expand...

helped a lot !!!!

Beginning : Here is a grape leaf unfurling

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Ripe: A Grape Hyacinth in full stretch

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Completion: A Hyacinth past it's bloom

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Woo Hoo Radogast! You are now getting close up and personal!
I can just see you trucking around through the yards and the woods now looking for close shots.......Kewl.

:thumb:
 
Oops, one more tip I wanted to give you on the S5 Radogast. When you take your picture, tap on the little gallery square at the bottom of the screen to view the pic you just took. You can use your fingers to enlarge it and see how well you did with your focus. If you don't like it, tap the screen and you will see the trash can on the top. Just hit that. Then hit your back button on the lower right and it will take you back to the camera function.
I do that with every picture I take, so I can get rid of the ones I know I won't like before I load to the computer. Takes a load of time off the process.

:circle-of-love:
 
How about a bed time story?

This applies to change of seasons, because it is directly related to one of the most bothersome parts of spring/summer. Ants.

My Mother, bless her heart I love her dearly, entrapped me into making a continuous supply of Cream Cheese Frosting for her baked goodies that she sells at the local market. She goes through at least 2 full margarine size tubs of it each week. She supplies me with the ingredients, the butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar. (ah, the key words in the story are revealed) I make the frosting and deliver it to her.

She gets her supplies at Sam's club, and a few weeks ago she supplied me with a ten pound bag of Powdered Sugar (icing sugar) which I immediately put on a shelf in the pantry. I'm such a fuss budget about making sure things are in their rightful place immediately.

My pantry is a custom built area that used to be an indoor access to the basement, a stairwell. My brother helped me to utilize that wasted space by putting a floor in there and a trap door that lifts to have access to the basement stairs. I usually use the garage entrance for the basement.

With the influx of mice during the winter season, I have been letting the cats spend most of their time in the basement to chase the critters and keep them in check. Hence, the need for accessing the pantry trap door regularly to feed and take care of the kitties.

One day, I opened the trap door to attend to the kitties and what do you suppose it bumped into? Yes, that ten pound bag of powdered sugar was ever so slightly off the shelf and in the way of the door. Off the shelf it came, I saw it....I reached... I tried to catch it and only succeeded in breaking the bag open before it hit the steps.
2 inches of powdered sugar on each and every step! That was only half the bag, the other half was intact in my hands. So, some was saved. (which, btw, is the question my dear Mother asked when she heard this story. "Did you save any of it?" LOL)

After I cussed a little, yelled a little and scooted the cats away from the mess, I realized this was going to bring an onslaught of Ants like there's no tomorrow. This HAS to get cleaned up NOW.

Enter the shop Vac.

I rolled it to the doorway and secured it at the top of the stairs. Prepared everything, positioned myself on the stairs and turned it on. I was working diligently and gaining ground on getting that white mess contained......until a cat....love her dearly......ran up the steps, pulled the cord with her feet as she was running and yanked loose the shop vac. I knew this was going to be bad.

The shop vac landed on my back and I had no way to turn to shut it off, so I had to reach behind me to find the switch. The switch, of course, was all the way to the back of the unit. I got it powered off and turned to get the thing back up the stairs...and that's when I saw it.

I've been in the mountains before when the clouds come down on you like a heavy fog. It's a cool thing to experience. This, on the other hand, was not cool at all. I could not see my kitchen through the white dust. The shop vac top had opened during the fall and it had been spewing white all that time that I was trying to find the switch.

I just stood there knowing that my thoughts of "this is going to be bad" were minor. Now the thoughts were "this is going to be a nightmare". And it was. I didn't cuss, swear, cry, yell, beat the cat...I just stood there soaking up courage to go up those steps.

I made it into the kitchen and peered into the rest of the house. Yep, it's cloudy with a chance of sugarfall....
Every single thing in my house was finely dusted with a coating of that white sugary treat. Me thinks I will never think of it as a treat again in MY lifetime. It did not just get ON things, it got IN things and UNDER things. It was literally everywhere.

The clean up began, turn all of the fans on..bathrooms, stove top, open the windows.......It was an hour before it had settled enough that I could breath in the house.
I spent most of a full night awake, cleaning every little knick knack, Appliances, furniture, ....everything.

The clean up continues to this day. That was about three weeks ago.

I don't have any ants......yet.
 
There you go Canna. Didn't know your house needed a thorough spring cleaning, did you? It's going to be mighty clean this time. :laughtwo::green_heart:

Great story.
 
Dale's been in the nursing home since Feb. 23. The joy of seeing him every day is tempered by the dismay that the pathway to getting him home remains hidden from view. The half-block trek from the bus stop to the nursing home has become almost physically painful for me. That walk takes me right past this stand of iris preparing to awe us with the spring bloom. A little joy to shift my mental state as I make my way to him. He really needs me to be strong and I'm beginning to break, so it's nice to have these little moments.

Iris are one of my all time favorite flowers. These are going to be lovely.

These bloomed yesterday.

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These will probably be open by tomorrow. I'll be sure to post another when they do.

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:Namaste:
 
I would have literally come unglued... Possibly would have had to be committed... It would be nice to have my house that clean now though.... Having a man under foot 24/7 is more than a full time job... Love him Dearly but he really needs to get healed and back to work.... Just sayin'...:) Sue I don't know how you do it...:straightface: Your more woman than I will ever be and I pray my fella never needs me the way you are needed cause I'm not sure I would be strong enough...:Namaste:....:circle-of-love:
 
Dennise said:
I would have literally come unglued... Possibly would have had to be committed... It would be nice to have my house that clean now though.... Having a man under foot 24/7 is more than a full time job... Love him Dearly but he really needs to get healed and back to work.... Just sayin'...:) Sue I don't know how you do it...:straightface: Your more woman than I will ever be and I pray my fella never needs me the way you are needed cause I'm not sure I would be strong enough...:Namaste:....:circle-of-love:
Click to expand...

This particular joke keeps playing in my head. A couple goes to see the doctor. The husband is in poor health. After the exam the doctor asks to speak to the wife alone. "Your husband is very sick" he explains. "You will have to be the strong one from here on. To keep him alive you will have to pretty much wait on him hand and foot as he becomes weaker." They talk a while about the implications. After a time the wife comes back to the waiting room and her husband asks "What did the doctor tell you".

The wife turns to him and replies "You're going to die".

Sick humor, but sometimes it feels like reality. Dennise, I don't know how I do it either. Honestly. It's taking a toll, I can tell you that. I need to exercise tonight or I'll lose it tomorrow for sure.

Canna, I laughed right out loud too. Not at you, but with you. :laughtwo::green_heart:
 
Made my daughter laugh too. Look at all the joy you helped spread today Canna. :bravo: :laughtwo:
 
I'm so glad to hear there were laughs awarded on my sugar adventure. :) I actually laugh a little myself every time I find another item or area that needs wiped down.
And, I took measures of putting a "stopper" to the trap door so that it cannot open far enough to get near the pantry shelf. LOL

BTW, Sue..thank you for the pic of the Iris'. Not only does it give me something to look forward to when mine open up, but you reminded me what they are called. I keep calling the durned things Lillies. Done it for years. LOL
I think I posted some at the beginning of this thread. They are truly beautiful creations.

Thank you Dennise....it took all the strength I had to handle that mess. LOL
 
I can hear Homer Simpson going, D'oh and Nelson Muntz going, ha ha... Oh sorry canna, couldn't help myself.. Your like a canna turtle, with a vac on ya back, lol
 
GrizzWald said:
I can hear Homer Simpson going, D'oh and Nelson Muntz going, ha ha... Oh sorry canna, couldn't help myself.. Your like a canna turtle, with a vac on ya back, lol
Click to expand...

:rofl:

I didn't escape without injury, it's too bad my back doesn't have a hard shell like a turtle to protect it. LOL Minor scrape.
The Homer vision is great.
Thanks!
 
You right? Look after yourself... The turtle thing was my daughter, whom as I was reading what happened had the washing basket on her back and said "look dad, I'm a turtle"... Ice and heat after Afew days....
 
GrizzWald said:
You right? Look after yourself... The turtle thing was my daughter, whom as I was reading what happened had the washing basket on her back and said "look dad, I'm a turtle"... Ice and heat after Afew days....
Click to expand...

LOL to your daughter. :)
Yeah, I'm fine..that happened a few weeks ago. All healed. The reason I couldn't find the power switch is because the vac was resting on my back. I was afraid to move it while turned on for fear that it would come apart. Little did I know in that dim lit stairwell that it already had. :rofl:
 
Cannafan said:
I'll be back on a little later for comments on last nights' posts. I wanted to post some pics from yesterday during my morning cuppa.

My grape vines are coming to life. I never really noticed before how the fresh leaves have so much beautiful color to them before they become just green. Here's a couple of them after the rain:

Grape_leaves_3.jpg


Grape_Leaves_1.jpg


Grape_Leaves_2.jpg
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That's so funny, over the weekend I was noticing the same exact thing. We have a few different types and there is quite a difference in the beginning foliage.

Oh my on the sugar story! That's the type of thing that usually happens to me. I can see a big bag of bread flour in my view that I just recently picked up.. :rofl: Also I think I'm with Dennise, I may have just had to move out... Ok, maybe not that serious but I know it would of took me a bit to calm down.
 
HI ya Smokey! I was going to go out there after work tonight and see if they've changed much....however, the cold front is upon us.
We hit a high of 47-ish today with a wind chill of 43. I expected to see that white stuff that ain't sugar.
Brrrrr!
Weekend predictions aren't much better, so I'm thinking pictures are not going to be worthwhile until next week.

Hope you are warmer there....but I doubt it. LOL

:Namaste:
 
SweetSue said:
This particular joke keeps playing in my head. A couple goes to see the doctor. The husband is in poor health. After the exam the doctor asks to speak to the wife alone. "Your husband is very sick" he explains. "You will have to be the strong one from here on. To keep him alive you will have to pretty much wait on him hand and foot as he becomes weaker." They talk a while about the implications. After a time the wife comes back to the waiting room and her husband asks "What did the doctor tell you".

The wife turns to him and replies "You're going to die".

Sick humor, but sometimes it feels like reality. Dennise, I don't know how I do it either. Honestly. It's taking a toll, I can tell you that. I need to exercise tonight or I'll lose it tomorrow for sure.

Canna, I laughed right out loud too. Not at you, but with you. :laughtwo::green_heart:
Click to expand...

Made my fella laugh out loud when I read it to him which made me laugh even harder... Thank you so much for being Sue.....:circle-of-love:
 
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