Actual Painted Vases

Some time ago I was playing with back lighting to create a white on white image. While looking through my old photos I found this one and see that it has a couple of actual painted vases. I think I may use this one in the Painted Vases album.

We had an average number of little costumed children around to get treats or do tricks. We didn't ask for any tricks. They are just too cute.

It rained just a bit. When the sun came out I went out and cleaned up the pond pump's filter and its now running good again.

Painted Vases with Power Point slide show

I created this photo by setting a flower in bloom in front of a vase and photographing it. I then take the extra bits of plant out of the photo, with photoshop. Sometimes I need to change the background colors as well.

Two days ago I was playing with Microsoft Power Points program attempting to make a slide show that I can use on My Garden web page to make the albums. I have been under the impression that Power Points is a difficult thng to use. I have a lot to learn about it yet. Here is my first attempt at making a slide show. If you click on the hot link "slide show" and on the Painted Vases under construction page, you see another link for the pps slide show. I haven't figured out how to make the slideshow just open from on a web page, instead of downloading, as mine does when I click that pps link.

The little ghosts, witches and goblins are comin' . .

The original of this is a shot at a street light off my back deck a few days ago. I enhanced it a bit in photoshop. It's Irene's birthday, so added text for her and sent it off. No doubt this is shabby compared to the real bday cards she will get.

We were off line yesterday due to some error at Shawcable in transfering whatever to our new modem. Finally back on again. Their techie Darren was a real jerk when I talked to him. I must remember that name, since the calls in to the techies are monitored. I am sure there are plenty of young people out there who would not need to have grandmothers crawling around under their desks to try to unhook a splitter, when he knew damn well it was NOT the splitter and was just the modem needed attention from their crew. I was not amused when Mark came to fix it this morning and merely adjusted the modem. It took him longer waiting on the phone for them than it took to actually fix the thing.

I made up a pumpkin pie today ... from pumpkin in a can... I don't have a pumpkin this year and have not hung out any Halloween decorations yet. Maybe tomorrow. It is fun to see the little ones all dressed up.

I must make up a banner and the new front page for the November theme on Playtime. Theme is to be Harvest Festivals. I suppose the American Thanksgiving is in November. There were October beer fests that could I suppose be used. I have no pictures so will probably be finding something on line.

Bug Buddies

Another one from the garden in mid October. Only two weeks ago and the weather has changed to much cooler, and most of the Autumn color is fading. I don't see wasps any longer. I mowed my bits of grass and the mower picks up and mulches the leaves along with the grass. I dumped this on the veggie patch. I took out a few more branches of the thorn bush. Eventually I want to bring this shrub down and prune it into a good tight form. The birds are eating most of the berries already. They are usually left on the tree until much later in winter. I skimmed some leaves out of the pond. The water is quite clear now despite the leaves falling in. Maybe the cooler weather is a factor in clearing the water. I have been feeding the fish, as I understand they might want to be eating before the really cold weather sets in. The pump circulates the water and I should probably soon shut it off, so the fish can have their levels of water temperature set without being disturb by the pump action.

Yesterday the technician from Shawcable installed my new modem and bump up the levels for the signal to the whole house. This makes quite a difference! I am much faster now.

My pedometer says I walked 2.3 miles today. I think that's the most I have done yet. I walked from my Doctor's office on Pandora to Chinatown. It was a lovely morning for a walk.. a bit crisp. I walked down Johnson Street which I seldom do. That portion of Johnson seems to have a lot of construction happening on it. Perhaps the costs of construction have come down a bit and people can find someone to do the work at a reasonable rate.

We had lunch at an East Indian buffet style eat in/take out place. Was pretty good food, but we could not get malagatawny soup and the nan bread is far superier at the place we go to downtown. The mango chutney here was to die for, though. After lunch we went to Fort and Foul Bay LB store to replenish our wine rack. Then off for a drive through Uplands, where we explored a couple of side streets. Kilarny is very interesting little street. A fine day!

Autumn in the Garden

Some of the colors of Autumn .. unexpected.

Chrysanthemum

This is my two dollar chrysanthemum that I picked up at the Royal Oak mall the other day. I have it planted in a blue pot and it sits under the eaves to protect it from rain. I was shooting at it through the glass door on the deck at nite using the flash. I don't see any flash reflections in the glass. The magic of my good ol' Canon S3 IS ... just a tad of photoshopping to add a bit more contrast, removed speckles, cropped a bit and sharpened just a bit.

I have finished a few repairs to my old web page with updates to the links page, which is a pain. I redid all the pages menus to include the new sub page and reloaded all.

It has been raining a bit lately and is a bit cooler, but we have been having a very very nice Autumn. I should be out in the garden more but have been caught up in an old pass time I find I still enjoy... reading. At the moment I am reading the Dunsmuir saga which is the history of the coal baron Robert Dunsmuir, in the 1800's, on Vancouver Island. More good BC and Victoria history.

As you can see from my previous post I have been spending a bit of time on the new photo upload site. It is slowly getting to the stage where we can truly go into beta testing. So many great features there! But that means lots of work, for the builders, too!

Photography

Photography


This is a link to the new site we are working on for photo upload and sharing. This is to test the "share" button on our photos or on our profile. Clicking the share button and adding to Facebook is a very simple procedure.. just a matter of clicking share button and clicking the Facebook icon.

On my blog, because I am not clever enough to figure out how to make the blog automatic in adding 'share buttons' -- on Megashot I click the options button, click the image links, choose the size of photo I want to add, click the share button, find the blogger icon. Then in the blogger post I copy the code from the 'image links'. Not too difficult, once you know how. We will need these instructions in the help to navigate on the new site, though.

The humming birds

This photo, unlike the previous one, seems to me to need a lot of work. My photoshop abilities are just not up to it. So here it is, cropped much closer, sharpening added to the bird. I tried to tone down the background several ways, none too successful.

Our Anna's hummingbirds stay all winter. In the summer when flowers are out they do not seem to be very interested in the feeder. As it gets cooler out, I start to feed them again. In the winter, when it is freezing, I try to remember to bring the feeder in at night and put it out again at first light. I really should have 2 feeders... one to unthaw and the other to be put out.

I walked back from the Lab at the mall today. It was beautiful! I walked through the forest instead of along the street. My pedometer showed a distance of about 1.5 miles - one way from the mall. I brought back 8 Burgundy lily flowering tulips, 5 galanthis flore peno (double snow drops) and 2 star gazer lilies. I planted these bulbs in the front garden with the lilies by the tub, the tulips along the stone walk and the snowdrops near the front trillium. I clipped a few perennials and did a bit of repair on the boxwood hedge.

Yesterday I finished another sub page for my old web page. I have the car tour page done, but have yet to set up each car club page where I will put the links to each event album. This old page is seldom seen by anyone. It is slow to load because I have added music, and have slow loading 'banners' because I did not 'save for web'. No matter, this is primarily for my own easy accesses to information.

Autumn color

I have a few photos that I really like out of the bunch that I shot in my garden a few days ago. The rain had stopped and the flowers still had drops on them, but the light was very good. This is the only one I have ready just now. I did not photoshopping on this at all. I love how it looks like a water color. I imagine I can even see brush strokes in it, with the darker outline on petals and leaves where it might have been sketched before painting.

This is one of the 2 sunflower seeds that I planted, that grew.. decorative sunflowers. My annual seed planting was not a blooming success.

I made the apple pie today and still have enough apples left for two or three pies. It turned out pretty good, with very flaky pastry.

CanAm Model T tour Sept. 2009

With the Speedster on the trailer, on Sunday after breakfast, we headed home. We stopped at Qualicum Beach at the Shady Rest Restaurant / Pub. It overlooks the beach. I have quite a few of these beach shots in largest size. I may want to print some of them one day.






We stopped at the Art Gallery containing some of Hetty Fredrickson's painted faces from the Valley of 1000 faces. She had a most interesting life and career. The paintings are so fascinating!
A nurse log. There was a small park next to the Cable cafe with people of interest mentioned, but I have not recorded that information. There were also a few logging machines on display. This is logging country.
The Cable House Cafe is constructed with cable wrapped around it. I did not go in or read about it. It was a stop we made on the way back from Sayward.

The CanAm tour finished with the banquet at the Lions Hall on Saturday. Our trip home on Sunday was a nice drive on a fine day!

At home today we picked the apples. My tree produces a big crop every second year. This year we have about 24 apples, but I still have applesauce left from last year. I raked some leaves also. Its another lovely day out today. I can quite successfully ignore all the nasty things happening in the Mid-East and the refugee boat arriving on our shores.

CanAm Model T tour Sept. 2009

Photo opportunity on the dock at Sayward.
After our lunch stop at the Cypress Tree Inn we continue on to Sayward. We stop at the Art Gallery on our way back to Campbell River.


Its a tops down kind of day for touring

After our coffee stop we are on our way to Sayward
Today at home I emptied the rain gauge at 1:30. It had 2 inches of rain. Apparently there were storm warnings out. We suffered no damage and we need the rain.

CanAm Model T tour Sept. 2009

oh oh the rubber chicken was awarded on some pretense as light as feathers



Our coffee and doughnut stop by this sylvan lake at a turnout on the road. Too bad about the wires, again. The doughnuts and coffee were irresistable.
a low lying cloud. I wish I could have been on the ground with a tripod for this shot.
marvelous scenery. Too bad about all the telephone poles.
We are on our way, on a cloudy misty morning.




Some tire kicking and visiting in the parking lot before the tour begins on Saturday

At home today there was .5 of an inch of rain in the rain gauge. The water fall was just a trickle, so I cleaned the filter and reset the valves to have the full flow going down the waterfall. Now that the rains are starting, I should not have to worry about topping up any water I lose to evaporation or out the sides of the waterfall.

I did a few photos of autumn color. Some not too bad. I did a short search of ebay for any dslrs that might be easy pickins. Nothing notable.

CanAm Model T tour Sept. 2009

At our lunch stop at Elk Falls Park, I wandered about and tried to get a picture of each of the cars. Most of the shots were useless as the water on the cars was reflecting things. It was a fine big lunch. I kept most of mine to take home as I could not eat it all, and I was having digestion problems. Very unusual for me, but this problem persisted the whole week end. A couple of the girls had walked up a trail to the Falls... it was not far away. Wish I had gone with them. We will just have to go back in our dodge lodge, sometime. After lunch, we went back over the bridge and headed back to our hotel. I could not go to the dinner. I missed the best barbeque salmon ever made, apparently. It was at someone's home... Del and Lorraine Kyle's, (Thanks Blaze and Monica for the right name). Thanks so much for the hospitality!

I have a pedometer that I am wearing every day to see how much exercise I am getting. My brother, Dan, is on a weight loss program and had shown me his. He is doing 10,000 steps and more per day. He walks first thing in the morning. I only have done over a mile on my pedometer once, when I walked over to the drug store. I thought that walk was at least a mile one way. It seems to be a mile there and back. I really am a slug, but a happy slug. :-))