Birds in the Autumn Garden

The humming birds are around and feeding.  There are two of them squabbling over the feeder.  Thie house finch was in the apple tree, which is a fairly long reach for my little 12X lens on the Canon S3 IS.   Seeing a group of birders walking down the street carrying tripods and probably cameras, too; has inspired me to try to capture a few of the the birds in the back yard.  I don't know if I am ambitious enough to carry my tripod around though. 
I have put some apples out in the deer pasture and they are slowly being eaten.  We made a heaped up apple pie today.  There will be roasted chicken and apple pie tonite.  Our Scottish guests have arrived but we have not seen them yet.  They seem to have disappeared.  Have no idea what they have planned for dinner.  They can join us if they want to.. there will be enough to go around.

Autumn Birds

The robin was posing for me in the plum tree that was dressed in its best Autumn colors.

It was a long shot at the Jay as it was sitting at the top of one of the cedar trees.

There has been many more birds in the garden recently.  With the high winds we had a few days ago lots of apples were on the ground again.  I picked them up and put a couple dozen of them across the road into the deer pasture.  Pat picked a large bucket full off the tree and put half of them through the juicer for about a quart of apple juice.  I guess we could freeze this juice if we make more.  There are lots of apples left on the tree.

I have finally got the house cleaned up.  It looks a lot better.  Our Scotish guests will be here in a few days and we both have hospital and doctors appointments that seem to be filling up the calendar for November.  I have been walking more and so have had less and less time on the computer, which is not an entirely bad thing.  I need to up date my page to add yet another under construction page for our St.Lawrence Seaway and Rideau Canal cruises. I am only 5 years behind in making the albums!

Megashot is growing like crazy.  I must find the time to continue the meet and greet to new members.  Actually, it works good, I think, for me to be a few days behind in this.  This gives them a bit of time to look around and figure out how to do things, maybe upload a few photos, etc.  They can always use a bit of encouragement at this point in time.

Bokeh

I spent a few minutes in the garden, yesterday, trying to get a good photo for the Bokeh Wednesday group on Flicker. I found drops of water sparkling like jewels on the plants with the rich colors of Autumn for a background. The largest drops are a very tight crop to try to get the drops larger.

We have still not heard from Home Depot about the carpet. I called Karas yesterday and she said she would try find out about it and call me back as soon as she knew anything, or have the knot heads in the carpet department call me. She alluded to the mythical Melinda, who we have never heard from on this carpet deal, and who is suppose to be in charge of the carpet department. Still nothing today. I can't imagine how much trouble our kitchen cabinets are going to be if they cannot manage to get a simple piece of carpet ordered in the correct size and installed in a timely manner. Would you say 2 1/2 months is a bit long to be waiting for a piece of carpet? This incident is surely going to be reported to the Better Business Bureau, after contacting Madson, the store manager. Home Depot is NOT a good place to try to get anything done in a timely manner; and you need to check the quality of every item as well. The supply of wood products in the store is a disgrace to a home renovations store. I could go on and on about them. I suppose it helps to blow off steam here, instead of at the employees.

The tree

It was a lovely sunny day with big white fluffy clouds. A bit crisp. But just perfect for raking leaves. I have raked up all of them that have fallen, so far. There are still about one quarter of the tree's leaves left to fall.

The three photos above are from a tree that I see out my dining room window. The one with the leaves framing the tree in a sunset is a composite of two photos I shot at the same time. I could not get the background and the foreground to work out in one photo. The leaves are from the tree in my front yard and the tree is about half a mile away.

Cathy H. passed away yesterday, just the day after her mother's funeral. So sad. We won't be going back for the service.

More Victoria Grid Project

Yesterday I went for my Phlebotomy. Pat drove me there and waited. It took about 20 minutes and then they had me wait another half hour. I don't feel any different. I guess the lab tests will show if there has been any change.

Its a grey day and I feel much like the daisy in this group of photos. I am sure I will be in a better mood tomorrow.

Some new stuff

My PC was in the shop for maintenance and cleaning and Trevor found that the hard drive was breaking down. So, I now have a new bigger hard drive 250 GB and a 500 GB external hard drive for backup and storage. The backup system is not working and I shall have to get Trev back here to fix it. I have a new mic and ears, and a new karpinski anti virus that Trev says is the best one out there now.

When I found how the the Hellebore photos appeared I had to find the information on negative / positive space perception. I have written it up on my Flickr group here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/whimsies/discuss/72157602434232057/
I have also done a thread on my group about shooting in contrasty places... like white and dark together... without blowing out the white highlights. That thread is here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/whimsies/discuss/72157602440886952/

I also have a thread done up about Wabi Sabi http://www.flickr.com/groups/whimsies/discuss/72157602395838993/

These things don't have much to do with Whimsies, Flares or Echos, but I wanted them on Flickr to refer to on the site.

I am having trouble with Flickr comments notifications being sent to me but this stuff has never been satisfactory, so I guess I will leave it for now. They suggested changing primary mail to Yahoo but it did not seem to make any difference, and I am so tired of wasting time on this.

I tried out my Skype type chat last nite... too chicken shit to use voice, so far. Oh well.

I have not got out to shoot the grid yet this month and had nothing .. not one photo for last month. Two of my photos appear on Mike's You Tube video of the Grid on Channel A TV; here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHfZBG76Dn8

Since my last photo upload, we have been on the Fuel Economy Run with the RROC and Bentleys club to Vancouver and Pemberton. The road to Whistler is a big mess. We saw Jo and Lloyd the nite before the meet. She is not doing well at all. He is redoing the kitchen and it looks pretty good.

We also went to the Munro, WA. swap meet. I got a few new blue glass pieces and 6 new doillies.

It has started to rain now and then, the temperatures are cooler. There is lots of color in the trees and plants this year.

Under construction pages

Loaded the October, November and December "under construction" pages to my website.

I used my Canon S3 IS for the November shot to get the good bokeh on the leaves.

More Under Construction pages

I loaded the 'under construction' pages for August and September. I really like the golden catapillar with his surrounding habitat.

This is going faster than I thought it might go.

Autumn Leaves, Enter Winter, soon.

My token fallen leaf. Canon S3 IS, date: 05/11/06, 1/160 sec., f/3.5, -0.33 exposure compensation

Canon S3 IS, 1/40 sec., F/3.5, focal length: 72.0mm, Portrait mode to get the good blurry background.

Special fragrances and colors of Autumn

1/25 sec., F/3.5, -0.33 exposure compensation, white balance: cloudy with my Canon S3 IS