This shot is from my balcony.

I'm pretty happy that I was able to get detail on the moon through the light cloud cover.

Then I went out into the street and saw the beautiful bare trees silhouetted against the sunset.

This last shot is simply down the street facing west.

That's it for now! I hope to make my announcement later today, if not then tomorrow...or next week. Ugh.

This was last night's sunset. The moon isn't in peak alignment yet with Jupiter and Venus but it's still a pretty picture. Hopefully the skies will be clear enough tonight for me to take a photo of this beautiful cosmic event.

So this is my first post from my new laptop! Woo hoo! Looking at some of the photos I posted recently, I think that my old laptop's screen was starting to go a little dark. Ugh. I suspected it but I was going to try to suffer through it until after Christmas, or at least until after this exciting announcement I hope I'll be able to make. It's 90-something percent sure it's going to happen but that something percent is interrupting my sleep!

I have a little bit of sad news, our rosey Bourke's parakeet, Mamiya, died last night. You may recall that a couple of weeks ago I told you that she seemed to be dying, but then she rallied and seemed like she was going to get better. But over the weekend she took a turn for the worst. We're sad, but we're happy that she lived a good long life. Now she's flying free around the Rainbow Bridge.

That's it for now. I've got to start backing up photos from old my laptop and putting them onto this one.

Hi everyone!

My lap top's internet connection died and that was pretty much the final straw for us with that computer. So, Santa came a little early this year and delivered a new lap top for me! It's going to take me a little while to get the computer set up so I'll be scarce a little while longer.

BTW, if you're the praying type please pray that I will have a super exciting announcement for you soon. This really means the world for my family and me, that's how important it is.

Thanks!

Amy

When I left you yesterday it had rained and then snowed in the late afternoon, then the precipitation stopped as the temperature was forecast to drop to just below freezing. I wondered to what sort of scene I would awaken this morning? Later in the evening a dense fog developed, and I knew that by morning it would freeze. I decided to venture out into the high desert. Here are just a few of my many many photos--I would post more but we're hosting Family Night tonight so I gotta start cleaning the house soon.

You might need to click on my top photo to really appreciate it. There's ice clinging to all of the plants, and lots of texture. I like the contrast of the warm colored dry grasses with the frozen ice and dark wood.

At one point the fog broke and I was able to take advantage of the lightly contrasty filtered sunlight. I also took the obligatory macro photos of thistles and barbed wire covered in ice, but you'll have to wait for those photos. Sorry.

As the fog cleared there was this interesting "white rainbow". I presume this is caused by sunlight reflecting off of ice crystals from the clearing ice fog.

Around that bend and over that hill I was treated to this view. I've seen this mountain from a distance but I don't know it's name? It's so prominent that it must have a name.

Down in the valley peaking out from the fog I saw some red barns, so I decided to go have a look-see. I passed a sign announcing that I was entering Gem County. You've never heard of Gem County, Idaho? Neither have I. I kept going, and I was treated to this scene.

Some version of this photo might end up on my wall, but it needs a little more work. I do like the photo though cuz it's got some neat subtle color, look at the greens and reds and yellows and even a little bit of cyan sky. Neat, yes?

Here are the red barns that I saw from a distance. If you look closely at the grass you can see ice crystals, it was still pretty below freezing. Not only is the fog beautiful, but it also masks the stupid powerlines! I hate powerlines in my photos.

Since I still had some coffee left in travel I decided to continue up the road just a little bit farther.

I came across these horses who were trying to find some breakfast among the frozen foliage. They seemed well cared for, I'm sure somebody came along and fed them before too soon.

At this point I decided it was time to turn around and go back home. On the way back I saw some unusual cattle.

Can anyone tell me what breed this young bull is? The mature cattle had horns that pointed up at the ends, if that helps you. And I can post photos of the adults if you wish. But this guy seemed really cute, even cuddly!

That's it for now! I'll post more photos as I can, but I still haven't finished my fall foliage photos!

No, not snowy egret. This is a snowy great blue heron!

OK, not a lot of snow and it didn't even stick, I guess I got over zealous. Late this afternoon it started raining and with in a minute the rain turned to snow. The boys ran outside to catch snowflakes on their tongues, and they wouldn't let me photograph them so I ran out to the park. I didn't mean to disturb the great blue heron but he's been hanging out right by the road! He seems to not care as long as people don't notice him...like I do. I took photos of other things, but they didn't come out well--not enough snow and not enough daylight left. That's all right cuz I have the rest of fall and all of winter to take snow photos. Perhaps even into spring! The overnight temp is forecast to be 29F, I wonder to what sort of scene I'll wake up?

1) First I have some sad news. Our rose Bourke's parakeet, named Mamiya, seems to be dying. She's fifteen years old, which is the maximum life expectancy for a Bourke's parakeet. She doesn't seem to be suffering, just very very sleepy. She was our first bird. I rescued her outside of my workplace just after we moved to Napa. I took her home and called the Humane Society and they said that if I turned her in it was unlikely that anyone would claim her, but there were several employees who would be interested in adopting her. I put her in my car and I was just about to drop her off when Chad came home and fell in love with her. With his big blue eyes he asked, "Can I keep her?" I said we could keep her on the condition that he builds an aviary and we adopt some friends for her. Over the years we adopted seven budgies and two standard Bourke's parakeets, who I named "Carl" and "Zeiss." All of the budgies are gone but we still have Carl and Zeiss, and they are also very old. In the past Mamiya has become very sick and has bounced back to perfect health so we are hopeful, but the way she looks we would be surprised if she was still alive tomorrow morning.

2) I'm going to be teaching art in Sam's class over the next few weeks. I have to go by the curriculum, but we're doing Van Gogh and I think his style will be fun for the kids. We'll be doing The Starry Night with oil pastels, which is a seems to be a super easy medium for everyone in the world but me. I've never been good at oil pastels; I can do oil paints, acrylic paint, watercolor, charcoal, pencils, colored pencils, ink, but not pastels. Maybe it's time for me to learn?

3) I've been having an urge to paint acrylic, maybe I'll do that too?

4) I just learned that the school has a kiln! I wonder if I could get the kilns to make mugs out of slabs? Ya know, like my leaf imprint mugs that I made in beginning ceramics?

5) Sam came home with a letter from the principal saying that all 5th will have to take a very important standardized writing assessment soon. Here is an actual sentence from the letter, "Please encourage your student to do their very best, for themselvesf and for their school." That was his typo, not mine. ROTFLMAO! I told Sam to try to do better than his principal and be sure to proofread his work. LOL!

6) This afternoon I saw one of the young squirrels gathering up grass from my lawn. Why would he be doing that? Perhaps for his nest? When he saw me with my camera he ran off with such a flourish it was obvious he was trying to lure me away. I ignored him and looked straight up to see this female squirrel. This isn't "Frolic", this is a younger squirrel who I haven't named yet. I think I've spotted Fun and Frolic's nest in my neighbors' red maple tree, but this squirrel couple seems to have a nest in one of my blue spruces! The nest is too high for me to see in the branches and needles, but I'm pretty sure it's there. So, I left some pumpkin seeds on my potting bench under the tree for squirrels. Hopefully they'll soon learn that people in this neighborhood are friendly, just as Fun and Frolic have learned.

7) Look at this squirrel's belly, she looks like she has just finished nursing. Frolic quickly regained her girlish figure after giving birth late last spring. Any suggestions for names? I was thinking "Scamper" and, umm, what would go well with Scamper?

8) I took this photo a few weeks ago after a rainstorm.

These are golden emerald maple leaves and of course the brown leaf is an oak leaf.

9) Here's the storm as it was rolling in. I've only seen this sort of billowing clouds over the desert, it's like the dry earth is sucking the moisture out of the clouds. I don't know if that's what's really going on but that's what it seems like. I included the pine trees in the photo to give you a sense of scale, this is probably the top 15 feet of the tallest tree on the left.

10) Watching Storm Chasers has inspired me to delve into meteorology again. When I was in college the first time I took a basic meteorology class cuz I was camping in the desert a lot, and I hanging out with airplane pilots. I really loved meteorology and my final score in the class was something like 116% because I answered so many of the extra credit questions correctly--none of my classmates ever talked with me again because I ruined the grading curve. At one point I considered changing my major to meteorology but my mom talked me out of it. She said, "Science is the discovery of what's already there so anyone can do it. But art is creative and unique so not everyone can do it. No one else can do what you can do." So here I am. I understand the microclimates of the SF Bay area really well, and my knowledge of meteorology certainly helps me in my balloon chases, but if I'm going to a be horticultural person here in the high desert/Rockies then I need to brush up on meteorology and have a better grasp of my new climate.

11) Here's the same storm as it was clearing. I photographed this from my balcony. A lot of the photography in Storm Chasers is really beautiful, so it's kind of inspiring me to get out into the local countryside and take some meteorological photos. Now that the boys are older I can run out for a few minutes to photograph, unlike when they were little and doing this was impractical--believe me, I tried.

12) I photographed this sunset a few evenings later. Red skies at night, sailors'/farmers' delight. Red skies in the morning, sailors'/farmers' warning. We had a good run of fair weather but now we have another storm coming in later today.

13) It's going to take me a while to go through all of my October photos. Heck, I still haven't finished going through all of my October photos from last year! I'll post them for you as I go.

That's it for now. Cya!

One of the few things that I don't like about my new house is the dining nook. It's placement in the kitchen fits in well with our entertaining style, everyone gathers around and watches Chad cook, but the nook itself is too small and feels like a pass through to the back yard. Its chandelier is uninspired and the window treatments are fine but a bit "sweet." On the feng shui floor plan it's located in the "Creativity" area, which makes these problems nearly disastrous for a photographer/ceramicist/artist. I'm looking for the perfect chandelier but I haven't found it yet, and I can't put up new curtains until Casey matures a bit and won't climb them. In the mean time I thought it would be clever to make a rosemary topiary to enhance this area.

Putting a cooking herb in a dining nook seems like a natural enhancement. I love fresh rosemary but it doesn't always overwinter well in this climate so bringing it indoors is a good idea and making it into a topiary is creative. It's still a young topiary so it's a bit sparse on top, but it will have a ball on top to match the ball on the bottom. Round shapes, the color white, and the number three are all good elements for this area. So, I'm training the topiary into round balls (I'll probably eventually add a third ball to the top of it), I put it in a round white pot and placed it on a three tiered round white marble table. I topped the soil with decorative pebbles, three relatively large pebbles surrounded by smaller ones.

Everything was great until the autumn sun lowered in the sky until it stopped coming through the window all together. At that point, the topiary developed powdery mildew. The general treatment for powdery mildew is to give the plant good air flow and sunlight, so I took it outside on mild days. But now the weather is colder so I had to come up with a more aggressive treatment.

I looked at some of my older books on houseplants and they said the treatment for powdery mildew is to cut out and burn the affected areas of the plant and then spray harsh chemicals. Whoa! That sounds like overkill to me! First of all, I'm trying to create a topiary so I'm not very willing to cut out large sections of the plant. Second of all, powdery mildew isn't THAT serious of a problem.

So, I checked out some organic gardening websites and they said that the bad news is there is no cure for powdery mildew, but the good news is that it's easily kept under control and it's not a very serious problem. OK, that's more I like it. They suggested mixing 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda into a quart of water and spraying it onto the plant. If I had known the treatment was going to work so quickly I would have taken a "before" shot! "Before" it was covered with a white powder, the very next day it looks perfectly healthy! Woo hoo!

In any case, the squirrels have become skittish around me so I had to shoot these photos through a window. This can cause a lot of problems with refractions and also smudges on the glass, but it appears that I got lucky! These photos are very clear.

This is our male squirrel who I have named "Fun." I've named his mate "Frolic" and together they are Fun and Frolic. Cute, yes?

In these two photos you can see him with the acorn in his mouth and then tamping down the ground and leaves after he's buried it. He's very thorough.

I'm glad I got these photos before we raked up the leaves cuz I love the autumn leaves!

My favorite photo is below. I think I got my classic shot!

Yesterday evening I went back to the park to photograph the willow tree that has colored up for fall, and unfortunately I arrived too late cuz the tree was half in shadow and so was the lake. I did manage to get a decent photo of the heron in flight. Not a great photo, but a decent one.

Today I returned and got my shot of the tree!

The heron was back at his favorite fishing spot. But he is so shy that I actually feel bad photographing him, like I'm harassing him or something.

Once again, he flew off.

I could have walked around to the other side of the lake but he would have taken off again. I sat down and waited, but he was more patient than I was. As the sun dipped down beneath the hills I left.

I turned my car around and drove back through the park only to find him at his fishing spot again! I stopped and took another photo, but he walked off behind some reeds. Again, I could have followed him but why? I wasn't going to get a photo any better than what I already got.

I feel like I'm "chasing the high." I got a really nice photo of this great blue heron but I want more. Isn't that the way we photographers are? We always want a better shot. So, should I leave him alone to live his life? Or should keep checking in on him once a week or so and keep trying to get that better shot, like a better shot in flight or perhaps with a fish hanging out of his beak? I dunno?

On the spur of moment I ran out to the park to photograph the willow which is now just starting to color up for fall. Unfortunately I got there a little too late and the willow was half in shadow. There was still a little bit of sunlight on the lake so I put on my 80-300mm lens to see what could shoot.

I walked about ten feet when I saw the great blue heron with a fish in his beak! I wasn't fast enough to photograph the fish hanging out of his beak, I had to settle for this photo of him swallowing it.

It was so dark that I shot this at 1/80 of a second with my lens zoomed all the way in to 300mm! The image is a little soft but overall I think I did a good job panning with the heron's motion.

I'll probably go back out there tomorrow or over the weekend, but a bit earlier in the afternoon. The heron is so skittish that I fear if I spend too much time trying to photograph him that he might leave this park for another one. I don't want to scare him off cuz it wouldn't be a nice thing to do, and also seeing him around makes me miss the peacocks a little bit less.

BTW, this is my second post for today. Earlier I did Thirteen Things for Thursday, in case you missed it.