Photo Sharing Thread II

[Major Tom]

Tulips at Keukenhof a couple of years ago:

 

[Avalon]

Tulips at Keukenhof a couple of years ago:

Very nice Tom. Beautiful colors.

 

[Major Tom]

While I'm at it here's another one, taken a few days before the above picture. This is in the village in which I grew up in England. There were significantly more trees here when I was a kid. We used to play in these woods and build dens:

 

[Major Tom]

Very nice Tom. Beautiful colors.

Thank you Avalon. The tulip gardens at Keukenhof were absolutely beautiful. This was just a small part of it.

 

[ronocnikral]

we need a print exchange!!!

 

[Sarah in SC]

Wow. Looks like Audrey nailed the I.D. again. Wikipedia says females range from 19mm to 28mm. That must be the body only. This sucker was almost as big as my hand. It is eating a grasshopper. Sorry the photo isn't sharp. It was windy.

Great shot--we call those banana spiders and they easily get as big as your hand here. When we'd ride horses on dirt roads as kids they were always wrapping around our heads causing much hysteria as we tried to figure out where the spider was in all that web!

I have one outside my front door right now who is thrilled whenever I leave the porch light on--she's a monster! You can see the males (much smaller) hanging on the sidelines of her web waiting to pick off the stuff she doesn't get. They have to be careful, though, as I've read that she doesn't always distinguish between boyfriend and dinner!

 

[TromboneAl]

 

[kcowan]

Looks cold Al? Beautiful though.

 

[Walt34]

This guy is very small, what attracted my attention was the seed apparently moving by itself. I couldn't even see the ant until I got down on my hands and knees. More out of idle curiosity to see if the camera would get the shots.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Walt, that is totally cool! Did you use a macro setting or anything special? Fascinating!

 

[Walt34]

Yes, I used a macro setting on it. The camera is a Nikon Coolpix P100, what I'd call a high-end point 'n shoot. It does offer a lot of manual controls for those who want that, and while it offers full controls, it also has pre-programmed settings for those who don't want to fool with apertures, shutter speeds, focal points, depth-of-field and all that stuff. There's even a pure point 'n shoot mode that offers no control at all, good for um, some people...

The amazing thing to me is that the whole camera cost less than what just the macro lens to get that shot would have cost years ago.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Thanks for the details. Our little fujinon pocket camera has a macro feature, but I've never used it. Always wind up fiddling with the DSLR instead, but now rethinking the small one.
Amazing how the technology has improved while the prices have dropped!

 

[freebird5825]

Signs of Fall

My container grown Portugal (harvested when they turn bright red) and Cubanelle peppers, and the first of 3 fall hardy mums opening. The other two plants will go in the ground very shortly.

 

[Martha]

Fall is over, is it time to head south?

 

[REWahoo]

Fall is over, is it time to head south?

It does seem birds are a lot smarter than people, at least in some respects...

 

[NW-Bound]

Fall is over, is it time to head south?

Then why did you winterize your motor home?

 

[Martha]

Then why did you winterize your motor home?

My first trip, in a couple of days, is sans motorhome. Given the time of year I had to winterize it before I leave.

 

[Purron]

Fall is over, is it time to head south?

If this winter will be anything like last winter, that's where I'm heading fur sure

 

[NW-Bound]

If you have updated us on the repair for the ice dam damage, I must have missed it.

 

[Purron]

If you have updated us on the repair for the ice dam damage, I must have missed it.

No big deal - only $400 to fix it. Since the damage wasn't bad and no water was getting in, we waited a while to fix it. All the contractors were busy with much more critical jobs.

The big problem was the squirrels trapped in our attic. We didn't know they were there until the damage was fixed and the hole in the soffit was closed up. Momma squirrel was trapped outside desperately banging on our windows trying to get at her babies. Two tiny baby squirrels, too small to walk, were crying for their mom in our attic.

Naturally, she placed the nest in an impossible to reach area behind a heat duct. DH and I improvised a tool by taking fireplace tongs and taping long broom handles on them so we could reach them.

DH carefully picked the babies out of the nest and put them in a cardboard box. I took the box out on our deck and momma quickly came for them. She carried them off, one by one, like a mom cat with her kittens.

 

[NW-Bound]

A mere $400 And I remember you were so "bummed out" about it, compared to my own ordeal with the roof leak.

And by the way, as reported earlier, because my contractor was late in billing us, we still had a bill of $4K outstanding to use as leverage for them to fix it again. So, they did, before we took off in our RV.

Again, they were late in billing. So, we came back from the trip, and found the roof leaking AGAIN!!! ARGHHHHHHH

PS. Good thing you did for the baby squirrels by the way. We would do the same.

 

[walkinwood]

I use Microsoft's FREE Image Composite Editor (ICE) to stitch panoramas together and am extremely pleased with the ease of use and results. Not perfect, but I panned with a hand-held P&S camera.

Here's an example from a recent trip to RMNP. There is an option to crop the image, but I left this one un-trimmed. There are 8 pictures stitched together.

 

[Purron]

A mere $400 And I remember you were so "bummed out" about it, compared to my own ordeal with the roof leak.

Yeah, I remember being a bit overly dramatic. DH would tell you it's not the first time. Snowmagedon kinda wigged me out. Sorry about your ordeal with the roof leak.

Peace.

 

[NW-Bound]

Yeah, I remember being a bit overly dramatic.

Just teasing.

I am glad for you that it was not an expensive repair. I would only wish my roof problems on my enemies (and I do not have any right now, and have not for a long time, ever since I left full-time work at megacorps ).

The main contractor probably felt sick to his stomach when we informed him about the leak not being fixed. He already had to patch the ceiling the second time, although the new stain area was only about a square foot. He will have to do that again.

This time, I happened to be home when it rained, and climbed up into the attic to see the exact leaky spot. This will help the roofers do it right this time, hopefully. Did I ever post here that you've got to do things yourself if you want it done right?

Anyway, back to photo posting...

 

[RonBoyd]

I use Microsoft's FREE Image Composite Editor (ICE) to stitch panoramas together and am extremely pleased with the ease of use and results. Not perfect, but I panned with a hand-held P&S camera.

Here's an example from a recent trip to RMNP. There is an option to crop the image, but I left this one un-trimmed. There are 8 pictures stitched together.

Very impressive. I am surprised, actually. It, on not very close inspecton, looks as good as Photoshop can do. I will definitely check this out.