Another smelting thing...

Well, there was another smelting thing..... I like the people, I love the husband.... but I'm getting a little tired of the smelting.

On the bright side, Snorri came back for a visit.



And the beating of the hot rock is still amusing.



Wareham also had a few very attentive bluejays hovering about. I haven't seen ours in quite awhile.

In the garden and the living room

This is one of Neil's pictures. He says the birds act funny when they know their picture is being taken. :)



This is largely what I blame for the last month's worth of fatigue. Imagine if you will, because I don't have a 'before' picture, the trim is 50 odd years of layers of white paint, and the walls are a pale taupe.

We've been renovating. And please don't get me started on hiring a person who said he'd get it done in two days, and didn't, leaving us to spend weeks finishing it.



Of course, the garden has been a pretty busy place as well. Neil keeps bugging me to post larger garden pictures - this is the round garden, the triangle garden, and the tomato garden in the background. Three for the price of one picture! Remind me to take another one like it in the fall when all the annuals are at their peak.

Squirrels and Chipmunks and Birds, oh my!

Okay... I've had these pictures and the Garden Notes paragraphs at the bottom of the post ready for two weeks, but without any other content here. Then I got busy.

It happens. Apparently... somewhere between June of last year, and June of this year, I managed to forget to take my vacation time. The workplace gets a little annoyed with things like that.

Anyway, the bird feeder has delightfully increased the life in our yard!

We have squirrels....



.......chipmunks,



....cardinals,



and blue jays, oh my! And I am having a great deal of fun with the new lens for the camera.



Now, the flowers here have come and gone, but they were beautiful as usual.

This is Fritillaria Imperialis - it's an interesting flower. It hangs down, as if from a pedestal, and in it's early growth - it stinks. The banner for my blog is a snippet of the flower from two years ago. It seems to be a reliable perennial.



Tulips, of course, are the mainstay of many Canadian gardens. This yellow-red combination is fairly common.

I had some beautiful pink tulips along the fenceline at the sidewalk, and some inbred redneck teenagers appear to have alternated between snipping them or ripping them up and leaving them on the sidewalk. It certainly makes me understand the urge to violent revenge in the human race - if I could catch them, I'd be tempted to do some damage to their heads.



Last year, I dug up much of the grape muscari that had multiplied and spread it out in a different area - lots of colour! I think I'm going to find some more and continue this line down the garden.



Garden Notes:
Temperatures unusually high for this time of year, but we're still getting the occasional frost warning for evenings. This is Canada, after all. I haven't bought any annuals yet. That's next weekend's project, I hope.

Planning a raised bed for the tomato / green pepper crop. Haven't figured out where to put it yet. (Have done it - next post :) )

Before and After

Playing with Photoshop today....

Before:


After:


Any thoughts?

Karen

Spring birds and flowers

Playing around with the new telephoto lens again. I wonder if it will be enough to capture dolphins on our next trip to Iceland.

Both this photo and the next one are cropped from the original for a tighter frame.

Strangely enough, I found all the photos of the yellow finches on the feeders just slightly _over_ exposed. My usual problem with this camera is that it generally _under_ exposes pictures on automatic.

Perhaps it was the way the light glinted off the bird feeder? The sparrows (all hiding in the brush like this fellow) didn't have that problem.

Now, a slightly different problem with the sparrow picture is that it is just slightly out of focus. The brush is somewhat further away then the bird feeder, and this is an even tighter crop then the yellow finch picture. It's harder to tell just exactly what the camera is focussing on when one takes the photo.




Crocii, yellow. Second blooms of spring. :) The snow bells always come first. It is very very nice to see - it was a very long hard winter for some reason.

Birds and Spring

Neil and I are having a light debate about two photos - perhaps you can help us.

I like this one better - I've lightened the colour balance, although it does seem to flatten the depth in the picture a bit. I like the compositional balance - birds, clematis and fence all seem to be in good space to each other.



Neil likes this one the best - he likes the profile of the birds and feels that the clematis detracts from the simplicity of the birds. I tried lightening this one, but it seemed to make it too light in some spots. Although the depth of field is better in this one, I feel that the third bird being right on the edge of the photo ruins the compositional balance.



Which one do you like better?

--------------

We went to the Stratford Garden Festival on the weekend with my folks. I don't know what everyone else's reasons were - it was very crowded - but I desperately needed a hint of spring.

Usually I can manage to hold out til the Canada Blooms weekend (that's in two weeks) but this year, the yard is a horrible mess and winter seems to be just dragging on.

If we had geothermal energies all over the place like in Iceland, maybe we'd have more recreational greenhouses to get people through winter.

This wild exhuberance of blooms was almost enough.



But these darling little things in my own garden the next morning are tipping over my sense of hope. :)

Sunshine!

So... a few days after the fog, after months of dreary overcast winter skies.... the sun came out to play on the weekend.

Compare this picture of the front fenceline to the foggy one of the last post. Sunshine is good, but the colours in the picture just aren't as interesting.... the lights don't stand out in the same way.

Much less snow 'though.... this is a good thing.



On a sunny day, I guess the birds don't mind as much if I take their picture while they are eating...



My hubby gave me flowers for Valentine's Day (and took me out to dinner - twice!) - isn't he the sweetest?

Foggy day, and fiber

We had a foggy day a few days ago. It created some fantastic shots.

But first, getting something out of the way that I've been meaning to post for a few weeks now.

Nina (and any other fiber artists out there) - this is the wall hanging that I did for my hubby's office a few years ago. The warp is junk yarn, and the weft is unspun roving. It's the inspiration for what I want to do next - lots of thick thick yarn. But I'd like it in both warp and weft, and much better colours.

I want to get something up on the loom that is simple and quick - something just to get me started again. Any recommendations for the right kind of fiber? Think really really thick...



This is our front fence line - interesting the way the coloured lights stand out in the fog, even turned off.



The birds tried to hide in the lilacs, waiting for me to go inside so they could help themselves to the freshly re-filled bird feeders.



Freshly re-filled, since the squirrels seem to love getting at them and dumping it all on the ground! Could anyone recommend a good type of grease for the pole?

August flies by

I know, I disappeared into a black hole again for a bit. It's my brother's fault, loosely speaking. :)

He was home visiting - he lives way over on the other side of the country - and I happened to ask him if he had a Facebook page. I had signed up months ago for a Facebook page so I could see the pics that my boss was posting of her new baby while she was on mat leave, but eventually I found I was wasn't using it. Of course when my brother told me he did indeed have a page, I had to start using it again! Must keep in touch. And then there were all these people I knew and .. well, one thing lead to another and I've been gone.

But don't worry, I still prefer blogging. Facebook feels very ....invasive. Young. And overly structured. In blogging, I think I have more freedom, and there's a design element to the page that I can control.

Anyhoo.... back to my world. It got quite crowded at the bird feeder for a bit....



But lately, they've been staying away. It's quite strange.

Found these in the yard a week or so ago.... anyone know what they are? This is WAY out of my experience!



Well, we're off to that traditional Canadian activity on the long weekend - camping! It's another SCA thing so maybe I'll have some pictures when we get back. If my increasingly psychotic work schedule allows me the time, I might even be able to post again.


Karen

More Garden, and Birds

Ecineachea in bloom. I think this is the original variety that is supposed to be good for the immune system. I find it amusing to grow a bunch of medicinal herbs that I'll probably never have time enough to learn how to use properly.



House Finch. We think. We looked it up on a website somewhere.



Blue Jay.



Squirrel, oh so innocent looking.



Squirrel, caught in the act.



Funny squirrel. Must find some grease for that pole.

Garden, Birds, Fibre

Sometimes they look pretty even not fully open....



Sometimes they look pretty when the sun catches the stamen just right...



I'm afraid of bees. But I've learned, finally, that these ones don't care about me at all. As long as I don't get between them and their food..... I don't have to run away squeeking, I can stay and watch.



Even dead and dried, these alliums are interesting.



Golden Marguerite is another great dye plant. I need to start collecting the dead heads. Apparently you can freeze them without ruining the dyestuff.



Darrell, our friend the blacksmith, made this very pretty bird feeder for us. Darrell's work can be found at Wareham Forge - http://www.warehamforge.ca - or if you want to talk to him in person, he'll be selling his stuff at the Goderich Celtic Roots Festival on August 8 - 10th.

The feeder on the right is many times more popular, but these little creatures are very messy eaters and leave much of it on the ground. The squirrels are very happy campers.

By the by... if you happen to be a bird watcher, please let me know what kind of visitors I'm getting?



I'm pretty sure that this is a golden finch.....



But this fellow.... I have no idea. He's much larger, in the same size class as a blue jay (they are not hard to identify!) and prefers the sunflower seeds.



Just to round things out.... remember that lovely peachy colour from the second soaking of woad leaves? Here it is carded and fluffy....



And spun.