Backyard update

Here is my flower garden. It worked pretty well. Now that I have a gardening area, I won't have to choose to do one or the other.

This is our new raised area, new tree in the background and a good view of the privacy slats we installed over the weekend. They really provide a clean look. Click this picture and make it large. Follow the top of the grape vine and you'll see my tomato plants! They were determined to find the sun and did what it took. They are about 8 feet tall.

Here's the tower of coleus plants. That turned out ok too. I'm going to move the pot next year. Maybe I'll put it in the front of our house. Who knows.

Here's my caladium (elephant ears) bulbs. I just planted 3 bulbs and gee are they gigantic. I'm going to move them next year too. Maybe over under the river birch tree.

Cicada

Darwin was mowing this afternoon when this guy flew in and landed on the bag. What great eyes it has. 70-200 + 25mm Tube, + flash, manual mode.

Friends at East Campus

I had the good pleasure of taking these pictures last night at East Campus. Here's a fun tidbit....this is the couple that I Darwin played his first night of bridge with. Jeff proposed to Diane by using cards......that night Darwin told me he loved me as he dropped me off. Hmmm...fun memories. They moved overseas over 10 years ago. The day they moved, we closed on our house. So, we were the lucky recipient of their piano. It still misses Jeff.

Butterfly wings

I went out to the bushes today with my 60mm macro lens. Oh wow does that ever show detail. Click on the pictures to check out the edges of the butterfly's wings. Pretty amazing. I'm glad that butterflies are pretty friendly, because I was about 5 inches away from this one.

Weekend backyard project

We were busy this weekend. The first project was taking out our spruce tree. I cut it down to the stem on Friday afternoon and then our neighbor came over and took it down. It makes our back yard look really, really big! On Saturday, we planted a Cleveland Select Pear tree in our back yard. We also built 2 new raised containers. One is along the fence by my flower garden. That will be a bed for early flowers and who knows what else. The other one, is 12 inches high and will be used for gardening. Our last event was transplanting my 2 butterfly bushes and planting 2 new ones. The new ones have a much more dense growth pattern and should go a little better with the Joe Pye Weed. We'll get dirt next weekend and who knows what plants will show up this fall.

White Lined Sphinx Moth "Hummingbird Moth"

Today was a day of change for our back yard. We removed our 15+ year old spruce tree. It was full of bag worms and after really taking a look at things, we decided to just take it out. After cleaning up and mowing, we were heading back into the house and Darwin noticed the "hummingbird moth"!!!!!!!!! Yeah, I finally have hummingbirds in my back yard....even if they are just moths. Pretty fun to watch. I ran into the house and grabbed my flash and my 200mm lens. Manual settings, ISO 400, F 8, 1/250. It worked!

More interesting butterflies & bee

This was taken with my 2oo mm lens & 25mm extension tube.

I purchased a used 25mm extension tube from Canon. It is much more solid on my long lenses then the Kenko verson. EBay is great! 70-200 F4 + 25mm Tube. I think the polka dotted black belly of the bottom butterfly is amazing.

More 70-200 manual focus practice

Some more shots....70-200 + 20mm tube, manual mode, with external flash & stofen.

Wow, are these butterfly bushes ever working.

70-200 with 20mm extension + on-camera pop-up flash, as needed. So pretty.

Spotted Robin

This robin has some white feathers. There has been a white robin reported in Lincoln, so perhaps this is one of the offspring. It has been hanging around my yard all year.

At work

I took my 400mm lens to work with me this morning. There is a small pond outside our office. There were dragonflies zipping around everywhere. I can't figure out how to catch one of those in flight. Maybe I'll try when it isn't 105 degrees outside!

Alaska eagles revisited

I'm going through my Alaska pictures and deleting the ones that don't need to be saved. I found a few more eagles on Resurrection Bay that were fun.

Can I lick the plate please?

The Braised Beef Brisket with Sautéed Filet Beans was the main course of the market meal tonight. Please bottle and start selling the sauce!

From this......to THIS

These tomatoes were sitting on the counter yesterday at Bread & Cup. I thought I'd take their picture since they were so colorful.

Here is what they looked like tonight as they were served to guests. And let me tell you that their taste was as intense as their color. They were delicious.

Bread & Cup - sandwiches - YUM

Bread & Cup makes really good sandwiches. I went down to take pictures today. I wasn't "afraid" to get right up and close with my macro lens. Wow were they ever pretty! I ate the Friday special which was the Jamica Jerk Pork. Check out their web www.breadandcup.com and you can see the pictures that I've done for them. Click all around and you'll find some fun ones.