Bad weather fun..

First off, here is Charlie doing his duty as a Comfort Dog. I was changing the bed and folding laundry just before it should have been Rich's 'nap' time. 

He moaned and groaned and then nudged me repeatedly until I put him on the bed. 

Just as I finished with putting things away, arranging the commode [yeah, there is that] and  filling the CPAP water container, Rich announced he was ready for a nap.

 I laughed and told him that Charlie had anticipated this and everything was ready.

Charlie pushed the blanket with his nose and nested right next to Rich's pillow. 

When Rich came in, Charlie moved over and waited, tail wagging furiously. Rich laid down and Charlie nudged under the blanket to nest at hubby's back.

That is where I left the two of them.

With the house clean, laundry done and put away, chores finished, and supper thawing, I decided it was time to get back to some creative photography.

But first, a couple of Infrared Shots of Friday evening's wild clouds and weather. We live in a hollow, the winds sounded like a C-130 airplane flying over the house. 

Things got crazy Friday night but we suffered no damage near our house.
Shot with IR camera with a 720nm filter. Infrared really brings out the contrasts in the skies.

I've been 'off' of most photography since the beginning of March for obvious reasons. 

However, I was feeling the need to 'create' something, anything just to get the juices going again. The land is brown, the dull outdoor season is upon us. It is exciting in a way because the first plants to poke their leaves up will cause intense joy. So March may be wild, but it also brings joy [unless you are caught in a March storm].

This is a photo of the Cheese Maker's shop in the Medieval Town. I thought it would be fun to greet the cheesemaker with Nina and her herd of goats. 
The mat that the characters are on is simply a cheap 'grass' mat of paper glued to cardboard.

The background of the sky and field is an AI picture I created with DDG. I set everything up in front of our old Smart TV and used the digital image as its background.

I used the Lensbaby lens to shoot this. I am enjoying the weirdness of this little lens and how creative it can be. So most of what I do for a few weeks will be pushing the limits of this little lens.

I think this is my favorite shot of yesterday. The foreground is just a piece of brown cardboard, the 'stuff' on the cardboard are the dried bits of tea from a tea bag. I used my pipe cleaner tree an alien Lego and the minibots. This too is a digital background. 

It appears to me that these guys jumped through another worm hole into a place they shouldn't be!

I wanted to do an 'action' scene too. 

I set this up and really...I shot it using all the WRONG colors.

I wanted the mood to look like night. So I used what I thought would be bluish lights...

It turned out crappy. But with some ON1 magic, I may have saved it enough to try it again in better light. I can work with this and reimagine what I'd like. For now, it is this:

I'm happy to experiment and make mistakes as that is the only way I can improve anything I do.

I'm hoping to get out and take a walk today to look for mosses and lichens. I'm in a 'close up' macro kind of mood.

I want to crawl around in the dirt and smell the forest floor. Yeah, I am weird, but there you go...good weather, bad weather....I can usually find something to do....
We also finished the Plum Blossom Lego set!

It was like a dance

with the sun and the clouds.

The sky was clear in the morning and the clouds swiftly moved in along with cold winds. I was going to go to the Reserve to watch the eclipse and enjoy some peaceful quite time. I decided that with the heavy clouds, I'd stay home.

After all, if the clouds were going to obscure a partial eclipse, so be it. At least I could go in the house and warm up.

I set one camera up to do a time lapse, it took shots every few minutes. It lasts all of 3 seconds. You can see the conditions for the big eclipse.

I started the time lapse at 12:30 our time and until about 2pm. These photos were taken 5 minutes apart.

The heavy clouds presented an issue in that only once in a while would the sun get momentarily bright enough to see through the camera. The NOAA reported our area with an 81% cloud cover, so it was a great challenge.

My Camera Assistant. Little Richard.

It was great when we caught a bit of a break.

This is what I saw through the flip screen on my OM-5. I used a solar filter I'd purchased years ago and unless the sun was peeking out, the screen was black. That is part of what made it so challenging. The other part was being able to twist like a pretzel to re-aim the camera to track the sun when it glimpsed at me.

These were the shots I picked out of the many I tried.

By this point I was just starting to get the hang of catching the sun with the camera. I had to search for a bright spot and then zoom out and zoom in. When I found the sun again, it was sometimes so breathtaking with the cloud movement that I nearly forgot to hit the shutter.

At times the clouds were moving so fast across the sun that the exposure was up to a few seconds. Then the clouds blurred. I felt like Mother Nature was doing a painting just for me.

By the time it reached its peak, I decided to bug out and go inside to warm up. I was SO cold! I had been wearing my heavy coveralls and a stocking cap. My hands were ice.

I was not disappointed at all though. The cloud cover made it a huge challenge and also made the event in my opinion much more beautiful than stark photos of a crescent in the sky.

When I got in the house, I grabbed a blanket and a pillow and headed for the bedroom for a warm up nap. 

I'm going to remember this day for a long time. The work at getting the shots was a bit brutal with the weather [cold and windy] and the clouds. I spent from noon to 2:15 when the moon was moving past the sun outside.

Yep, that dance was worth it!

Flowers

There are a few flowers I grow because they bring me particular joy and they are really quite easy to care for.
That would be Zinnias and 4 O'clocks.

It is the 4 O'clock that brings me the most joy because of their sweet evening scents that they wrap the house in. In the morning, I can enjoy them before the sun closes them up for the day. My grandmother grew them in her small garden. Before summer's end, we'd collect the little black seeds before they dropped and save them for the next summer.

Now these flowers come in multiple colors. Pink, white, yellow, and a bright red. If you collect the seeds for several years, the flowers will start to become multicolored as they cross pollinate. 

Their scent is heavenly. did I say that already?

I noticed that one of the plants on the west side of the house has bright red blossoms that are tinged with a yellow edges. 

The Zinnias that I tossed into the dirt and raked about are going gung ho. They aren't as tall as I've seen them in the past but I heard other flower gardeners say the same about some of their plants. 

I will collect seeds from the Zinnias this year.

Most of these Zinnia seeds came from a seed exchange with Aurora. So I have her to thank for the beautiful array of colors.

I collect several vases of them each day and fill a section of my countertop with a mix of vases and jars to hold them.

This is the time of summer that I am the happiest with a riot of colors to see and enjoy. 

In my wildflower garden which was just a patch of bare dirt in the middle of the yard, I have Bachelor's Buttons and a variety of pink flowers, along with some sunflowers that are getting ready to blossom. 

In front of the house on the east side, the few sunflowers I planted are blossoming. I planted some of the tall ones and some ones that are only supposed to get to 2 feet tall. 

One of the shorter ones just budding out!

I didn't have much luck with the red sunflowers, but I see a short one budding on the porch garden.

The goldfinches are happy as are the bees. Today I took out a chair and just watched the fun while sitting in the shade.