We went to the Easter Service at Central United Methodist Church yesterday. The service and music were fantastic with the choir and chamber orchestra. The old hymns were quite moving and the Hallelujah Chorus at the end of the service was unbelievable.

I thought it would be fun to try some stacking and stitching on a full sanctuary. Well, that proved to be quite a challenge for me and the software. The first two photos are made of stacked images of four perspectives (two high and two low), with a high and low from each side stitched vertically, then the two resulting vertical photos stitched horizontally. I attempted three upper and three lower photos, got them stitched horizontally and vertically for each side, but it was too much for the panorama software to stitch the resulting right and left sides together.  The last photo is one of the video cameras they use to tape the service in front of one of the stained glass windows — an interesting juxtaposition.

 

 

Most people have Easter bunnies, we have Easter Spiders. This little jumping spider hopped onto the counter and looked at me with its adorable puppy dog eyes while I was doing the dishes this morning. Speaking of puppy dogs, a dog adopted Tristan and David. His name is Avid. He’s really a sweet puppy. One of their neighbors had adopted him, but he wasn’t working out for them. Avid sensed something was up, so he jumped the fence and sought out Tristan. It’s interesting how animals often know who to go to when they need help.

When I went out at 3:30 am to turn in the irrigation water, the moon was beautiful — it sat in the heavens occasionally peaking through the clouds as they passed under it. While I was on the ditch bank, the clouds opened up for a minute allowing me to capture the scene. It was a good sign, as I finally got enough water to cover all the areas we irrigate.

We had a busy day today. I repaired one of the drip systems first thing this morning, then we went to the 8th Air Force Historical Society luncheon. The presentation was on the declassification of Area 51 in Nevada. It was fascinating, and all the secrecy during the Cold War was for the building and testing of the U-2 and SR-71 spy planes. One thing I found really interesting is that the SR-71s were built out of titanium, which the US had to get from Russia. They said it’s still secret how they got the titanium during the cold war.

After dropping Tristan and Laurie off at Tristan’s so they could plan Easter lunch for tomorrow and then buy the ingredients, I picked up a fuel pump for the truck. I replaced the fuel pump first thing after I got home, got the truck running, then unloaded the tree trunks and branches that have been in the bed for months. After that I cleaned the gas tank and fuel lines on the mower, got it running, and mowed the irrigation ditches and a bunch of weeds.  I worked on the rototiller, and got it to start for a few seconds several times, then I discovered the fuel line is messed up — so replacing the fuel line will be my next mechanical project. I messed with the drip systems again, but they need more attention than I had time for after fixing the truck and mowing.

 

The moonrise last night was beautiful. The wisteria is blooming, and so far holding up against the morning frosts.

 

 

While I was waiting for the car to be serviced this morning, I took a series of photos of the Mazda Dealer’s showroom, and created a composite photo by first stacking each of four points-of-view so that everything in each photo was in focus, then I stitched the four resulting photos together to create the composite photo of the showroom where all areas of the photo are in focus.  Exposing for the darker left side of the showroom to the bright sun shining through the windows on the right side of the showroom, and getting the color balance to be the same, was particularly challenging, but manageable. Stacking and stitching is proving to be very useful for all kinds of situations.

 

This spider went into a free fall trying to avoid my macro lens. I snapped the photo just before it landed on the counter and headed for cover. I guess that big piece of glass can be pretty scary looking to a tiny little spider.

The first rays of sunlight crawling through the frost covered grass and clover this morning proved irresistible for my macro lens.

 

 

It rained all night — more like poured all night. I got up at 7:00 and watched the rain turn to snow. By 8:03 the snow was coming down so hard that Puck was almost whited out by it. I had planned to get up at 3:00 to turn the irrigation water in, but I didn’t feel much need to go out in a downpour at three in the morning — besides, I doubt the porcupine would be out in the rain.

The last photo is Stretch hiding behind the blinds in hopes that I would not find him.

 

Another one of the babies from an amaryllis we had a few years ago bloomed. Three blossoms are open and a fourth blossom is thinking lagging behind.

I finally talked to the other driver’s insurance today, and they said they are taking full responsibility for the accident, so they should pay for my damaged camera. I’ll see what happens.

 

This is Praise from Nigeria with one of Tristan’s African Grays. He is a math student who has been doing research at UNM for the past several months. He allowed us to make him Nigerian dishes the last three Sundays, and share some of his history and culture with us. He’s finished his research at UNM, and is going back to Nigeria tomorrow. Praise has been an inspiration to many people in the short time he’s been in Albuquerque. We are going to miss him.

 

All the photos were taken this afternoon within a space of a few square yards in the Petroglyph Nation Monument across the street from Tristan’s and David’s house.