Eyes on Iris

May 10, 2014 Timothy Price12 Comments

The iris that I had to dig up in October 2012 and then replanted in the early spring last year after our electrical upgrade was completed are blooming quite nicely.

Broken Lens Breakdown

May 8, 2014 Timothy Price15 Comments

Along with the Canon F-1, I ended up with three lenses: a Canon EF 35-105mm (digital), a Canon EF 35-80mm with macro (digital) and a Canon FD 135mm (film). The lenses were described as “For parts or not working…” I dinked around with each lens — cleaned up contacts, loosened up things that seemed to tight, tightened up parts that seem too loose, cleaned the elements the best I could, and then I tried them out. I tested the 35-105mm and 35-80mm on a Canon 5D and a Canon 1Ds (both full frame digital bodies), and the 135mm on the Canon F-1 (35mm film body). There are two photos produced with each lens in this series. I believe I got the broken lenses working pretty well — can you guess which lens was used to produce each photo? “If you can’t be handsome, at least be handy” and produce beautiful photos!

New Blooms

April 28, 2014 Timothy Price20 Comments

Austrian Copper, Lady Banks, a yellow iris and a tulip with ram’s horns are some of our most recent blooms. Austrian Copper and Lady Banks are our first roses to bloom. Lady banks is a tiny rose.

Digging Ditches

April 20, 2014 Timothy Price8 Comments

I dug over 60 meters (about 180 feet) of ditches yesterday afternoon to make irrigating more efficient — we can irrigate every other Tuesday if there is water in the ditch. The areas that need to be watered most are furthest from the main canal, so the new ditches I dug will route the ditch water more directly to the end of the property that needs to be watered, by-passing the other areas. In past years, I’ve had real problems with only getting water about halfway to where I needed it before someone else took the water.

We have a larger variety of tulips blooming now — the tulips are not planted in areas that get irrigated (I water them with a drip system) so they are happy to bloom. The dry air doesn’t seem to bother them too much, but the hard frost makes them droop in the early morning hours until the sun warms them up, and they open again.