Here it is May 1st, which means there’s only ten days felt before we leave for France. In the meantime, we have finals to study for, backup watering systems to finish, salsa dance on Friday and work. The kitties were lying around reflecting this afternoon as was a band’s tour bus that I moved my car for so it could take my usual parking spot this afternoon.
The sky was cloudy most of the day with occasional sunshine slipping through. The temperature got up to 80 F, and our early blooming pear tree popped its first bloom. A few of the red tulips are blooming and a lot more tulips are thinking about it — with the positive signs of spring, I got out my macro lens. I also got the rest of the iris separated and planted this afternoon, and ran drippers and soaker hoses, but I really need to irrigate. I’ll go out at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning to see if there’s water in the irrigation ditch, and if the gate’s unlocked, but I’m not counting on either.
Here we are nearly to the middle of March and the temperature was 15 degrees F this morning at our house. Despite the frosty mornings, the crocus are blooming and the tulips are poking through the mulch, teasing us with anticipation of their first blooms.
Today I ended up with a mix of flowers, a sparrow, and a couple of experimental shots with pearls. The dried iceberg looked like a painting in the late afternoon light, and the flowers on the table were vibrant in the afternoon sun shining through the bay windows. While I was out walking around the yard before sundown, a sparrow kept flying around behind me and landing in a nearby tree. At one point I was standing in the shadow of the black bamboo, and the sparrow flew out of the tree, made a U-turn, and flew right back towards me, and almost flew into me, swerving around me at the last moment. I was dressed in black, standing in the shadow of the black bamboo, so I think it actually didn’t see me until it almost flew into me. After that, it sat in the tree across from where I was standing and gave me mad dogs.
Fall colors are in — even the neighbor’s horse was sporting fall colors backlit by the low afternoon sun. Since I don’t have the time or energy to climb the face of the Sandias to get a closer look at the aspens putting on their yellow, I used my 600 mm lens to get a a little closer view of them by stitching seven vertical images together. Stretch has improved so much over the past couple of weeks, that we gave him a day off from waterboarding today. He was out contemplating French and “Intelligent Life” this afternoon — a jumping spider was hanging out with him. The last photo is a panorama of the Sandias using a 100 mm lens (2 vertical photos stitched together).
Off Center & Not Even 