Photos & phlowers

Pink Hibiscus Bits

When I bought my house two years ago, the yard included a number of climbing rose bushes, most of which have produced no or very few blooms and many feet of annoying, thorny, scraggly stems. I hate the things.

Saturday, mom & I went over to my favorite garden store, Arbor Gate, because it was nice out, and mom wanted to mess up her hair in the convertible. Among other little plants I snagged for the front yard, we found a couple of gorgeous hibiscus plants to replace the annoying, non-blooming, killer roses on either side of my garage.

After struggling to rip out the thorn bushes, I planted the new flowering bushes, which are covered with flower buds. (Dad came over on Sunday to single-handedly plant the annuals -- yay dad!)

Wednesday morning, I had my first hibiscus bloom, which I shot with the new camera. The uncropped version is here on Flickr, where I have been playing a lot lately. 

I'll close with my other neat photo of the day, a work photo:

More eagles

Here's dad (or mom?) eagle looking regally into the new 70-300mm lens from a tree near the Carlton Woods clubhouse.

The eagles were all in different trees today, but all looking over the lake on the 18th hole at the Carlton Woods Country Club. This one was mostly down near the south end of the lake (clubhouse/green) but s/he did a few fly-arounds (soaring photo below). 

Rumor has it that Junior has been out of the nest on occasion, but he did not make any moves in that direction while we were out.  

Although Junior was steadfastly boring, mom (dad?) seemed to be working on her tan, or acting as scarecrow, or just showing off her lovely feathers in a dead tree pretty far around the lake from where we were standing. 

The new lens is great, but there is quite a learning curve for using it Among other things, I'm going to need a heavy-duty tripod. (sigh) Why does every new hobby quickly turn into a money pit? 

Happy Family

Just a couple of photos of the eagles who have taken up residence on the edge of the 18th hole at Carlton Woods Country Club.

We begin with mom & dad, who actually look like bald eagles, with all the proper adult feather coloring. They are sitting, regally, on a tree branch overlooking the lake where they occasionally fish for their own dinners & for Junior. 

I was out on the golf course with my mom, and we agreed that the mom & dad birdies sort of look frazzled and weary. You get the impression, from watching them, that they are wondering, "How long before Junior starts catching his own dinners, or maybe moves out and gets a job?"

 Junior is in the enormous nest, in the next tree over, looking like a bird but not much like an eagle. I'm told that they get the white head feathers as they age. 

These are very cropped in (100%) images from my new camera, shot with a 40-150 zoom lens. I've also ordered a 70-300 zoom, which I hope will be here on Monday. So although mom & dad eagle are wishing Junior would fly the coop, I'm sort of hoping he waits one last weekend.

First shots

First photo

Because I have the world's best UPS delivery person, I have a new camera today. You can see its handiwork here on the right, the very first (bad) photo I shot with the new Olympus E-510. I've never been very good at flash photograph, so you will have to excuse me. I do like the 'giant dog' shadow effect, though, heh.

The camera was waiting on my porch when I got home, so naturally I ran inside with it & started unpacking the stuff. As with most consumer electronics these days, the stupid battery was uncharged. So I have this cool new light-sensitive toy that I can't even use until after dark!! Aaaagh!

I thought it would be fun to shoot my completely no-tech Kodak Brownie box camera with this amazingly high-tech new camera. So while I was waiting for the stupid battery to charge up, I dug the Brownie out of the back of the closet, where it's been gathering dust for ages alongside my Nikon FG -- also an 'antique' now since I bought that back in 1982. I can't remember the last time I shot film. And that's important to the story because while I was poking around on the Brownie to look for some angle to shoot, I realized it has film in it!

I'm wondering when I might have gotten the silly idea of running out and buying film for the thing, and where I might have found size 120 film in this day & age. And where I could even get it developed. I'm sure it's dead past its expiration date by now, but it would be an awful lot of fun to find out what's on that film, if anything is left.

Meanwhile, please ignore the bad flash photography. I will try to learn how to do better. In fact, I have a lot to learn with this camera, because it is a spaceship compared to my point-and-clicks. Meanwhile, a trip to see the three eagles (mom, dad & baby) at Carlton Woods is in the plan for... tomorrow? I hope.