Returning . . .

Cold, it was just below freezing this morning and the birdbath froze.

A very fluffed-up Copy bird maybe wondering how to get access to the water it knows is there.

And in the tree beside it are a couple of House Finches having just been chased away from the bird bath:

Because the Copy bird is fluffed up it may appear to be somewhat the size of the Finches; in reality it is at least half again as large as the finch.

Just finished, well almost, moving all the photo files from my old system of years, months, etc., to a new drive into categories, etc. My idea is this will help me to locate photos i took years ago. Most often i remember the photograph but not the year it was shot. With categories (which are then files by date) i'm hoping they'll be easier to locate. So i still have to organize the 1200 folders and that has the great advantage that i will become familiar with photos i've long forgotten i'd taken.

Here's one:

Green Gulch Farm, from entrance.

This was taken in spring 2008 with a small camera i no long have. And it came out rather well. It is a panoramic composed of 7 images. It is sharp enough that i could enlarge the woodshed that in against the hill"

Humm . . .

I am having some kinda struggle with posting in this blog (or any other) and i've not the foggiest notion (isn't 'notion' a wonderful word?) what that is about. I know there are three things i want to do on a daily basis: photograph, read and watch some films i'm interested in. Anyone of those is most of a day's time, trying to get them all in in a day creates much conflict. Posting in the 'meandering' blog is the most effort in that i've got to get photos together that i think will say or tell a story i want to share. 

Humm, perhaps that is part of the key ... to view or envision each each photographic shooting as a story or journey i want to share in addition to shooting the kinds of photos i like.

The last couple of weeks we've gone thru a very cold (for this area, Asheville, NC) period which caused ice flows and frozen edges to the French Broad River that is only a half a mile from here ... a pleasant 15 min walk.

The river looked a bit like this three days ago:

As the ice froze along the edge and the river continued to flow it pushed the frozen ice into piles creating this neat looking sheets of ice. They are gone now.

This is after a slight warming and soft rain. All the white in the foreground is ice covered with a thin layer of water. 

Tonight is a freeze of 25º and the high tomorrow will be 30º ... so more water will freeze and tomorrow or Sunday (Sat night is 15º) when they may be even more ice. 

1st Snow-12-7-17

We had our first serious snow the other night and day ... maybe 11-12 inches ... it was wonderful.

Susan as we leave for a walk ... it was snowing rather delightfully

Monk ??

The neighbors yard behind our house has a monkish looking figure under one of their bushes. I don't know what it is but rather like it and a while ago i took some photos with the long lens out the attic window. Its pretty b&w out there right now except for some bright red leaves on a bush that hasn't fallen off yet.

I like seeing the figure each time i look out the back of the house.

Ice Highlights

Frozen ice highlights

Ice

We had our first real freeze, 27ºF, last night which put some nifty ice and ice bubbles in a planter bottom tray. It took some playing with shots to realize that the DOF was so shallow that i had to shoot directly over the bubble i wanted or i couldn't get it in focus even with stacking. These four shots were a surprise as the bubble i was shooting burst after the third shot, leaving a collar of mini-bubbles where the large one was:

The bubble, all the bubbles, were moving, some slowly some quickly. It hadn't occur to me that the bubble would burst or i would have tried to catch it in bursting action. Still, it left a nice ring behind.

Empty yard

Waiting for a bus the other day, i realized i was standing in from of a yard, with steps, that had never been completed and there was just an empty yard where a house would usually be. It was sorta neat.

There is a highly decorated shed at the back of the lot

Standing at the top of the steps

I walked up to the design and while i like it, i'm not able to read it; can you?