Fluted Black Elfin Saddle mushrooms

I knew i had these photo somewhere taken five or six years ago along the Meeker Slough. I had never seen such mushrooms before and was amazed how much they looked like dog scat. Really! I returned to the same spot the following year in hopes of seeing them again and getting some more photographs of them but never did see them again. They are amazingly ugly, which is a kinda beauty —

I did post them in Live Journal when i first photographed them but haven't been using LJ for some years now. The information on them says the tops, not stems, are fine to eat ... however, the stems can be a bit toxic and give one a stomach ache, hence most people don't eat them.

And the wonderful traditionally looking mushrooms:

More Redbuds

Couldn't figure out why the colors were different as they are the same blossom, just a different angle of view. Then i remember: the first image were lights that are daylight balanced but not strobes (don't flash); and the image above was shot with a twin flash designed for macro work. So i think the above image is the more correct color. Am learning that when i shoot that close to an image the colors change both in intensity and hues. It is why so much money is spent on fancy lighting so that the colors of the it image matches the color of the item - not always so easy to do.

Now for something completely different ... i'm sorta in bird-love with the Pileated woodpecker; yesterday, there was one on the old tree in the backyard:

Love 'em!

Redbud — how...?

More images ... different framing:

I think i like the bottom photo the best, but not really a lot. So ... back to the drawing board. The lightening if from the afternoon sun so some of the problem is that i have to move the blooms so the sun will light them from a direction i like ... table top photography doesn't have that problem and perhaps i should go in that direction - but i really like using natural light, it just doesn't behave the way i want it to.

Pie Day

It was Pi Day, 3.14 yesterday and so S made a pie:

Yum ... a chicken pot pie with yummy veggies.

And then there was the night and morning snow - it was beautiful:

So i worked some more on the redbud buds. You can see the tree in the above photo between the camera and the car. I trimmed it a couple weeks ago and kept a couple branches that were about to bloom ... and they did:

I like both the color and sharpness of the image but think having the blooms coming towards the lens doesn't ... mmm ... well i'm not sure - somehow i don't really like it. Do you have an opinion about the framing of the image? Would you like to see it from a different angle?

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