Month: June 2006

Photography

Photo Salvage

Shelly

What do you do when a photo doesn’t really turn out the way you’d hoped it would? You go a-Photoshopping, of course!

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I took this photo last night, just as the sun was setting. The summer sunset is usually pretty boring from my vantage point, because a large stand of trees blocks the view. We occasionally get interesting cloud formations, though, and I’d hoped that this would be one of them; but it ended up not being very photogenic, so I did some Photoshopping to try to salvage what I could of it.

I started by desaturating the image, darkening it, and ramping up the contrast. Because I intended to put a black frame around it, I wanted to make sure the foreground trees were a rich black, not a washed out sorta-black. So I used the Levels setting to select the tree value as the darkest in the image. Then, I used Color Balance to add reds and yellows, to fake sepia tones. Finally, I added a grungy border around the image.

Pets, Photography

Harriet! Har-ee-et, Hard-hearted harbinger of haggis

Shelly

Dogs are dangerous to live with. Sure, they might look all cuddly and harmless, but lurking behind the cute nose and delicately wrinkled brow is a wild beast who will stop at nothing–nothing!–to slake her thirst for BunnyBlood.

I give you Miss Harriet Brown. (No, really. I’ll even pay for shipping.) Do not, I beg of you, be fooled by the silkiness of her whiskers, nor the velvety softness of her nose. Harden your heart, lest you, too, fall victim to her evil devices.

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A couple of weeks ago, I was minding my own business when Miss Brown insisted that Bunny Mayhem was occurring in her yard. Yes, her yard. I opened the door to investigate, while Harriet sat, wiggling and whining impatiently, beside me. I think it is only fair to give the bunnies a heads-up, so I shouted, “Run away, run away.” The bunnies scattered, and I released Harriet. Powered by jet propelled rocket boosters, she peeled out, taking half my left foot with her. Or, rather, puncturing it in multiple places and bruising the living hell out of it. But still, ow. I had to sit down in order to catch my breath.

The immediate pain passed, so I didn’t think too much of it until the next day. Again, ow. The entire top of my foot was covered by a lovely pattern in black and blue. It was impressive looking, but I didn’t think it was a big deal. The bruise itself wasn’t particularly painful, and that soon healed.

However, even after the visible bruising is gone, it still hurts to put pressure on the top of my foot, and to flex it. Hmmm. I wonder if there’s just deep tissue bruising that hasn’t healed yet? Or maybe a bone is cracked or broken?

Anyway, dogs are trouble. T-R-O-U-B-L-E. Trouble. If they try to tell you otherwise, don’t believe a word of it, because they also lie like, um, dogs. They sure are cute, though.

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Pets, Photography

The Mighty Huntress

Shelly

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Pandora caught a mouse last night. Pretty amazing for a 17yo cat who has no teeth, I think. I didn’t see the actual kill, so I don’t know how she did it. Judging by the saliva marks, my guess is that she held it in her mouth and squashed it against the floor until it either died of a heart attack or suffocation. In any event, Pandora was well pleased with herself.

Now, what a mouse was doing inside when it’s nice and warm and relatively cat-free outdoors is beyond me. He’s kinda cute, though, even though he’s all disarranged and, well, dead. Those itty bitty toes and ankles, and those fluffy, silky whiskers are precious. And look at those hyooooge bat ears! Poor little guy.

(I put the mouse outside last night, on a piece of cardboard. He was still there this morning, so I thought I’d take his picture. He’s since been relocated to a more appropriate final resting place.)

This is how Pandora usually spends her time:

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Pets, Photography

It Is Done

Shelly

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Only about half the yard is visible in this shot. It’s big. It’s also deceptively hilly and strewn with treacherous mole tunnels. And then there are the holes the dog has dug. And the grass is more like hay. What I mean to say is, it’s a royal pain in the arse to mow, which is why I feel justified in complaining about doing so, as well as doing a happy dance when I’m finished. So, this is me, dancing happily. Ya-bloody-hoo.

Miss Brown, however, is more demonstrative with her exuberance (shameless, too!). Whenever I mow, she likes to enjoy a little roll in the freshly cut grass. Thankfully, that is the only thing she likes to roll in. A dog who smells like grass is one thing. A dog who smells like road kill would be quite another, thankyouverymuch.

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The last photo is of Harriet grazing beneath a black walnut sapling. I love my little trees. There are, I think, twelve of them altogether, including one lone maple and two sassafras, with the rest being black walnut. This one is medium sized. The largest one is about 7-8′ tall and quite sturdy. I can’t believe how quickly they’ve grown! And the smell as I brush against them is heavenly, like fresh lemon zest.

The grown up area in back was Elliott’s raspberry patch. I mowed it down last summer, but have let it grow wild again. I’m amazed at how tall this Johnson grass gets. It’s strong, hardy stuff, too, with thick, fibrous seed stalks. You can’t kill it, and it’s a really difficult to mow. If you look at the center photos, you can see how uneven and coarse it is. I don’t recommend walking on it barefoot!

Crankypantsing, Meta

Template Weirdness

Shelly

My template has suddenly lost its mind.  It’s shoving the sidebar down to the bottom of the page, so if you’re looking for that info, you’ll have to scroll down.  If it doesn’t miraculously cure itself, I’ll have to go do some tweaking.  So, if at some point over the weekend you notice supreme template ugliness, fear not, it just means I’m working on it.  Because, you know, I don’t have anything better to do with my time.  Grrr.

Photography

Spiders in the Kitchen

Shelly

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Cobweb Weaver with egg sacs

Another spider has set up a nursery in my kitchen window. So far, she’s got three egg sacks, one of which has hatched. To give you an idea of scale, the hatchlings’ bodies are roughly the size of grains of table salt. They’re bitty.

They are the same type of spider as the one who is living in my bedroom window. I guess this species likes the protection provided by the window awnings. They don’t seem inclined to come indoors, as I’ve never noticed this sort of spider in the house, so I’m happy to leave well enough alone and to enjoy the nature show.

Addendum: I thought I’d mention that these spiders (don’t know how common this is) lay their eggs on bugs that are caught in their webs. Then, they encase it all in a cocoon, making an egg sack. It’s pretty cool to see it in mid-stage, where the dead bug is encrusted with little amber-colored eggs.

Addendum 2: She is apparently a common Cobweb Weaver. Good to know.

And no, no mowing yet. I’m procrastinating.

Pets, Photography

More Flowerblogging

Shelly

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Dianthus

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Foxglove

These were taken at my neighbor’s house last Sunday. The top photo is raw, straight from the camera. The bottom photo needed a little bit of color balance tweaking. The background foliage was verging on an unnatural shade of chartreuse, so I toned it down a bit.

Now, to motivate myself to mow the yard. The weather has been uncooperative lately, so it’s been two weeks since I’ve mown. The grass is getting a little out of control. The problem now is that if I wait until the dew has dried sufficiently, it’ll be hot out and damned uncomfortable for physical labor. O ick. If I let it wait until late afternoon, when it’s cooled off a bit, I’ll have lost any motivation I might have summoned up. Blah.

While I’m weighing my options, maybe I’d better go snorgle the puppy. After all, it might help to remind myself on whose behalf the mowing is done. I have no interest in having a yard, after all. If it were up to me, I’d let most of it return to meadow. Harriet likes her yard, though.

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Photography

The Calm Between the Storms

Shelly

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Wednesday evening, we had a couple of waves of storms pass through. The sky tried, unsuccessfully, to clear between the two cells. When a bank of tall clouds moved in front of the sun, I went inside to get my camera, in hopes of getting in on some crepuscular ray action. It’s subtle, but it’s there in the second and third photos. There is also a nice mix of thin, whispy clouds and tall, dense ones. The first photo is of a neat double arch formation that hovered over my neighbor’s barn.