Petunia

Mali reminded me that I hadn't posted the pic that won the DPReview Leica challenge last month. This is the one.

Update on Wolfy

When I wrote about Angel and Wolfy in June, Angel, the older by two years, was beginning to fail, and it seemed as though Wolfy wasn't far behind. And after Angel was gone, Wolfy seemed to decline a little more. But that turned out to be temporary.

Wolfy, I'm happy to tell you, is thriving as Only Dog. He enjoys all the treats and toys that our dominant-to-a-fault Briard never allowed him to have when they shared the house. He soaks up (or, more likely, tolerates) my baby-talk. On our walks, he gets to travel at his own pace. He no longer trashes the pantry or exhibits any other sign of depression or anxiety.

One very welcome change, from my standpoint, is that he has stopped having so many accidents in the house. Most days he "holds it" during the seven hours I'm away at work. Ditto overnight. This is wonderful! I may be deluding myself, but I think the house is beginning to smell better.

I'm not without concerns, of course. He is 14, after all. One big worry is that he loves our walks more than anything—more than dinner, even, some days. But winter is coming, and I don't anticipate being able to walk him then. Our dirt road will become an ice road, and I try to avoid situations where I'm likely to fall. Also, as many of you know, I have wicked Raynaud's. Two of my fingernails are just starting to look halfway normal after nail-bed damage from last year's cold. Most winter days I don't even like to open an outside door unless absolutely necessary.

So......when the weather turns I'll let Wolfy out by himself on a 30-ft lead, and hope the yard doesn't ice over like the road. With his bad arthritis, it wouldn't be good to slip. No walks......what will this do to Wolfy's quality of life? I don't know. I had said I wouldn't put him through another winter, but that was before he started doing so well. I took this picture of him this afternoon. Doesn't he look beautiful?

In Scranton Today

Why I Changed My Mind About a DSLR

Almost two months ago I posted here about deciding not to buy a DSLR. My mind was firmly made up to buy the new Panasonic FZ35. I'd still like to get that camera, but this morning I bought another one.

After I made that first decision back in August, I continued to hang out at the DPReview forums. I mostly frequented the Panasonic forum, but checked out others as well. After a while I noticed something: Most of the photos that really caught my attention were taken with DSLRs. Of course, it makes sense that the better photographers had invested in the better cameras. And in the end it's the photographer's skill that matters more than the equipment. Or, as someone put it, "It's not how big your sensor is, but what you do with it that counts." :-)

Still, I was intrigued. Most of my favorite shots on those forums were taken with a higher-end ($2,000+) Canon or the Olympus E-520, which sells for considerably less. The Olympus images were mostly shot with an expensive ($1,000) 50-200mm lens or the more reasonably priced ($400) 70-300. But I learned the kit lenses that can be bought with either Olympus are a cut above most kit lenses, and eminently usable.

I could buy the E-520 with the two kit lenses for under $600. I could buy the E-520 with a camera bag and a couple of UV filters, plus the Panasonic FZ35, and still be under $1,000. Hmmm.......my dad had many good cameras. My son has several sophisticated ham radios. My daughter and her SO have a speedboat, a luxury pontoon, a kayak, and a jet ski.

I just bought myself a DSLR.

PS: While hanging around DPReview I entered a photo in a Leica challenge. (My camera has a Leica lens.) It won first place. So I think that alone justifies a new camera, yes?

9/11: Where Were You?

I was working as a newspaper reporter, and had just arrived at my office when my daughter called to tell me about the first tower. Everyone assumed it was an accident at that point. And then it wasn't, and everyone was stunned.

My boss sent me down the block to the courthouse, to interview the Director of Emergency Management. It was there, on his office TV, that we watched the second tower fall.

Where were you?

And One For Sunflower Lovers

That's all of us, right? The stalk on this one is over 12 feet tall.

For Arachnid Lovers Only!

Making Students Feel Welcome in the Library

The new semester started Monday, and quite a few students came into the library to make photocopies of parts of books. Some didn't have enough money, and some didn't have any at all. I lent one desperate student 40¢, but the rest said they would be back after class. I kept their books for them on my desk.

Last evening a student came in and said she was back for her book. It was the last one left on my desk, and I completely forgot that she had been in the night before to take the book out. I couldn't check it out to her at that time because she didn't have her ID card. So she was back with her card to check out her book, and I, ever the on-the-ball "librarian," was thinking she wanted to make copies.

I handed her the book, and she stood there. I smiled. She smiled.

"Um . . .I'm new at this," she said. "What's the procedure?"

"It takes money," I said, referring to the copy machine.

"Money?"

"Yup, money. It can take dollars . . . "

"Dollars?"

"Right. Or dimes. Whatever you have."

"Dollars or dimes?"

I wondered why this normal-looking girl kept repeating everything back to me. She still stood there, so I gestured to the copy machine across the room. She turned and looked in its direction, and then turned back to me. Did she not know what a copy machine looked like?

"Where do I go?" she asked.

"Over there," I said. "Against the wall. The copy machine. Here, I'll show..."

"But I just want to take the book out," she said.

"Oh."

As I've said more than once, there's a reason why we have blonde jokes. (She had brown hair, by the way.)

Rudbeckia "Prairie Sun"

Zinnia Purple Prince

A Curtain of Beans

Last year I posted about my Rube Goldberg bean support. I'm guessing most of you are too young to know who Rube Goldberg was. If so, I'm sure the Internet can show you lots of examples of his work. I got a crop of beans from my efforts, but that sure was one unstable mess by the end of the season.

This year I've moved from Rube Goldberg to Frank Lloyd Wright. I'm sure the father of organic architecture would approve of Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans curtaining my ice house window. After procrastinating about creating a large and permanent support system for pole beans, to the point where I either had to plant them now or not do it at all, my desperate move was to nail strings to the top of the old window (unfettered by sash or glass) and hope for the best.

The best happened! I don't want to jinx things by sounding overly optimistic, but don't these plants look healthy? The only problem is that once they hit the top of the window they keep going inside the building, where they run out of sunlight in short order. I keep a little step stool in their so I can gently encourage the vines to climb back down the strings. The plants are covered in teensy beans, so while I don't exactly have the water boiling in anticipation, I'm looking forward to my first picking.

Magazines and Me

I woke up this morning thinking I should stop getting magazines. I’ve always been a bit of a magazine freak, but these days I can’t keep up with them at all. I subscribed to Family Circle, Women’s Day, and Good Housekeeping because I’d like to write something for them. The issues come in every month, and I never read them. I used to like GH, but I never seem to have time now.

I get O (Oprah’s magazine) because I love the quality of the writing (she doesn’t use freelancers, so that lets me out) and the subjects, but I hardly ever open the magazine. They're so big and glossy and packed with advertising. Not quite like Vogue (or how I imagine Vogue), but rather intimidating when it comes to a quick perusal.

I've always subscribed to Country Home and Country Living. Country Home is gone now, a victim of the economy. The current issue of Country Living is out on my porch, open to an article about raised vegetable beds, dahlias, and an impossibly rich couple who love to entertain on their rickety old wooden table surrounded by rickety wooden chairs, all outdoors with grape vines dripping around their heads. It sounds like I'm keeping up (with the magazine, anyway), but the fact is about a dozen back issues of Country Living sit in a copper coal scuttle on my hearth, still in their plastic wrappers.

At work at the library, I read a magazine while eating supper at my desk (actually my co-worker's desk because it's not so visible). I go through The New Yorker, Time, and Newsweek every week, and The Atlantic Monthly, Psychology Today, Agricultural Research (really!), and sometimes Ebony and Advocate every month. You know, looking at this list, I'm thinking maybe that's why I don't read any magazines at home.

My magazines at home end up in stacks where they don't belong and are in the way. It's not a good situation, and that's why I was thinking this morning that I might do well to get rid of the whole bunch of them. Then I got an email from Amazon.....

Amazon said my recent electronic purchase (a case for the computer my son is building for me) entitled me to half off their already discounted price on a selection of (you guessed it) magazines. I was about to delete (honestly!) when I saw the word "photography." My lifelong interest in photography received the equivalent of a shot of steroids this year with the shows I did. And I've been asked to do two more next year. So it would be nice—very nice—to read about photographic techniques and equipment on a regular basis. Like every month.

Okay, I'll cut to the chase. I ordered two photography magazines. One qualified for the half-off offer, and one........well, it didn't. And I threw in a subscription to Popular Science for my son. I have no idea if he'll like it, but he's a born scientist and hey, it was only six bucks.

Yesterday's Sky

I took this on my way to work yesterday. (No, I didn't do it while driving.) The road elevation is pretty high at that spot.

Cameras: Why I'm Not Getting a DSLR

Not that I think everyone's all that interested in why I decided not to get a Digital Single-Lens Reflex....... But I thought maybe someone else might be in a similar position. Or maybe you just like reading about cameras. I do. :-)

I have a Panasonic FZ5 that I love. It's four years old and is what's called a "bridge camera." I guess these are considered to be a bridge between point-and-shoots and DSLRs. I've been wishing for manual focus and other manual settings, plus more pixels to give me the option to print bigger than 11x14. So I started saving up for a DSLR. I figured it would cost about $1,000 plus the price of a couple of decent lenses.

I have several 35mm SLRs in my closet, and know the drill. I considered (and still do, in a way) SLRs/DSLRs to be the ultimate camera. I began to think like my dad when he talked about buying his "last car." He lived to be 90, and I believe he ended up buying four or five "last" cars. The DSLR, I figured, would be my last camera. I had a Nikon D90 in mind, but wanted to look at what was out there. I was excited about this, and happily embarked on some research.

As I got deeper into looking at these cameras and lenses, I realized that in order to duplicate what the current generation of bridge cameras offer, I'd need a wide angle lens, a 50mm 1.8, a couple of good zooms, and a macro. This quickly added up to way more than I wanted to spend. Also, I started remembering how heavy lenses can be, and how tiresome it was to lug them around, even in my youth. Worse, I thought about all the shots I'd miss while I was busy changing lenses. (And, living on a dusty dirt road as I do, lens changing could be hazardous to the camera.) I've been using super-zoom digital cameras since 2000, and I'm spoiled.

In the end, I decided to scrap my DSLR plans and get the next generation of Panasonic bridge cameras when it comes out later this year. It has everything I want and will cost under $400. And I'm fairly certain it won't be my last one. I might even get a second camera this year, something different. Now that I've decided not to get the DSLR, I'm feeling positively affluent.

Angel is gone.

A few weeks ago I made an appointment to have Angel put to sleep. Making that call to the vet was devastating. I kept second-guessing myself, as I wasn't at all sure it was Angel's time. I asked Jill for a sign, and I got one: Leaving the house to keep the appointment, I walked down the porch steps--and Angel jumped off them in one leap. We turned around and went back in the house, and I canceled the appointment.

Then suddenly this past week--although in reality it's been a long process, and not sudden at all--I knew it was time. I have wanted so badly to be 100% sure Angel's quality of life was diminishing, and when she fell a couple of times this weekend, and turned for home in the middle of our walks, I was convinced. When I called the vet to make the appointment this morning, there was no second-guessing.

I told the vet Angel was a tough dog--unusual for a dog her size, especially a Briard, to live to be 16--and she proved me right. It took three shots instead of the usual one to put her down. It wasn't terrible, though, because she was heavily sedated and not conscious at that point.

I may have told the story before of how I got Angel, but I'll tell it again because I love it. My daughter Jill was a teenager, going somewhere with her best friend and her friend's father. They passed a puppy who had that frantic look of a dog that had been abandoned on the road. Coming by again later, Jill spotted the puppy sprawled on the ground. She had been hit, but not injured.

Since this was in the days before cell phones, Jill knocked on a door and asked the homeowner if she could use her phone to call her mother. The woman said she could use the phone, but added, "You mother isn't going to want to come pick up a dog." Jill said, "You don't know my mother." Like I said, I love this story.

My husband drove us to get the puppy, and on the way home she rested her beautiful head on my arm. From that moment, I knew she was my dog. But right now Jill is taking care of her again until I get there.

A Soup Kitchen Vibe at the Art Gallery

I'm pictured above with Holly Chmil, who designed the beautiful postcard announcing my photo exhibit. It was taken at the opening reception.

The first to arrive Friday night was a pair of men well known in the city for showing up at every event that promises free refreshments. I encountered them last year when I emceed a poetry evening in the park. It was a covered-dish event, with everyone bringing food or drink to share. Everyone except these two locusts, who filled their plates immediately upon arrival and then sat down at a table, bending over the plates and shoveling in the food. I lost count of how many times they refilled those plates.

I was more amused than annoyed that night because a) we had plenty of food and b) the outdoor venue reduced our exposure to the men's smell. However, we had a limited amount of food at the reception on Friday, and the enclosed space, which had seemed large before the men's arrival, shrunk rapidly in direct proportion to how long they stayed.

This time they filled up their (small) plates and sat down to dig in. I stood a distance from them, mentally tapping my foot. They came back for seconds, sat down again, and resumed eating. I moved over to the food table and assumed a guarding stance. Several other people arrived, including a man named Prescott who told me the omnivorous pair drove an Audi.

"You're kidding." I said.

"Nope. It's parked right across the street. The dark green."

I turned and looked out the window, expecting to see an old clunker, if there is such a thing as an Audi clunker. But the dark green car across the street was a late-model vision. Son of a bitch!

One of the gourmands got up and shuffled over to the food table. I was ready for him. Snatching the paper plate out of his hand, I dropped it in the trash and said, "Thank you for coming."

"I'm getting some cookies," he said, and picked up a new plate.

Prescott found this hilarious. He called a friend on his cell and told her all about it. The gluttons didn't appear to notice. Prescott's friend must have given him an idea, because he hung up and approached the pair.

"Time for donations!" he announced. When they just stared at him, he explained, "This event is a fundraiser for homeless children . . . "

"And poor widows," I interrupted.

" . . . and poor widows," he added. "All attendees are expected to contribute something."

"No they're not," the cookie monster said, and popped something chocolatey into his mouth.

His partner came back for dessert, too.

Beginning to feel a little desperate, and more than a little irritated, I looked out the window again. "Oh, no!" I exclaimed. "Do we know who owns that Audi across the street? Smoke is coming out of it."

Prescott picked right up on this cue and flew into action, flinging open the door and running out to the sidewalk. "FIRE!!" he yelled.

One of the pair started to turn around, but the other stopped him. "He's kidding, he's kidding," he said.

It occurred to me that they must hear this sort of thing a lot. I'll have to think up something more convincing for the next time. We're planning another poetry reading in the park in August. Maybe we should advertise it as "Poetry, Music, and Really Bad-Tasting, Potentially Hazardous Food." Or, better yet, "An Evening of Culture for Fasters: Poetry, Music, and No Food or Drink Whatsoever."

The Egg and I

(Does anyone remember that wonderful old book?)

I found several tiny (1/8" inch), perfectly round eggs on top of several small pots in which I had started seeds outdoors. At first I thought they were part of the potting mix--vermiculite or something like that. Then, because I've been battling so many destructive insects this summer, I squished a few. Then I had an attack of conscience: What if it was a spider egg? Or a beneficial insect? Or something CUTE?

I asked around, and went looking on the Internet. So far I *think* it's a snail egg. This would make sense because those pots were kept wet at all times. Snails are neither beneficial nor cute. They are also not spiders. So I feel better, at least for now. I'll keep watch and see what develops with the egg.

Of course, by the time something hatches from it, my maternal instinct will have kicked in and I'll be suffused with prolactin. Should a snail emerge from the egg, I will have no choice but to issue a whispered warning about the slug bait I have scattered all over the place. And the oat bran. And the soles of my feet, which tend to seek out slugs on the stone path.

One good thing leads to another........

Terry's Garden

On Saturday I drove up to New York State to be with my cousin Terry's husband and one of their daughters on garden tour day. Terry's beautiful garden, called "Terry's Passion," was featured on the tour, and people came by all afternoon. I took lots of pictures. Terry's flower beds, and Dave's wonderful vegetable and herb gardens are just a delightful place to be.

I can't say it was a bittersweet experience. It was just sweet.

If you'd like to see more pictures of Terry's beautiful gardens, you can find them here. Just click on any to enlarge, and to make them bigger still, click on All Sizes at the top of the picture.

Waterskiing at Sunset

My granddaughter took this picture of Chuck last night—with her phone! (Can someone tell me why Blogspot is now cutting off a third of horizontal [landscape] photos, turning them into vertical [portrait mode]?)