Catching Butterflies

We have a screened in back porch.  We removed a panel to allow easier access to the backyard for the dogs and for us.  That open panel also allows more leaves to blow in and flies and bees to get stuck bouncing off the corners, and occasionally we get a bird in there. The bird gets stuck flying in circles (always bouncing off the corner opposite the open panel) and the cats line up at the sliding glass door to watch while Leia looses her shit running around barking like mad.

I will go and rescue the bird; shooing it out with a broom and it usually doesn't take long. 

Once I rescued a honey bee by giving it some sugar water in a little dish and putting that dish outside so the bee could fly off on its own - no touching involved.  

The other day Carus called to me - a butterfly was stuck.  Having a butterfly get stuck on the porch is a new one.  I tried passive moving using a flower.  But it wasn't working.

I finally gave up trying to get it to walk/land on the flower.  I don't understand why the butterfly wasn't happy with the flower but whatever.  

So I let the butterfly step onto my finger.  I was worried that it would tickle or twinge me out and make me jump and shake my hand and incidentally kill the butterfly, but I barely felt it's little feet. 

Carus watched from a few feet back.  She was a little squicked out about it and/or me coming near her with it.  It's those little legs and antenna that are too reminiscent of icky squicky bugs.  She took the photos of it on my hand.

It flew off my hand a few times, but eventually it stayed still long enough for me to slowly - very slowly - walk out to the yard and place the butterfly on the leaves of the tree.  

After all that trouble the silly little butterfly didn't want to move off and onto the leaf; and once it finally did go onto the leaf it just sat there long enough for me to take a few more photos before I had to go back inside and back to work.  

It was nice to blow Carus away with me touching a butterfly, and it was really cool to hold a butterfly in my hand. I was surprised how light footed it was. It walked all over my fingers and I didn't feel it at all.  Crazy cool. 

More Hummingbird Photos

Just because they're cute and I'm pretty happy with them.  Especially this poofy little guy.

Vacation

I wish I could have the week between Christmas and New Years off every year, I am so enjoying myself.  It will be a few years before my turn to have it off comes around again (I am completely okay with it, we are a great group of coworkers because of how well we work together). I have been feeling a little guilty about how much staying-up and sleeping-in I'm doing and so I set my alarm to get up around 9 this morning.

And still I did AB.SO.LUTE.LY nothing all day. Unless you count "making" breakfast (reviving leftover sausage gravy, popping a biscuit tube, and making scrambled eggs (that miraculously didn't stick to the pan!!! cue the angel's chorus, I was dreading the egg stick)).  Or maybe you could count the 1-1/2 loads of laundry and the dishes I washed - by hand! Or dinner. Meh, I'm still counting it as a lazy day.

A glorious lazy day.

I watched a punch of TV with Carus, played Diablo II, and then I broke out my stocking gift (hello Vodka), installed Lightroom 5 and Photoshop Elements 12 and pulled up one of the hummingbird photos I've gotten recently.

It's not exactly the shot I was going for (I want the wings to be frozen and they're still a little blurred) but I'm fairly happy with it.  And I have other images to go through yet as those little birds are incredibly fast and it's a bit hard to get the shot composed, metered, focused and shot before they buzz off again.



(A before & after editing comparison is available here.)

Little hummingbirds

It was gorgeous again yesterday with blue skies and a bright sun.  And I was stuck inside working.  It's days like this that make me wish my work computer was portable enough to pull outside on the porch and work in the sunshine.  Robert says he can make this happen for me; we'll see though.

After work I went outside to soak up any remaining sun as it quickly set behind the not too distant hills, and took pictures of how the backyard is adjusting to fall.

Of the freshly fallen leaves and Leia playing.



Of the brightly colored leaves still on the tree.





Of the one of the final sunflowers in my garden.



Of the last rays of sun.



And then I paused and tossed the ball for Leia once or twice, when I heard them.  The hummingbirds in the tree in the neighbors yard directly behind ours.

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They were buzzing around, speeding from tree to tree and chirping to each other.  I think there are only two but there could be more.  I believe they've been around all year too.



They are shy little guys that always run from the hummingbird feeder the moment they see me (and my camera).  I do love my zoom lens; I stood close to the back fence hoping they would continue to frequent that branch.

Hummingbirds always make me smile. They make me think of my Granny and watching the visitors to her feeders, and that makes me smile too.

The rest of last week

I should probably get last weeks photos shared before I forget about it.  I do that sometimes.

Tomorrow is Adam's first day of school and Thursday is Carus's, and I have a wedding to photograph on Saturday.  This week is going to be BUSY!

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My in-laws took us to a baseball game last Wednesday as we have a sort of local sort of professional baseball team (local = town about 30 minutes away and professional = minor league).  We saw the Hillsboro Hops play the Eugene Emeralds.  It was a fun game with perfect weather (not too hot, though it did rain but we were under an awning).  We'd love to go again...but we might have to wait until next season since this one might be over.


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Sunset view from the garden.


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Sleeping Yoda.  He does that a lot...


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Carus got a new haircut for back to school and she got bangs - well, more bangs than she already had.  She loves her new haircut and I can't blame her. I do too.


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Found a praying mantis on my dahlias out front.  S/he watched me taking his/her picture (seriously, followed me moving around - creepy) and then climbed the window, which interested the cat, then got knocked off the window and flew onto me causing me to scream and Robert to laugh and then Leia came over to check him/her out and she tried to eat him/her.  Leia is such a scared-y cat that she is practically afraid of her shadow, but a bug - no problem.

Pollinator

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Busy little bee, buzzing around collecting pollen.

Summer evening

Yesterday evening, we took the dogs to the dog park.  We haven't gone in a while since it's been hot and it wouldn't be good to have Leia running as hard as she runs when at the park.  From the moment we get there she is ready to chase her ball - and nothing else.

After she fetched about 20 times we walked over to the kid park and let them play a bit.  I had my camera with me and wandered off a bit to take pictures of the Queen Anne's lace (my favorite wildflowers).

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I also found some weed that went to seed.  Fluffy, fluffy seeds.  They looked lovely in the evening light.



And heard a red-tailed hawk calling.  S/he flew almost directly over my head. From the series of pictures I got it almost looks like s/he grabbed something out of the air with it's right talon...?

Another one bites the dust

Looking back on the previous week it always feels like it went by so quickly. While in the middle of that week (or the current one), though, it doesn't really feel like that.

Not a whole lot is going on around here.  I'm working.  The kids are playing video games and reading and watching TV and occasionally bickering with each other.

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Spider that was on the back porch.  I usually leave spiders alone as long as they stay outside because they eat bad bugs...and they're kind of cool to look at (thank you zoom lens).  This guy, though, didn't make it when I had Adam clean up the back porch.


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Just playing with the shaped bokeh kit Robert got me for my birthday this year.


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Light painting with some leftover sparklers.  The kids stood still and Robert went around them.  I wish the sparkler lasted long enough for me to get a second shot because Robert took direction better and you might have been able to see the kids faces.  I was testing out a process because.... I've officially been hired to photograph my first wedding and there is some hope that we can get a few light painting photos at the end of the day.  The wedding is in about 5 weeks - I'm nervous and so very excited.


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Still have a few roses left to photograph... unfortunately, they're on their way out.


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Garden haul for the day (Saturday). Harvested a few more potatoes (which we ate tonight and YUM) and some green beans.  I only have one more potato hill left, my red potato hill. Those are bush beans, which I get a few of each day, but the pole beans are going to start producing any day now.


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I cleaned out my closet a bit and pulled some clothes to give to Goodwill (we usually clean out closets before back to school shopping each year) and Carus tried on a few of my dresses.  The blue one fit her mostly - it was just a bit too long.  The pink one though needed to be clipped in the back.  I told her she could have hte blue one for her first school dance, and now she can't wait.


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I've been watching Doctor Who with the kids - introducing them for the first time (I know, I'm a bad mom for waiting hahaha).  We've started with the new series starting with Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper and the 9th Doctor and Rose.


Well, that's it for news around here.  See ya tomorrow... or probably more likely... next week.

MOAR VACATION!

I was brilliant when I decided to take more days off then just what I needed for LeakyCon.  Seriously, brilliant.  I did not expect LeakyCon to be so utterly exhausting.  It's been very nice to have this week to recover and get a few things done around the house.

I spent Monday running errands - library, dentist, grocery shopping - and doing laundry.

The kids didn't have cavities (WOO), but I had one (BOO).  I knew about it already so wasn't surprised.  I got REALLY lucky though, and didn't need a root canal.

The numbing of my gums left me with a crooked smile though.  I wasn't really planning on immortalizing this picture of me, for obvious reasons.  Unfortunately, it was the only photo I took that day.  It's my Elvis impression.



Those four days of LeakyCon were so warm hot and sunny that the garden took off.  Well, mostly the weeds took off.  I spent about 30-45 minutes weeding Tuesday and got a pretty good sunburn on my back. I only got through weeding half of the garden too.  I found a slug; only one, that was hopefully the only one and the little bastard that's been eating my green bean plants. I flung him out of the garden with my garden shovel.  He hit a tree.  I have no sympathy.

Then as I went to weed around the green beans I was startled by a garden visitor.  He's the biggest frog (pretty sure he's a frog) I've seen around here.  I coaxed him into the bucket to bring him inside to show the kids and take a picture.  Cause that's what you do when you a) have kids and/or b) have a blog and/or c) like to take pictures.  Carus then helped me let him go under some bushes near my garden.  I would love for him to live in the garden.  He'll eat the bad bugs.  I haven't seen him since, but still hope he didn't go far.



A photo of the flowers we have sitting on the counter (Carus's dance recital bouquet) that I was messing around with some Photoshop filters with.


4th of July

We usually host friends and family for a BBQ, but Robert wasn't feeling it this year so it was just us.  We went to see Despicable Me 2 at the theater and giggled the whole time and then BBQ'd and hung out around here.  While Robert and Adam stayed home keeping the dogs company playing video games, Carus and I went down to her school where the local firefighters were hosting their 2nd 4th of July firework show.  Live music starts around 7:30 p.m. and then the fireworks, set off by the firefighters, starts at dark.  It was a lovely show that seemed to go on forever.  We got home around 11:30.  Leia, who doesn't like the booms, did okay curled up under her blanket in the crate we borrowed next to Robert.  If he left the room, she was right on his heels.


Today we went out to the in-laws house.  Robert is building them a shed.  He and the kids went out a few weeks ago and with Adam's help Robert was able to build, set and level the base and put down the floor and then build and place one wall.


Today Robert, Adam, and Alan built and placed two more walls.



Robert helping Alan get the walls held up just so so that when he nails down the second wall, they are where they are supposed to be and level and all that good stuff.


Adam holding up another spot, and Robert nailing it down and to the existing wall.


Three walls up!


The next day out will be to build the fourth wall with the door in it, and frame up the roof (and possibly start putting on the roof).  It's a 6 foot x 8 foot shed (compared to Robert's 8 x 12 shed).

I harvested some garlic this evening.  I got 31 heads.  And remember that HUGE one I showed you?  It's there on the end on the right side.  It's bigger in person - about the size of three "normal-sized" heads of garlic.


I'm very glad I've had this vacation time.  I needed the break.  I feel caught up on my sleep, finished 2-1/2 books (3 by tomorrow morning), went to LeakyCon (seriously, I must find a way to go next year or maybe the year after), met some awesome people and did get some chores done around the house and garden so I feel productive too.  I think I'm ready to go back to work.

End of last week

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Japanese maple leaves after a rain


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Carus's dance is finishing up for the year, it follows the school year - September to June and her recital is tomorrow, Friday.  This spin is from the in class dress rehearsal last Friday.


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I wasn't intending on taking a photo of just my hummingbird feeder.  I was trying to get the beautiful rust-colored hummingbird that was visiting, but noooooo he didn't want his picture taken.  &#$@!# jerk.

I've also been trying to photograph the more-daring hummingbird at the dance studio, but every time I bring my camera he doesn't show up.

Hummingbirds are jerks.