It’s been a long weekend already and it’s only noon on Sunday :) Of course I started it on Friday.

Early friday morning I headed out to take some flower and yard pictures and to start getting the birds at the new feeders used to my being around with the camera. The yard is a mess after a long wet coll spring. But A little close up work hides the jungle and just shows some pretty thing.

There’s purple vetch growing next to the ash trees in the front bed.

purple vetch

yup, more vetch

The blue flower whose name I always forget is blooming by the house. It is a most reliably self-seeder. ;)

very pretty blue

closer still

Then there’s the shot of the wood sheds that I always see but can never get to work out. I think I should start by moving the yellow milk crate. Then maybe turn the wagon, but only if the side is as perfectly faded as the back is. (And I’ll move the faded orange clip as well.)

the wood shed and the wagon

And then there are the new bird feeders. They provide plenty of entertainment when we’re soaking in the hot tub, and I can see — but more importantly hear — the birds from my office window.

the bird feeders hang in the center of this bed

a seed tube, a tray, a small sunflower tube, and a very sturdy pole

I’ve been spending some time sitting out by the tub everyday to get the birds used to me and my cameras. So far it’s been the usual suspects, juncos and chickadees and the stellar’s jays. But we’ve had a few others, there were purple(ish) finches for a day or two but they seem to have moved on. The grosbeaks are abundant this spring. And my favorites the goldfinches have been moving in.

Lots of activity and lots of bird song. But the pictures aren’t making me happy. I get a few out of every session that are okay. Like these of the pine siskins.

note the messy eating habits of the guy at the top

not a bad pic with a little post-processing help

But okay is as good as it gets. Most are like this one. Over exposed — the dark trees in the background fool the metering. And not very sharp, in spite of using a tripod.

certainly the brightest bird of the morning, too bad about the picture

I’m getting fed up enough to consider taking a little cardboard cut out of a bird and taping it to the feeder while I fiddle around with the camera. Or maybe the small plush-toy rooster that a friend brought me back from Hawaii.

Still, how bad can a day be when it starts with sitting in the yard drinking tea and having the jays scold me?

Oof. It was late last night and I posted this entry to the wrong blog. So here it is about 12 hours late.

For breakfast this morning we had marching bands. One of the largest of the local high schools had their parade to the zocolo in honor of the Bicentennial.

First there was a bit of a professional band (boring) and then the school banner.

Moises Saenz Garza Highschool

Followed by the school’s drum corps…

rat-a-tat

… and then the student body. Loosely organized, and very happy to wave and say hello and make funny faces at the folks peering out of the Casa’s front door.

smiles and hellos for everyone

The bulk of the day was taken up with a tour of the botanical gardens at Santo Domingo. Jardín Etnobotánico de Oaxaca.

I’m still working on getting all the pictures sorted out. There will be a nice big gallery of them later this week. But for now here are a handful to give you a feel for the garden and its plants.

The tour starts with a discussion of the native food plants. The triumvirate of squash, beans, and corn. These are squash plants.

squash, beans, and corn

In the background are bunches of the large marigolds that decorate the altars at Muertos. I am deathly allergic to them.

This little red flower on the other hand doesn’t make me sneeze. It’s a dahlia. Seriously. All those fancy garden flowers (Hi Elise!) have been bred from one little red flower.

the original dahlia

Of the common trees in Oaxaca the one that I can always identify without a doubt is the pochote. But when you’re looking at something with points like this…

unmistakable thorns

The gardens are located behind the buildings of the Monastery of Santo Domingo. The church’s walls provide a backdrop for the large collection of dry eco-system plants.

typical water channel

Maguey cactus. The source of mescal/tequilla. Also just plain pretty.

As we were leaving the gardens and heading toward lunch we ran into another marching band. This one was followed by dancers.

the flowers are particularly nice

Meanwhile Jim would like you to know that he is hard at work cataloging the various motor transport options in the area. Today, I think it’s working bikes.

So… all you get today are pictures.

i want to be AMAY — whoever that is

not what I meant when I asked for a drop shadow

dwarvish madonna?

things fall apart

little going around in circles

getting a shine

Jim’s observations for today.

The first day here in Oaxaca is always a little slow.  I’ve been beaten up by the airlines, the altitude change is more than 5000 ft, and there’s the necessary trips for supplies (beer.) Leading to not doing much.

A brief afternoon stroll to try out the new lens was all the ambition I could muster.

We first stopped at the church of Soledad. One of my favorite landmarks.

a stormy looking sky, but it didn’t rain

Then turned around on looked up the street and made a couple of test shots of the new 12-24mm and the kit lens (18-150mm) that I’ve been using for the last two years.

With the old kit lens — which is still my go-to lens for anything that doesn’t require big zoom. Getting the wide shot here pushes the lens a little too far.

everything bends a little at the edges.

But the new lens takes this sort of back-against-the-wall and hope it all fits in the frame stuff in stride.

that’s better, the walls are straight.

A few blocks later it allowed me to capture this novel screeen without having to shot at an angle. Those bright bits are the mesh shopping bags that you see by the dozens in the markets every day.

pretty substitue for tarps

Sunday is a slow day here. A few hours later the Zocolo will be packed with strolling families and the local band, but this early in the afternoon there’s just not much happening.

slow sunday

Though a hint of the evening’s crowds is here in this lineup of hamburger and hot dog carts on their way to the center of the town.

the hamburger and hot dog carts moving toward the zocolo

I spent my time playing with a new lens — but Jim was working hard and got some great images. You can see them on his own blog — observations. Ignore the chimping photographer. le sigh.

We spent a little time down at the expensive toy store earlier this weekend. We came away with two new-to-us lenses.

The first is rather dull — it’s a straight across replacement for the 70–300 that we already had. The new one has VR, Nikon’s image stabilization/vibration reduction package. The longer the lens the more I appreciate VR.

The second lens is a bit more interesting. A 12–14 f4 aspherical. (Tokina.) We bought it because I want a wider lens for getting good shots of the crowded narrow streets and aisles in Mexico. So that I can get things like these pictures of the road to the farm.

our road

I’m considering using this one on the new Blackdog and Magpie website design. Doing some thing with a vertical image on the left side rather than the totally predictable header image.

looking down the road from the pasture

If you know my backyard well you’ll be able to see the amount of squashing in this picture. It’s actually a long way from the rock pile to the edge of the saw buck. You can also tell that the hood doesn’t fit  perfectly and that at 12mm there’s some interference with the edges of the image. Oh well, I’ll have to see what I can do about it.

the back side of the work yard

The other reason for getting a nice fat round lens is to be able to take good landscape pictures. Admittedly about the only thing we have around there this fall is green but it’s nice crisp detailed green.

why yes, we have a few ferns

And some more green things.

more foliage, up close this time

But best of all is the ability to get close and shallow on those days when the lilies look good but the patio furniture is a little dingy.

the last of the Stargazer lilies for this year

In this morning’s experimenting I found that the camera consistently over exposes shots if I let it have too much say in the exposure, especially if I let it choose a shutter speed. A little care in shooting and a  little nudge in Lightroom and I get those lovely water drops on the lily… happy.

This time next week I’ll be writing the first of the posts from Oaxaca and the Mexican bicentennial celebrations. Can’t wait!

Last weekend J and I spend a few days “away” in Winthrop WA. It was a nice chance to relax and spend some down time with each other.

Friday afternoon was hot and dry when we left Seattle. The long route through the mountains (up to Hwy 20.)

The canyon below Diablo dam was completely dry.

looking back up the river to the dam

Sign vandalism is a popular pastime. This one is a bit more clever than many.

dude, that’s gonna hurt

We stayed at the Rio Vista Hotel right in the middle of the kitschiest part of town ;-) It was great.

lots of bikes in town — you can barely see my car :-)

Saturday was Hot. We walked around some in the morning taking picture and peeping at the little town.

If you get out early enough in the day you can see the deer moving around.

early in the morning the deer make their rounds

We also saw this early Saturday morning. It did not follow us home. I’m not sure if I’m grateful or sad about that.

yes it’s real ’72

Yes, it’s also kick-start only, and yes it was priced realistically at $6k. (I can read the phone number in the original photo is you really need to know.)

This is just one of the Old West style building on the tourist route.

one of many false front buildings in town

It was a great weekend and now we’re starting on year 20.

The art photos of Diablo Dam.

More pics from around town.

The final version of my photo essay on our chickens is up.

Click on this running chicken for more pictures!

two quick galleries without any editing work -

Mine:
http://blackdogandmagpie.net/galleries/index.php?album=laras-rough-cut

Jim’s:
http://blackdogandmagpie.net/galleries/index.php?album=puerto-vallarta-1

Two galleries of pictures from last week’s day-trip to the Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands for the purpose of picking up the pig. (Yummy fresh pork!)

First a general gallery — mostly shots that Jim took.

docking at Anacortes

And a collection, mostly mine — a few of Jim’s, taken at the ferry dock at Lopez Island on the way to Friday Harbor.

detail of a bumper (jim’s photo)

I have a desktop widget that acts as a sideshows photo frame on my development machine. Having something pleasant to stare at when my mind goes blank on a problem is nice.

This morning, during a particularly intense “now how the hell is that supposed to work” spell the photo below came up.

fish fountain in Oaxaca

Click on the photo to see a much bigger version of the original.

I like the photo but it was taken with my little point and shoot and has way too much depth of field. I really don’t need to be able to identify the make and model of the cars in the back ground. So I loaded it into Photoshop and spent half and hour or so making a quick and dirty improvement. A little selective selecting and copying. Then a couple of rounds with the blur filter and I got this.

a nicer version of the Fish Fountain photo

Again click on the photo for a much larger version. Don’t look too closely though. The illusion of shallower depth of field works fine in the 400 X 300 pixel version above but you can see the seams between the layers and some other artifacts in the larger version. Still for half an hour of futzing around I ended up with a much nicer photo to use on a web page.