YEP I SURE DID GET THE BIRD’S CHEESED OFF AT ME TODAY:((

My bedroom window faces east & I love how for a few nights each month part of my bed is bathed in Moonlight just prior to, during, & after a full Moon.  For the rest of each month I can clearly see stars high overhead through my window right from my pillow.  For me that is kinda special.

 

TOOK THESE 4 PHOTOS WITH MY TELESCOPE LENS THIS MORNING

Thankfully our cloud cover broke this morning & my body immediately began absorbing old Sol’s energizing rays.  I used both my arms to tightly grip my right leg & twist it around behind me far enough to give myself a good swift motivational kick in the ass.  That did the trick & I immediately loaded up my wheelbarrow with garden tools & tackled my cactus gardens which I had pretty much neglected since arriving here back in early October.  I not only re-dug & re-scuffled 4 existing cactus beds but I’ve also started digging in a couple new ones.  I like when I get inspired to do things like that.  But I do sometimes need that good swift kick in the pants to get me going.

NOW IF WE COULD ONLY AFFORD TO FILL THESE BEDS UP WITH SOME NICE CACTUS PLANTS

 

One of the reasons I couldn’t get myself interested in doing any more creative yard work around here the past couple months was simply because we had been talking a fair bit the last few months about selling our Congress house.  With that thought in the back of my mind I hadn’t been able to keep my interest up about doing things around the yard anymore.  Selling the house would of course put us back in boondocking mode & we’re not so sure we would enjoy it as much as we did a few years ago.  I have a feeling our best boondocking days are behind us.  A few things have changed since 2012 & we  now have to take those things seriously into consideration when contemplating future plans.  One of those things unfortunately is health issues & we may not be traveling around as much as we once did.

Temecula Valley RV called today saying our Magnum inverter was repaired & being shipped to Solar Mike’s place Wednesday.  But here’s something we didn’t like.  They told us last week the problem with the inverter was the control board & it needed a new one.  Ok that’s fine & we were happy it wasn’t the FET board because that board is more expensive.  Today they told us the inverter also needed a new FET (I have no idea what FET means) board as well.  Kelly called Magnum & Magnum said that was highly unusual to replace both boards at once.  Only a 20% chance that could happen they said.  Kelly called Temecula back & they gave her some long drawn out techno answer.  Only saving grace here is that they gave us a substantial discount on both boards.  I checked the on-line reviews tonight on Temecula Valley RV & OMG the majority of reviews were not good!!!!   In hindsight we are thinking we should have just gone to Phoenix a month ago & had this whole inverter problem taken care of there.  Sometimes we get lucky in making right decisions & sometimes we just don’t.

Depending on Solar Mike’s schedule we may head out for Slab City Thursday or Friday.  Or maybe next Monday.  We’re just waiting right now for Mike to get back to us as to when he can re-install our inverter & check over our system to make sure everything is up & running properly.

I HAVE THIS CACTUS BED ABOUT ONE THIRD DUG

I thought Ed from The Peregrinating Graybeard summed up my thoughts very well in a comment on my Mondays post about ‘rarely & frequently.  You can read his summation in the comment section of yesterday’s post.

HAVE ABOUT HALF OF THIS LARGER BED DUG IN & YOU CAN SEE THE LINE IN THE DIRT TO THE LEFT LEADING INTO THE FOREGROUND I HAVE YET TO DIG

All the information about my cameras & lenses is on my sidebar to the right near the bottom.  A reader Monday asked what camera & telescope/lens I use for my bird photos so in this paragraph I will answer that.  In the past weeks I have been using my oldest Nikon camera which is a D40.  To that camera I have attached a Nikkor 75-300mm zoom lens & all the recent bird photos were taken at a full 300mm hand held meaning no tripod.  A few days ago I set up my Nikon D3100 with my 80mm Stellarvue Nighthawk refractor telescope using an Orion adaptor to connect camera to telescope.  This is a heavy metal astronomy telescope & built like a tank.  It has to be on a tripod.  This telescope/camera combination is not as versatile or easy to use as my 75-300 lens so I do not use it often.  I took a batch of bird photos with the telescope lens this morning but was again not happy with the results so I am back to using my 75-300mm lens only this time with my Nikon D3100.  I’m always switching cameras & lenses around. 

MY CAMERA/TELESCOPE LENS IS 20’ FROM THE FEEDER & WHEN I USE MY 75-300mm LENS I AM ABOUT 15’ FROM THE FEEDER

 

 

THIS HOLLOW 2 INCH ORION EXTENSION TUBE ADAPTOR CONNECTS THE CAMERA TO THE TELESCOPE

 

THIS IS MY FAVORITE 75-300mm NIKKOR LENS, IT’S A WORKHORSE & DOES ALL MY BIRD PHOTOS & PRETTY WELL ALL MY FLOWER PHOTOS & CLOSE-UPS AS WELL…THIS IS THE LENS THAT WAS ON MY D50 WHEN IT FELL OFF A TABLE ONTO A CONCRETE PORCH…THIS TOUGH LENS SURVIVED THE FALL BUT MY NIKON D50 DID NOT

MY 80mm REFRACTOR STELLARVUE NIGHTHAWK TELESCOPE ATTACHED TO MY NIKON D3100

A reader enquired about the BLACK RAPID camera strap I use & like so much so I took a few photos of that as well today.  It’s a Curve RS7.  I carry my camera & heavier 75-300mm lens on this strap.  It allows me to carry the heavier weight with the strap over my shoulder & not around my neck.  In fact I carry both cameras over my shoulders & never hang a camera strap around my neck.  Don’t like that pulling feeling plus it’s much easier to control camera swing if the camera is not around my neck.  Both my DSLR’s ride on my hips just like 6 guns & it’s not much different from reaching down & pulling a quick draw with the camera up to my face & quickly shooting at a running deer or soaring Hawk.

MY ‘BLACK RAPID’ CAMERA STRAP SHOULDER PAD…I CARRY A CLEANING CLOTH & SMALL BLOWER BRUSH IN THE POCKET UNDER THE ‘R’

 

STRAP CAN QUICKLY BE TAKEN OFF CAMERA WITH THIS HINGED CONNECTER

Boy I sure cheesed off the bird’s this morning.  A lot of them around the feeder early on so when I decided to change cameras I took down the bird feeder while I was in the house.  Cameras & lenses changed I headed back out & put the feeder back up.  Didn’t want all those birds eating up the birdseed when I wasn’t there with my camera.  Set my camera up, got comfortable in my chair & waited for the birds to come back.  I waited & waited & waited.  Yep, they were cheesed off alright.  So much so that I never saw a single bird at that feeder for the rest of the day.  Oh Dear I can be such a cheapskate sometimes.  Generally I leave the feeder up all day but I just must have been in one of my momentary Scrooge moods:((

THE REASON I DON’T PUT NAMES TO ALL THE BIRDS IS SIMPLY BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW WHAT A LOT OF THEM ARE…I’M GUESSING THIS IS A FEMALE SOMETHING

GROANER’S CORNER:))   A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts:  "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?" The man below says, "Yes you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field."  "You must work in Engineering or Information Technology," says the balloonist.  "I do," replies the man. "How did you know."  "Well," says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's no use to anyone."  The man below says, "you must be a Program Manager."  "I am," replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?"  "Well," says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault."

‘RARELY OR FREQUENTLY’ - WHICH IS IT??

Bugs me when settings change in programs without notice.   Case in point: I remember someone asking in a comment awhile back about why did I change to ‘word verification’ in my comment section.  I hadn’t!!  Today I remembered that question (I have a slow mind) so went & had me a look see.  Sure enough there it was wanting readers to punch in a number to leave a comment.  Went to my ‘Posts & Comments’ section & where it says ‘Show word verification’ the box still said no just as I had originally set it.  I switched it back & forth a couple times then with the word NO definitely in the box again I pressed ‘Save Settings’.  Did it work?  Nope, now why is that!!!!  I do not want that annoying ‘word verification’ thingy but it’s still asking that readers punch in a number to prove they are not a robot.  Really!!!!!!  And I just noticed after writing this that Gypsy is having the same problem.  What’s going on????  Update:: Thanks to an email from Gypsy this morning I changed my ‘Pop Up’ comment format to an ‘Embedded’ format & that seems to have solved that PITA word verification thing.  Well so far anyway.

KELLY’S BEEN WORKING ON HER ROOM

And no point in me telling you how my day went because it just didn’t seem to went anywhere & an all day cloud cover didn’t help.  I’m guessing we’re going to end up not traveling too much this winter so I’m going to have to try & find myself something else to occupy my time besides sitting around watching television & plunking away on my computer. 

A reader in our Shout Box left this comment, “You said today that it is very rare for you to enhance colors in your photos . In many previous blogs about Picasa you have always said you use these Picasa tools frequently: Auto Color-Color Temperature-Saturation. Each of these tools enhances color doesn't it? -- The commenter is mostly correct of course but the comment also tells me I have not explained things well enough or the commenter would not have had to ask the question.  I’ll try again.  It’s true I have previously said, ‘I use these Picasa 3.9 tools frequently’ & it is also true I said in Sunday’s post, ‘it is rare for me to enhance colors in my photos.  A contradiction in terms it seems but here’s the key to what I said, “I always try to present my photos as I saw the scene & not necessarily how the camera recorded the scene.  The human eye is better at seeing light & dark as well as color than the camera is’'.  Under perfect lighting conditions cameras do well in accurately recording the scene as it is.  No adjustments necessary.  So what constitutes imperfect lighting conditions??  Two extremes…..bright sunny days & cloudy days.  Light & dark if you will.  So this is where I’ll start.

First let me explain the 3 tools the commenter mentioned.  First is ‘Auto Color’.  Photos taken on cloudy days or deep shadows on bright sunny days can have a bluish cast to them.  This is not what the human eye sees but it is what the mechanical camera defaults to.  If you like the bluish cast in the photo that’s up to you.  I don’t so I will first try ‘Auto Color’ to see if that will subtly shift the color balance to warm the photo & make it appear as nature sees it & as I truly saw it.  If Auto Color doesn’t work I will then go to my ‘Light & Color’ (Color Temperature) tool & gently slide my ‘Color Temperature’ bar to the right which adds yellow into the blue cast returning the photo closer to it’s natural color.  Depending on lighting conditions I may have to use this tool a lot or not at all.  This is an example of where I think my words ‘rarely & frequently’ were confusing to the commenter.

The ‘Saturation’ tool is the one I mistakenly overused in many of my photos years ago when first starting out with Picasa. (as well as I’m Feeling Lucky)  My greens were too green, my reds too red, my yellows to yellow & my blues to blue.  Saturation saturates your colors with color.  If not to be used on bright sunny days but where then to use the ‘Saturation’ tool??  Cloudy days when the lighting has a flat look to it.  Your photos may appear dull & drab without a lot of color.  The colors are there of course & they just need to be brought out a tad.  Your eye saw them well enough but the camera not so much.  Click your ‘Saturation’ tool & see if you can bring out the colors that you know are there in the first place.  Again I may have to use this tool a lot or not at all.  Depends on the lighting so let’s talk about lighting for a minute.

WHICH WAY DID HE GO – WHICH WAY DID HE GO

Lighting is probably one of the most single most important things in photography & photography has often been referred to as. ‘Painting with light’.  Eyes can see vivid detail in dark shadows but cameras have a big struggle with this.  If you have a dark shadow area in your photo you can lighten that shadow to find some detail by using your ‘Fill Light’ or Highlight’ slider bar in the Light & Color tool.  Just below those 2 slider bars is another bar allowing you to darken down areas that are way to bright in your photo.  The slider bar is simply called, ‘Shadow.’  These bars in a way allow you to kinda paint with light.

The human eye can look out on a bright sunny day & see detail in both sunlight & shadow at the same time.  Light sensors in cameras cannot do that accurately.  In other words they cannot take the place of the human eye.  Not yet anyway.  The sensors are confused by the extremes of light & dark.  Sensors will prioritize either the light area or the dark area of a scene depending on which is dominate in the sensors view so sometimes your photos are too dark or too light depending on the cameras sensors.  Of course this is not how your eye saw the scene but with a photo editing program you at least have some options to help you return your improperly exposed photo back to the natural setting you saw.  And remember, exposure radically affects color.  Years ago in the old film days the vast majority of people never had these options.  If your photos came back from the photofinishers too dark, too light, or the color was off there was very little one could do about it.  That has all changed now with the digital age & there is something we can do about it & it’s called photo editing.  We can now improve our own photos……if we want to that is.

THIS WAS MY SECOND ATTEMPT AT CATCHING THIS CARDINAL TAKING OFF…ONE OF THESE DAY’S I’M GONNA BE LUCKY ENOUGH TO INCLUDE THE WHOLE BIRD BUT I DID CATCH THE 2 FELLAS BELOW JUST BEGINNING THEIR TAKE-OFF ROLLS

 

Now, having said all the above I have either made things more confusing for everyone, bored all the rest, or I have added some understanding to my words ‘rarely & frequently’.  So to answer my commenter I say, yes it’s true I rarely enhance colors in my photos & yes I often use these Picasa tools frequently.  In a nutshell….if & when lighting is perfect I rarely have to use any editing tools but when conditions are less than perfect which is the norm I do have to frequently use various editing tools to try & return that photo to a natural state of color & exposure.  And that is that natural state I prefer.

A NEAR MID AIR COLLISION NARROWLY AVERTED AS THE FELLOW ON THE LEFT SLAMS ON HIS AIR BRAKES & THE CHAP TO THE RIGHT DIVES UNDER HIM UPSIDE DOWN

And a quick word about the basic photo editing program I use.  I’m thinking Picasa 3.9 could be referred to as an entry level editing program because it’s not nearly as sophisticated (or complicated) as the professional Adobe Photo Shop programs & others out there.  Picasa gives the user enough tools for advanced amateur hobbyists like myself to at least make some realistic improvements to their photos.  I like Picasa because it is easy for me to use.  I tried a Photo Shop program once & I might as well have tried to flap my arms & fly to the Moon.  There, that’s more than enough out of me tonight again………….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

GROANER’S CORNER:(( Yesterday, I had a near death experience that has changed me forever.  I went horseback riding. Everything was going fine until the horse started bouncing out of control. I tried with all my might to hang on, but was thrown off.  Just when things could not possibly get worse, my foot got caught in the stirrup. When this happened, I fell head first to the ground.  With foot caught in the stirrup my head continued to bounce harder as the horse did not stop or even slow down. Just as I was giving up hope and losing consciousness, the Walmart manager rushed over and unplugged the machine.

THE DRIFTERS HAD A SONG CALLED ‘UP ON THE ROOF’ & THAT IS WHERE I WAS THIS MORNING

So nice to see our day dawn bright & clear.  Past days of clouds & rain were now behind us as old Sol broke over a distant mountain range bringing with it warming rays to a slightly chilled Arizona desert night’s early morning air.

PULLED OUT THIS PACK RAT STUFF FROM UNDER THE PORCH WHERE I FOUND FROGGY

  

SUNNY MORNINGS ARE DEFINITELY BETTER THAN RAINY DAY MORNINGS

SEEINGS HOW IT WAS SUNDAY I ONLY DID HALF A LOAD OF LAUNDRY THIS MORNING

In a comment on a photo in my Saturday post Craig from Merikay's Dream said, “That picture looks like a bird head glued to a cactus. I'm sure you would never publish such a thing, but there's no trace of a hole in the cactus around its head! Sorry my visual imagination is so limited” :-)  Craig is correct in saying, “I’m sure you would never publish such a thing”.  My Picasa photo editing program doesn’t have that capability which is fine with me because I have no interest in altering photos like that.  I did take a photo from the same angle this morning of the same Saguaro cactus in our front yard showing the same hole without a bird peeking out:))

THE NESTING HOLE WITHOUT THE BIRD IN IT:))

  

A HOUSE FINCH, A CARDINAL, A PYRRHULOXIA & I THINK THEY ARE ALL MALES

Enjoying their 3rd year of full timing Marti & Paul Dahl from R Sanity RV Travels in their latest post list some of the reasons they so much enjoy their traveling life on the road.  I remember it just seemed like yesterday they were going through the whole process of selling their house.

Reading Paul & Marti’s post this morning I was reminded of my own reasons for enjoying the Snow Bird RV lifestyle we have been enjoying now since September of 2006.  For me it has always been the scenery, the open road, the quiet out of the way places we have found over the years in various boon docking locations.  Exploring around old ghost towns, sunrises & sunsets along with endless starry night skies here in the southwest.  Finding quiet boondocking sites with no human influence within sight or sound has always been the best of the best for us.  We are at our contented happiest when we are alone & enveloped by only Mother Nature herself………………

PYRRHULOXIA

It was a good morning for getting a few small jobs done up on the roof.  Piece of wood holding our internet antennae needed a little paint & using some roofing tar I patched & filled in some cracks in the old roofing tar around our fireplace chimney. 

PAINTING A PIECE OF WOOD OUR INTERNET ANTENNA IS ATTACHED TO

 

CRACKS IN THE OLD ROOFING TAR & A NEW APPLICATION THIS MORNING

KELLY STEADIES THE LADDER BEFORE I COME DOWN

It is always important to me to have my photos look as natural as possible.  Don’t want them looking like an oil painting or anything unnatural.  Very rare for me to enhance colors unless the photo has been taken on a cloudy dull drab day.  I always try to present my photos as I saw the scene & not necessarily how the camera saw the scene.  The human eye is better at seeing light & dark as well as color than the camera is & I’m sure many folks have found that out for themselves.  How many times have you seen a beautiful scene, taken a photo, then been disappointed by the results the camera produces.  Too light, too dark, where did the colors go & why are they so dull?  That’s not how I saw it.  Happens a lot & this is why & where a photo editing program stands on it’s own merits.  Every bit as important as the human eye & the camera.  The photo editing program enables you to work with that disappointing photo & often allows you to bring back the scene as your eye originally saw it in the first place. 

GROANER’S CORNER:(( A diner was agitated that the waiter had brought him no spoon with his coffee. "This coffee," he said loud enough for most of the other patrons to hear, "is going to be pretty hot to stir with my fingers." The waiter reddened, made a hasty retreat to the kitchen and returned shortly with another cup of coffee.
"This one isn't so hot, sir," he beamed.

SOMETIMES WORDS COME EASY & SOMETIMES THEY DON’T

Sometimes written words spill out easily & sometimes they don’t spill out at all & I have to go searching for them.  Sometimes when too much thought goes into the search my mind shuts down & nothing is forthcoming.  Have a good day………………….

TONIGHT’S MOON

GROANER’S CORNER:(( "What did you do this weekend?"
"I dropped some hooks into the water."
"How was the fishing?"
"I wasn't fishing; I was golfing."