A SHORT ONE TONIGHT

It was a morning for yard maintenance.  But no power equipment on a Sunday thanks.  Trimming shrubs & raking up pine needles for burning.  Air was cool enough for that kind of work & even cool enough for us to make it all the way around the morning trail these past couple days. 

 

Might want to keep watch on Cheryl Ann’s blog over at DEEP CANYON.  She lives in Palm Desert California area near Idyllwild where that wildfire is going on right now.  She has seen smoke & been driving out to monitor the fire’s progress & direction of travel.  FIRE CLOUD-SKY WATCH

Summer is slipping away & here it is July 21rst already.  A short month from now our weather will be changing as we enter mid August’s early glide into Autumn.  My favorite months of the year September & October are approaching.  September’s Labor Day week-end has always been our un-official end of summer & is my favorite long week-end simply because it is time we Snow Birds to begin rustling our feathers a bit once again.  But of course I am way ahead of myself here.  Sitting at the keyboard in our sunroom tonight it was the dominate thought making my mind smile.  And I like when that happens……..:))

SATURDAY NIGHT’S CLOUDY MOON AS SEEN FROM THE COMFORT OF MY RECLINER

GROANER’S CORNER:((

-------------------------------------------------------------
- Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
- "If having a soul means being able to feel
love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals
are better off than a lot of humans."
(James Herriot)
- The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward
- The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.
- It is not so much having nothing to do as it is not having the interest to do something....AL.

IT IS TIME TO DEAL WITH MY AGING 35MM SLIDE COLLECTION

What a pleasant relief it was to step outside this morning into cooler air. Friday nights fast moving thunderstorm went a long way in replacing our oppressive humidity with cooler air. A welcome light rain overnight also helped chill things out a bit.

 

MANY BIG GREEN METAL MONSTERS IN THE FIELDS THIS MORNING

It was a no brainer for happy little Rascal Buns & I.  After being trapped in the house by heat & humidity for the past 3 or 4 days we rumbled ourselves out the front door before 9 a.m. & were soon just a cloud of dust down a nearby country road.  A few quick stops in Goderich with a swing through Walmart, a gas bar, & McDonalds, found us happily heading out of town with a full tank of gas & our morning munchies.  Wasn’t long & we were once again in a land of ripened wheat fields, tall corn stocks, bean fields, lush forests, roadside creeks, & semi-dusty gravel roads .  It was another 4 hours contentedly spent slowly wandering our areas rural countryside.  It always feels like home to me.  And with today’s cooler temperatures & morning breezes blowing wonderfully through the Jeep it just made for a totally oh so perfect summer Saturday morning……………  

 

WE DID COME ACROSS SOME RATHER STRANGE CRITTERS TODAY NEAR DUNGANNON ONTARIO

Kelly worked an afternoon & evening shift at Deer Park Lodge so had herself a quiet relaxing morning at home.  Of course any day without me here has to be quiet & relaxing.  I often think of that when Pheebs & I are out Jeeping ourselves around.  How nice of us guys to get out of Mom’s hair for a few hours every week.  And we know she appreciates it too.  Now how’s that for a thoughtful husband eh:))   

 

LOTS OF CONTROVERSY GOING ON OVER WIND TURBINES IN OUR AREA
Ooooops, an oversight on my part regarding one of those 'sensor cleaning' photos in Friday night's post. Yes, that is the edge of a pine tree branch on the left side of the 'after' photo. I should have caught that & cropped it out or moved the camera slightly to the right when I took the photo. Sorry about the confusion.

A COUPLE PAINTED TURTLES SOAKING UP SOME MORNING SUNSHINE

A RURAL SEA GULL CONVENTION

The last time I remember looking at any of my 35mm slides was probably 6 or 7 years ago. I had put on a travelogue for a group of Seniors at a local nursing home facility. When I turned off my projector that night, unbeknownst to me it was to be for the last time. My slides & projector have sat dormant ever since. So, the time to address my huge '35mm slide' problem has come. After years of using slide film only & I had accumulated somewhere in excess of 4,000 slides. They are stored in Kodak carousels stacked in my bedroom taking up a fair bit of space.  Time to go.

PHEEBS IS OLD ENOUGH TO DRIVE THE JEEP NOW

AHHHHHHH, A GOOD OLD REFRESHING WATER PUDDLE DRINK

The last projector bulb I bought for my projector may have been over 10 years ago & cost $65 at that time. I know it is somewhere near the end of it's lifespan & buying another bulb, if they are even made anymore, doesn't make a lot of sense. Especially since it's been years since I have even looked at any of my slides. So, the decision I faced is what to do with those slides & how to do it. Digitalizing them is the obvious answer here & something I figured I could do myself. Second decision was, how important are these slides? Having not looked at them for years kind of answers that question. I'm guessing about 75% of them can go into the garbage & the rest will end up as file photos. It's not easy for me to throw a photo or slide into the garbage but it has to be done. My aging 20 to 35+ year old slides are old technology & compared to today's way of doing things, the quality just isn't there. Colors can begin to shift as slides age.   And really, how important are all those old slides anyway.  How many 30 year old repetitive flower pics do I really want to hang onto & for what purpose…………………………..

  

So, with the decision made to simply cull my slides into digitalized file copies It made my second decision much easier.  Instead of buying a higher quality copier/scanner like the EPSON V500 I went with a simpler 35mm negative & slide copier.  IMAGE CONVERSION.  Tried it out today & it works just fine for my purpose.  Nice & simple.  I also like the fact, with it’s software, I have full Picasa 3.9 editing control over each slide-to-digital copy.  This will be a long time consuming project but time is something I have plenty of.  So with that thought in mind I will pull a large garbage can up close to the computer & soon begin the tedious but necessary task of culling somewhere between 4 & 5,000 slides.

GROANER’S CORNER:((  Dear Optimist, Pessimist, & Realist.  While you guys were busy arguing about that absolute silly glass of water…………….I drank it!!  Sincerely, the Opportunist.

-------------------------------------------------------------
- Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
- "If having a soul means being able to feel
love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals
are better off than a lot of humans."
(James Herriot)
- The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward
- The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.
- It is not so much having nothing to do as it is not having the interest to do something....AL.

A BREEZE KEPT US FROM EVAPORATING OFF THE PLANET TODAY

AN IN-FLIGHT CABBAGE WHITE BUTTERFLY
I think it was this morning’s slight breeze which probably kept us from simply evaporating right off the Planet.  Of course moving air coming in off the lake was unable to penetrate along our heavy forested trail so another walk was cut short by flying insects & excessive heat driven humidity.

 
PEEK-A-BOO CAN’T SEE YOU
Fired up the Motorcycle & took myself for a short cooling off ride around a big country block.  Fine when one is moving but with pavement, moist air, & a beating sun heating things up it can get a little warm when one has to stop for anything.

Kelly had some errands in Goderich so off she went in the Santa Fe.  She still continues to improve but is a little concerned about her weight loss.  Still no word on the Valley Fever test.  She see’s her Stratford Specialist again on August 1rst.  If her weight stabilizes & she does not relapse into the condition she was in about 6 weeks ago we should be good to go again this Fall. 

While at Henry’s Camera Store in London a few days ago I got myself talking to the camera fellow about dust & dirt on camera sensors again.  I knew it was expensive to get the sensors cleaned & I knew the detailed procedure I had read about on the internet was not for a bumble-fingers like me.  I had already made the sensor on my Nikon D40 much worse a couple times.  He said there was a sensor cleaning kit out now & was very simple to use.  Ya right, how many times have I heard that line before.   An experienced auto mechanic will tell ya it’s easy to pop an engine out of a car too.  He sensed my lack of mechanical confidence so picked the kit off the shelf & showed me how to use it.  Well, it started looking pretty darn simple to me too.  Famous last thoughts of course.  Oh well, probably couldn’t make my recently retired D40 worse than it already was.  Or, could I…………………………………
 
DSLR SENSOR CLEANING KIT
The VISIBLE DUST kit was $20 so I hesitatingly bought it & brought it home.  Took me awhile to work up some nerve but finally there I was, kit in hand with the camera lying on a table before me.  Figured I’d probably end up with the camera sensor laying on the floor somewhere.  Carefully removed the camera’s lens & proceeded to ‘lock the mirror up.’  Check your manual to see how this is done with your particular camera if it is a DSLR.  Caution: if you try this, make sure your camera battery is fully charged!!  The camera guy thoughtfully reminded me of that so I was OK.  With applicator in hand I carefully put a few drops of solution (blue cap container) on the Y tip of the applicator without even dropping the tiny bottle into the camera body or spilling the solution all over the place.  Camera guy said it is important to wait about 10 seconds before inserting the damp applicator into the camera to draw across the sensor.  ‘Do not want a smear’ on the sensor.  He said then rotate the camera, flip over the applicator, & repeat the gentle but firm single swipe across the sensor again.  Only use the applicator once & discard.  So, that’s what I did & to my surprise nothing broke, fell off, or became dislodged.  I then unlocked the mirror, (an amazing feat in itself for me) snapped a lens on & took a photo of the blank sky.  Did I expect this to work?  Of course not.  But……..did it work??  Below are the before cleaning & after cleaning photos.  You be the judge:))
 
BEFORE CLEANING & AFTER CLEANING (UPDATE: THAT IS A PINE TREE BRANCH ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE 'AFTER' PHOTO)
A fast moving thunderstorm roared in across the lake about 4:20 this afternoon & took us from sunny bright to darkening gray in a matter of seconds.  Triggered all our front yard night lights & of course as is always the case, knocked our power out just long enough for me to again have to re-set all the electronics.  Clocks, lights, etc.  An hour later the rain clouds cleared & we were back to sunny bright again.  However, the storm headed inland, intensified, & did a fair bit of damage to some cities & towns.  Tornado warnings were out & one funnel cloud was confirmed north of Toronto but never touched down.  

GROANER’S CORNER:((    A resident in a posh hotel breakfast room called over the head waiter one morning and read from the menu. "I'd like one under-cooked egg so that it's runny, and one over-cooked egg so that it's tough and hard to eat. I'd also like grilled bacon which is a bit on the cold side, burnt toast, butter straight from the freezer so that it's impossible to spread, and a pot of very weak, lukewarm coffee." "That's a complicated order sir," said the bewildered waiter. "It might be quite difficult." The guest replied sarcastically, "It can't be that difficult because that's exactly what you brought me yesterday!"
-------------------------------------------------------------
- Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
- "If having a soul means being able to feel
love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals
are better off than a lot of humans."
(James Herriot)
- The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward
- The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.
- It is not so much having nothing to do as it is not having the interest to do something....AL.

GOOD & NOT SO GOOD NEWS ABOUT OUR CONGRESS ARIZONA HOUSE

A GREAT BLUE HERON ON THE GOOSE POND

As dawn broke I was encouraged to see a light mist had settled in amongst our pine trees. Knowing that meant our hot humid air had run into some cooler air I had my fingers crossed the cooler air would set the standard for the day. But, it was not to be & we had ourselves another sweltering cooker:((

OUR FRONT YARD BIRD BATH HAS BEEN A BUSY PLACE ON THESE HOT DAYS…ROBIN

 

FEMALE SCARLET TANAGER IN THE BIRD BATH PLUS A NEST OF BABY ROBINS SPOTTED OUTSIDE MY BEDROOM WINDOW TODAY

Had an email from the fella who has been keeping an eye on our house & property in Congress Arizona. Happy to say we have had no leaks in our roof now that the Monsoons are sweeping through the area. The newer roof section over my bedroom is working out just fine. However, we are very disappointed that a section of facia board we had contracted to be fixed since before Christmas last year still has not been done. The fella assured us he would have that fixed half a dozen times & we trusted him to complete that simple job before the Monsoon rains arrived. He never did & part of the facia facing south on a kitchen wall is still wide open to the wind & rain. Guess we can expect some water damage on our kitchen wall behind the sink when we get there this Fall. Extremely disappointed!!  Older retired fellas are generally very trustworthy & reliable.  But unfortunately for us, not this time.   And it sounds like rabbits have chewed up a lot of Cactus plants I had so enthusiastically planted last winter. Oh well, nothing we can do & it is the way it is……………….

NEW ROOF WAS PUT ON THAT SLIGHTLY SLOPED SECTION IN FRONT OF THE JEEP & YA-HOUIE LOUIE, NO LEAKS SO FAR:))

PHEEBS SURE LOVES CARRYING AROUND HER LITTLE TEDLEY BEAR:))

  

I WAS STARTLED TO SEE SOME STRANGE APPARITIONS IN OUR BACK YARD TODAY….KELLY DID THESE FACES ON AN OLD POST A COUPLE DAYS AGO

   

   

A FEW PHOTOS AROUND OUR YARD THIS MORNING

Be sure to drop by Contessa’s site & read her post entitled, ONE WAY TO MAKE A LIVING.  Husband Colin is a highly professional photographer & just returned a couple days ago from another assignment flying high (& low) over the city of Vancouver British Columbia.  Check out Colin’s site at COLIN JEWALL...MASTER PHOTOGRAPHER.  What a great adventuress way to make a mighty fine living:))

I REMEMBER SOMEONE REQUESTING A PICTURE OF THE MENNONITE BUTTER/RAISIN TARTS I BLOGGED ABOUT A FEW WEEKS AGO…KELLY BROUGHT ONE HOME TODAY:))

GROANER’S CORNER:((  A bus load of politicians were driving down a country road one afternoon, when all of a sudden, the bus ran off the road and crashed into a tree in an old farmer's field.
Seeing what happened, the old farmer went over to investigate. He then proceeded to dig a hole and bury the politicians.
A few days later, the local sheriff came out, saw the crashed bus, and asked the old farmer, "Were they all dead?"
The old farmer replied, "Well, some of them said they weren't, but you know how them politicians lie."

-------------------------------------------------------------
- Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
- "If having a soul means being able to feel
love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals
are better off than a lot of humans."
(James Herriot)
- The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward
- The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.
- It is not so much having nothing to do as it is not having the interest to do something....AL.