Same goes with this one...
And this one too...
...who is the one (partly) responsible for my camera's current state of wonkiness....the focus is always off...the camera can't quite figure out exposures after 2 pm...or when it's shady.......or just about any time in any light condition....
You see, Bo has an interesting quirk of grabbing things and then carefully carrying them away. When I was putting up birdhouses this spring, Bo wandered off with the level. When I was planting some copper iris, one of the irises disappeared with you know who (and that would not be his sister Tilly, my other gardening helper). In this photo you can see how sweetly protective Bo is of whatever he is temporarily holding hostage though.
When I was busy trying to get a dogwood into the ground a month back, Bo wandered off with my canvas bag with all my gardening tools (!!!!) and in the bottom of it was my camera. He's a pretty slow mover when he's got something in his mouth but I'm not sure how long he had that bag and it was heavy! And it's not like I haven't done things to that camera too (we both took a flying bellyflop into the creek a year or so ago) but I think the poor camera has had enough of the two of us and has just given up. Yet, I still use it......I haven't quite gotten around to upgrading to another for some reason. :-/ I can't get too upset with Bo though because there was that one time when he grabbed a bottle of water and brought it to me just when I needed it, kind of...
Speaking of bottles, bottles are his favorite thing to carry around. I had left a half-full gallon jug of water up the hill to use later (no water hook-up yet so I carry water jugs into the woods to water the few things I've planted). It came back down from the woods empty...
...and of course, carried further away.
Tilly has an interesting way of helping with what has to get done too. If I need something, Tilly is right on it. Literally.
As was this nursery spider, the hugest spider I have ever seen and it wouldn't move from its spot either, just like Tilly.
Tilly helped with planting a Red Buckeye (Aesculus pavia)...
...and a river birch and a dogwood and some other things. Sentry duty was sooooo tiring however, she fell asleep under each endeavor before it was completed. When it got to the mulch part of planting, I'd try to roll the sleeping Tilly out of the way but she would just roll right back. I ended up just mulching over her (just her feet in this photo but she had been more heavily mulched with the other things I planted!)...
Tilly is such a silly dog. I wish I could take better pictures of her (even if my camera wasn't so wonky) but she is a very unphotogenic dog. She surprised me with this one though. This photo was taken around the time of the Royal wedding and Tilly looks like she found the perfect British-style fascinator/hat under that honeysuckle.
Anyway, back to my struggles with my camera, not with gardening (entertained as I am by those two dogs). A couple days ago I saw the most beautiful matte blue green katydid. The color of that bug was just exquisite but even with heavy manipulation via Photoshop, I cannot get that bug to look like what I saw.
I took this photo last fall and I think it's the same style of katydid, just a completely different color. They both have the same unusual looking pink and green eyes. Did you know that some katydids are a brilliant pink? I'm still on the lookout for one of those.
Anyway, once again, an out of focus shot...but at least some of the blue green color comes through on this rear end shot of the katydid.....
...as does my initial "M." :-)
I guess the thing to do TODAY is to go out and get a new camera but unsurprisingly, I'm off to go stomp around on my land in Kansas instead (even if it is 95 degrees). I have a garden crew waiting for me and I know they are anxious to get started working. Camera purchasing will just have to wait yet another day. :-)
7 comments:
I've wondered where you were and how you were doing. You've been BUSY! At least you have a lot of "helpers" to make the digging and planting easier. Hehe Love that honeysuckle hat Tilly is wearing.
The spider and the katydid are amazing. No insect or arachnid that size seems to be able to survive our hard winters.
As for the wonky camera I sympathize. I know I'd hate to give up my old Nikon for something fancier--mostly because I'd have to leave any kind of comfort zone and learn what the new whizzbang buttons and switches did. Anyway, the photos look just fine to my eyes.
Leenie-I didn't mean to take almost 2 months to write another post. Gooood grief. I had good intentions almost every night but getting those photos to look like something takes a really long time now. I'm glad they still read pretty good. I came back today with some milkweed flowers that were in black and white although the area behind them was pretty colorful. Weird. I have no idea what I did. And then I forgot I had an open bottle of water when I was photographing a wild elderberry and managed to drench my camera with it. That camera is getting dramatic abuse daily now which makes me nervous about upgrading to an SLR. But it will happen. In the meantime, I'll take photos that aren't quite what I was seeing....but I guess close enough.
I know, isn't that honeysuckle hat a great photo? That was the day I discovered that the plant covering the forest floor is none other than invasive bush honeysuckle. Errrrgh. I've been ripping out what I've been finding but am glad I waited to get that picture of that silly dog before I ripped out that particular shrub. Honeysuckle is my enemy these days.
Kansas has some big insects. I never thought that might be because it's a southern state...of sorts. The fireflies are out now and the cicadas finally started. Luckily the flying woodroaches are done flying for the year. That's one bug that will make me run inside and double lock the doors.
Always nice to read a comment from you Leenie. I think of you every time I call Tilly the "Roto-Tilly." :-)
Good Morning Maria! Yikes, don't be mad at me for not getting over here and commenting but I am just feeling like I am boring. All your pictures are fun and the bugs are cool. Your helpers just make you so happy. Who has time to blog when you have that land in Kansas to go and play and work and visit the "helpers"! Guess what we have this year Maria? 20 zillion Fire on the Mountain plants! CH is going to let them do their thing for now and then who knows what the heck to do with them.
PIx-When did you stop rambling rurally and settle down under the oaks????
As for the immediate apology of boringness.....hahahaha. Right back at you. I think that's the real reason why I haven't kept up with blogging. Happens. You know?
AND I am so envious of all those fire in the mountains. I have your little one you gave me still in its pot and it looks really good but it's not like the big monster beauties you grow. See that leaf-footed bug with the big thighs in this post? That's your sassafras he's posing on. All of the sassafrassers came through but the big one still has yet to put out a real leaf. It's alive though. One of these days I'm expecting a big dramatic growth spurt.
And....as for those "helpers," I do love having them help but they gave me an amazing case of poison ivy this spring. I was pretty careful with the RoundUp and was extra careful not to make contact with the poison ivy but when the dogs appeared.....the RoundUp stopped but the jumping dogs anxious to say hello did not. I should have taken pictures. It was the worst case I've ever had. I scared a pharmacist when I showed her one of the patches on my arm!
That's the sassafrasser!! How cool! Maria I can so identify and empathize with your poison ivy situation. I got the most terrible case of PI when we lived in St. Lou and I didn't even get near it. I got it from the oils on Mr. Pix's flannel shirt. The gal that was cutting my hair back then didn't want near me, she wasn't buying the "you can't catch it" I was telling her. I am oc about getting it again so I watch every step on the Tiny Ten. Poor you, poor pharmacist lady :)
I put Rural Rambles to rest because I felt like we both had lost our sense of direction. I felt like somehow I had become a farm blog and there wasn't NO farming going on. Google was driving me to distraction and I just wanted to start out fresh. Do some photo challenges without any pressure.
So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Don't make us wait so long for one of you posts. Please. I missed you. BUT I know how hard it is to keep up the blogging, especially if you are busy living your real life.
My word verification-polazoti. God it sounds like something wonderful Italian to eat!
Glad to see you're back, was worried the tornadoes had affected you. I'm not posting as much either, now that I've moved to Provincetown, busier yes, but folks don't seem nearly as interested in where I am now as they were while I lived in NYC - silly them.
Pixie Pasta-You're probably still up. Look at the time! :-)
Maureen!!!!!!! No real tornado damage. Just big scares. I lost a major tree in Kansas but that was about it. The Missouri River is supposed to flood soon but I think I"m okay in regard to that too......oh yeah, I survived Judgment Day (remember THAT?). Okay, you have moved just twice since New York, right? Are you on your third state now? It's hard to keep track. :-)
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