Carrollton Yard – July 2022 (2)

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Walking around a familiar place….composing images of my favorite plants. In my parents’ yard, the red yuccas are always a big draw. This time of year, they are a mix of bids, flowers, and seed pods of varying maturity. I photographed them on a couple of mornings while I was in Carrollton. My favorite of the images I captured with my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) was the one with the black background…a flower hanging like a flower moving like a bell over the buds and very green seed pod.

With my phone (Samsung Galaxy S10e), I used its digital magnification to capture macro images of the same plants. The developing seed pods always fascinate me. They were a few pods beginning to split open. By the time I am in Carrollton again (later this month), a few will be split open with visible seeds.

There were other things that were surviving the Texas heat – although more stressed than the red yucca. The kale that is multiple years old is probably too tough to eat!

One plant was so green in macro view that I couldn’t resist the macro shot – for the color and texture of the apex growth. It was benefiting from its proximity to a automatic sprinkler!

Finally – after the sprinklers one morning I enjoyed finding water droplets in the purple heart wandering jew…in the joint between two leaves where new leaves and flowers begin.

I’ve come to appreciate places I can photograph again and again….seeing them in a little different way each time and beginning to capture the specialness of the place that I associate with the longest relationships of my life.

Springfield Conservation Nature Center – June 2020

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My husband and I did a short hike at the Springfield Conservation Nature Center in late June. It’s a place I anticipate we’ll explore more fully in the months to come. The area is an oasis with high volume traffic arteries on two sides…neighborhood and lake on the other sides. We started out our first hike on the Boardwalk Trail (map) but extended to the Sycamore Cut-off down to the bridge over a branch of Lake Springfield….downhill to the lake level then back up. The forest is dense with a different kinds and ages of trees…there are cliff faces too. The paths are gravel. We spotted a great blue heron (still roosting) in shallow water….and a very active small bird in the bushes nearby (maybe a prothonotary warbler). There were probably some invasive plants in the mix – but they didn’t seem to be overwhelming. The slideshow below contains my favorites from the pictures I took with my bridge camera.

I am beginning to appreciate my phone – with it digital zoom – for macro photography. I took one image of a bloom that was hanging over the trail…

And then did more as we left the nature center after our hike.

The round blooms of the button bush look intriguing at every stage!

I am looking forward to seeing the trails in different seasons…stay tuned.

In the Middle Patuxent River – 2

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Before the students came to our water quality stations at the Middle Patuxent near King’s Contrivance, I did a little macro photography with my phone, clip on lens, and Bluetooth clicker. There was big rock at the edge of the river (very damp) that was covered with green. Moss or liverwort (not sure which).

Nearby there was a wing from an insect. I did a little research after I got home  and decided that it might be from a Dot-lined White Moth. They are a small moth with a wingspan of 25-62 mm. The wing was laying on the sandy rock surface.

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There were also a few plants growing along the bank. It was easy to take these pictures without bending over at all!

A few minutes…and I liked what I captured!

New Phone

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My new phone is a Samsung Galaxy S10e – that is the smallest of the current Samsung phones (the others are too big for me to mange one-handed). I got it set up on the same day as it arrived with a little help from my husband. Last time I bought a phone the initial set up was done at Best Buy. This time the phone was delivered to the house from Verizon and we did all the set up at home. I have all the apps I use all the time working as expected and will do the others as I need them.

Setting up a new device is always a high-stress time – remembering infrequently used passwords…trying not to mess up the set up and having to back track (or worse yet…not be able to figure out how to back track)…somehow losing something unrecoverable in the transfer. With the phone I had the added challenge of applying the screen protector…making sure it was very clean before the application and that all the bubbles were out before the adhesive set.

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I’m past the anxiety now and enjoying the new device. The sunflowers cover I got Is OK but I think I might order a more unusual one (orange jewelweed) as a treat…maybe to remind myself that the phone is the ‘big present’ for my birthday later this year.

Unique Activities for Yesterday:

Clearing the crispers. I had quite a lot of produce left from last week’s share on the day I picked up the new one so I spent time in the morning putting as much as I could in the freezer. I’d managed to eat the 4 pounds of larger tomatoes but still had 2 pints of the cherry size…which freeze well with just a simple rinsing and then placing in a Ziploc.

The beets were more challenging. They had to be scrubbed and then cut up into bit size pieces that could be used in smoothies or cooked (stir fry or soup).

All the mild peppers I cut up and put in a Ziploc. The jalapenos I cut up and put in their own container….I’ll use them in small amounts – making taco filling (beef or chicken).

I still need to cook the spaghetti squash (next time we turn on the oven for something else). All the other things I had left, I ate as part of my lunch before I made the pickup later in the afternoon.