Month: January 2014

A smattering of rain has dampened the valley today and we are hopeful that the dire predictions of drought will be assuaged, however unlikely that may be. There is no snow in the Sierras except for the small amount artificially made by a few ski resorts; Folsom Lake levels have dropped so low that a Gold-Rush era mining town, Mormon Island, has been re-exposed 50 years after it was flooded to create Folsom Lake; and this past December was the driest December on record.

When I left on a brief shopping trip this morning the raindrops started to fall. I decided to memorialize the raindrops on the rear windshield of my car, mainly because a recent Flickr challenge was “scattered” and the smattering of scattered drops seemed to meet the challenge. I used a Lightroom split tone preset to process this photo.

This photograph is of a monkey’s fist, a type of marine knot used to weight the end of a rope for hurling to the dock or perhaps another ship. My husband tied this monkey’s fist at least 20 years ago on one end of a large spool of half inch rope. Yet another Flickr challenge, knots, prompted this photograph.
And as my friend Melinda has pointed out to me, I have once again ventured to “the dark side” because for today’s post, I added two textures to this photograph that create (I think) more interest and an aged look to it. (Focal Length 66mm, f/8, ISO 100, 1/4 second shutter speed)

“When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls
And the stars begin to twinkle in the sky—
In the mist of a memory you wander back to me
Breathing my name with a sigh….”

—Peter DeRose (1934)

I love this song. I have several piano sheet music versions of it; it was originally composed for piano. But, I have to admit that my favorite “Deep Purple” rendition is from 1963, Nino Tempo & April Stevens (a brother and sister duo); I have it in my iPod and “Deep Purple” is in the rotation when I work out at the gym!

This photo was inspired because a recent Flickr challenge theme was “purple” and yesterday afternoon when I was shopping at Trader Joe’s and admired these purple mini calla lilies enough to bring them home with me, I knew they would meet the challenge. They may not be a “deep purple” sunset sky enveloping a garden but they are beautiful purple blossoms.

I tried different aperture settings but preferred the small aperture of this shot (f/13) to the wide open shots I tried first. This is focal length 70mm, ISO 100, f/13, 4/10 second shutter speed. I used one of my OTT lights to the left of the flowers and had a black velvet background.

On the way home from Santa Rosa this afternoon, we stopped in Sonoma at Hopmonk Tavern for an early dinner. I had eaten there once before and enjoyed the steamed fresh mussels so I ordered them again. I was not disappointed. Although the recipe had been modified, and used wine instead of beer for braising, I found them tastier and a bit spicier but still wonderful with Prosciutto, tomato, shallots, garlic, herbs, and cream added to the wine and mussels. The dish is served in a large cast iron pot along with French fries and some French bread to sop up the sauce.

I took three shots with my cell phone to send to my friend, Honora, with whom I’d enjoyed this savory meal the first time, more than a year and a half ago. I am not a fan of my cell phone camera and am somehow unable to take decent shots with it. Indeed, the photos of the half eaten bowl and the completely empty pot suffered from operator error probably as a result of the two glasses of Old Vine Zinfandel that I sipped as I shucked the delectable mussels, but the first photo seems to be in acceptable focus. Feast your eyes on Hopmonk Tavern’s Mussels.

I’m having my backyard fence rebuilt and, when I got home from the gym, I noticed there was a shaft of late morning light illuminating the stepping stones that lead around the side of my house. Those stones are usually in perpetual shade but because the fence is down temporarily, they got a bit of light which made them a little more interesting. I used a wide aperture that created too shallow a depth of field; I think it would have been a better shot if the entire featured moss covered stone were in focus but by the time I realized my error, the light had changed.

After I took the shot, I remembered that a recent Flickr challenge was “pathways” but when I went to post this shot to Flickr, I noticed that the “pathways” challenge ended on Saturday so I was a day late. I decided instead to use it for the “Good Morning” challenge.

Saturday afternoon, I looked out and noticed a half dozen or more adorable bushtits bathing in my fountain. Once a year or so, I manage to photograph these tiny birds in the fountain. Even though they’re not used to me, they are so intent on finishing their bath that they bathe in front of my lens.

The yellow-eyed bird in the center is the lone female in the group, looking a bit exasperated about all the attention and needing a bit of space. When I saw this shot, I knew I had to use it for the Flickr daily challenge theme, “space.”

I felt like having something soothing for dinner and so I made a pot of soup—the Barefoot Contessa’s Mexican Chicken Soup to be exact. It is delicious. And it starts with mirepoix, the aromatic mélange of chopped onions, carrots, and celery that forms the base of many soups and stocks. As with yesterday’s “Lady Grey” photograph, I experimented with varying depths of field and for today’s, I liked the photos with a deeper depth of field to give more perspective to the pile of vegetables. I shot this at f/9, still shallow enough to blur out parts of the photograph but broad enough to illustrate the size of the pile. At f/2.8, it was difficult to discern that the photo was of a pile of chopped vegetables.

Yesterday, I had a tooth pulled, the last molar in the lower left jaw. I was so nervous about it that I didn’t sleep at all the night before and I couldn’t eat anything before I went in for my 9AM appointment. My blood pressure was elevated and they offered only novocaine so I stressed out even more, imagining that if I weren’t put completely out, I would suffer through the agonizing sounds and pain of the procedure. My long time, trusted dentist, my periodontist of more than 25 years, assured me that it was an easy procedure as he numbed my jaw with a shot of novocaine. In just a few minutes he told me that as soon as he scraped away the infection surrounding the tooth that had long needed extraction, I was done. Say, what? I didn’t even realize that he had removed the tooth. I was out of the chair and on my way home in a mere 25 minutes with painkillers, antimicrobial rinse, and a cold pack with instructions to keep it on my jaw 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off, for about 6 hours.

When I got home, I kept the cold pack on my jaw as instructed but got very chilled after a couple of hours. A steaming cup of Lady Grey tea provided the warmth that got me through the rest of the afternoon. About 6 PM, feeling pretty good and without the pain I expected to have due to the 800mg Motrins I had been taking, I checked out my Flickr group challenges and discovered that the day’s challenge was “warmth.” It struck me that my cup of Lady Grey tea fit the challenge perfectly but by this time, my tea had long since been consumed, my dentist had called to check on me, and, after my inquiry, assured me that the glass of Ménage à Trois that I had already poured was okay to drink. I considered photographing the wine glass for warmth but decided that a cup of Lady Grey tea was required. So, I brewed another cup and took photos, some with a shallow depth of field and some with a greater depth of field. I preferred the results of the photos using the shallow depth of field so that is what I am featuring.

When I took the photograph, I noticed the registered trademark for Lady Grey on the tea bag, something I had not previously noticed. I am a longtime fan of Earl Gray tea and a few years ago when I noticed that Twinings offered Lady Grey, similar to bergamot flavored Earl Grey but with the addition of orange and lemon zest, I tried it and loved it. I just now Googled Lady Grey and discovered that it is a trademark of Twinings, that Lady Grey tea was developed only recently, within the past 20 years. It was created by Twinings in the early 1990s to appeal to the Nordic market, who found Earl Grey tea too pungent. It first went on sale in Norway in 1994 and in Britain in 1996. No wonder I love it. My Nordic ancestors must have instilled the preference.

I always thought squirrels were squirrels. I mean, I know they are rodents and I know there are different species but I only worried that they might eat the bird seed I set out, not anything more than that. After I did a bit of squirrel research I’m afraid I may have something to worry about. They breed from December to June so I think I’m in for a busy season, starting now, and then there will be lots more squirrels judging by the number in my yard on New Year’s Day. They may move into my attic to nest. I thought only rats did that—oh, but of course, squirrels are rodents! They sometimes carry (and I suppose spread) bubonic plague — oh joy. And they sometimes are infected with West Nile Virus, another scourge that seems to have become endemic here.

After living here for more than 20 years, I witnessed the first squirrel in my yard a few months ago. Yesterday, I noticed at least four, maybe five, cavorting along the garden wall, running up, down, and through the photineas, scurrying along the ground, and pausing atop the neighbor’s garden shed. When I went out with my camera, they at first ran off, then immediately returned to look down at me from various branches and scold me. One peeked up at me over the fence just inches from my face, twice, then he disappeared down the other side before I could get a shot. I captured this squirrel, seemingly frozen in place, atop the neighbor’s shed. I approached, just a few feet away, on my side of the fence, made all kinds of noises, and he didn’t budge. My problem in getting a decent photo was the leaves and branchlets between me and the squirrel. He didn’t move. I don’t know what kind of squirrel this is. It doesn’t appear to be gray enough to be a native gray squirrel but I’m hoping that’s what it is, although what difference it makes, I don’t know. It might be a fox squirrel, an eastern species introduced to California, or it might be another introduced eastern species, an eastern gray squirrel. The only one I’ve ruled out is a ground squirrel.

All I can say about this photograph is that the squirrel in it looks extremely rodent-ish and it isn’t quite a cute as I thought squirrels are supposed to look. And, I used my 70-200mm lens (and Nikon D7100) and was close enough that I didn’t need to crop this shot.

Happy New Year! For the third year in a row, I couldn’t resist featuring a hummingbird for my first post of the year. I sat outside with my coffee and camera and watched as the hummers buzzed around the shrubs and the feeders, wary of my presence. They were elusive this morning but I managed to capture one of the hummers waiting me out in the shrub until I finally got too cold to continue sitting outside in my thin bathrobe and flip flops for a better shot. He looks like he’s a bit chilly, too, with his butt feathers all fuzzed up!