Yes it is my little friend the squirrel again today. I know I’ve shown images of this little guy before and you can only show so many sides to a squirrel but I just love watching him and capturing his image.
Perhaps the reason I do is because of a story about my Dad and his squirrel “Rocky.” I’ve talked about my Dad on this blog before. He was faced with many physical challenges but carried on with little or no complaining.
After his retirement he would enjoy sitting in the back yard of their home in Bethany, Missouri and just enjoy the sights and sounds of the nature around them. They lived on the outskirts of Bethany so there was a fair amount of wildlife that would wander though their property.
Dad saw a squirrel in one of their trees several times during a given day and he would call it. He started carrying a cookie in his shirt pocket when he went outside and he would put a small chunk of the cookie on the picnic table and call the squirrel.
One day to his delight the squirrel finally came down the tree and jumped up on the table, grabbed the cookie and ran back up the tree. Fast forward now several months and “Rocky” would now come down to where Dad was sitting and get the cookie out of his shirt pocket and sit there and eat it before going back up the tree. I have a picture (11 X 14) in my home office of Rocky sitting on a tree branch eating his oatmeal cookie. Jeanne actually took a picture with my 35 mm film camera of Rocky climbing up my pant leg to get a cookie I held in my hand. I was standing at the time and his little claws hurt some but it was an amazing thing to see.
If you looked at Rocky real close you could tell that he was blind in one eye. He and my Dad had a wonderful relationship and Dad enjoyed him immensely. I gave him a copy of the cookie in the tree image. 🙂
So every time I see this little guy he reminds me of my Dad and that brings joy to my heart.
Kind of a rough weekend health wise. I’m learning what I can’t eat and two of them are some of my favorites. I can’t eat oatmeal or Cheerios. Damn. They must give me a terrible spike in my blood sugar because it puts me down pretty good.
I was out of commission for most of Saturday morning but after lunch I got back on track and did a 30 mile bike ride. Yesterday I had Cheerios with about the same result. I got to feeling better around 2:00 pm and then Jeanne and I went for a 30 minute walk. It is a learning process for sure.
That’s if for today. I hope you enjoy your day. Thanks for stopping by and be careful.
Sometimes (in my view) you do not need a particular subject for an image to be appealing. It’s called a landscape and sometimes you do not need to capture the landscape at the two golden times (dawn or dusk) for an image to be appealing.
I know I’m stating the obvious. The reason I’m doing so is because as you may recall, I was tasked with taking images of the golf event for the Chamber’s golf outing yesterday. Primarily to capture an image of each group of golfers so they could have a memento of the occasion.
It was a smaller than normal group of golfers (seems to be the trend lately) at the event so after capturing all of them and some candid shots I saw this scene and took several images from different perspectives.
The individual who was driving the cart asked me “what in the hell are you taking a picture of?” I tried to explain to him but it’s hard to show what I saw on a little 3 inch LCD in the bright sunlight.
Once again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 🙂
I learned yesterday that two more of my friends also have diabetes. It is a prevalent disease.
That’s it for today. Thanks for stopping by the blog. Enjoy your day and be careful.
So when I logged in this morning to write my blog I discovered that the entire user interface has changed, dramatically. Normally I embrace change but I do not like this new user interface.
I have often said (obviously I’m not the only one to say it) that it really doesn’t matter too much what you put in front of your lens to capture as long as you have wonderful soft light.
Soft light is what i have for you today. I was working on my bird project last night and the warm yellow light was bathing the back yard in that soft light. Occasionally a bird would come out of the shadows for a few seconds and I would capture its image.
While doing that, my little friend the squirrel came down to feed. I wanted to see him do his vertical leap up to the bird bath but our little dog scared him back up the hill. Before he went to his home he demonstrated that he has figured out how to get at the jelly on the oriole feeder.
It was as if he was getting dessert after his meal of birdseed. 🙂
Now I’m going to have to do something different. I knew it was just a matter of time before he figured it out.
I continue to have up and down days. My assumption is that will sooth out once I become accustomed to the medication. I’m still working on eating healthy and exercising. Meal time has become something I have to do to get to the next thing. It’s not as enjoyable as it was.
Fun afternoon today. I am (as I have for the last few years) photographing the Maquoketa Chamber Golf Outing. I also plan to take the Phantom Vision 2 (the one that hasn’t crashed) and get some aerial shots of the event. Should be fun to watch.
That’s it for today. I hope you have an enjoyable day. Thanks for stopping by the blog and be careful.
One of the things that Jeanne has always lamented about digital photography is that she doesn’t get to see a lot of the images I take unless I publish them. I only publish them to tell a story, because I think they are good enough to show, or because I just like a particular subject matter.
On those rare occasions when she does take some images with her point and shoot camera, she will take them to the drug store and have prints made. She likes to hold the pictures in her hand. 🙂
So when Josh and Gabby visited a couple of weeks ago I shot the image above. In fact I posted the color version of it on this blog. I was experimenting with some effects and decided to try black and white on this one. I liked the color version but I love this version. So I made an 8 X 10 print for Jeanne.
I could tell by her reaction that it didn’t wow her like it did me. Why?
“I can’t see the kids faces in the picture. There was more detail in the spilling water in the color version, and I don’t have a frame for it.” 🙂
All of her points are correct from her perspective. She wasn’t being rude, just honest. It points out a valid point. I loved it from an artistic view-point it actually grabs my attention every time I walk into the room. None of the things Jeanne said, distracts her from esteeming it, occurred to me. I only saw what I saw. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Share your thoughts if you like in the comment section.
Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your day and be careful.
I just love this cardinal and we are so lucky to have him living next door. He visits the feed line a couple of times a day and I was lucky enough to see him yesterday morning before the carpet people arrived.
So I posted this guy for you Ron and I hope it brightens your day somewhat. 🙂
Back to work for a day today. I have really enjoyed my vacation although some of it was hampered by dealing with my new companion. All and all it was good time away from work. I had a decent day today, although I didn’t accomplish much as I had to babysit the carpet installation folks all day. They didn’t get finished until 4:00 p.m. so no exploration for photos.
Jeanne left yesterday morning to spend a couple of days with her Mother in Ames. She’ll be home in time to share dinner tonight so we’ll have the weekend to get the house back in shape.
I have shown images of this little squirrel several times over the last few weeks. He bounces down from the hill in the back yard to the feeder line. Eats his fill and then back to the trees. Yesterday I just happened to see him climb one of the big trees in our back yard. I followed him with my long lens and watched him climb to the top of the tree, where there are some dead branches.
Click on the image to make it larger. You can get a better look at him with his mouth full of bark.
I was surprised to see him stripping the branches of bark. As I looked closer I saw there were a lot of branches stripped of bark and suddenly realized that is why I have found pieces of bark in our back yard over the last few weeks.
Down the tree he came with a mouth full of bark and then he ran two trees over to the huge tree at the edge of our property. He must be refurbishing his current nest or building an upgrade. He has stripped a fair amount of branches of their bark. Wonder if that is why some of the branches are dead now or did they die first? Makes me wonder.
That’s it for today. Thanks for stopping by the blog. Enjoy your Friday and be careful.
Today is the last day of my vacation. I go back for one day and then have the weekend. This week has been one of the most memorable of my life. Jeanne and I learned so much and shared so much this week. It was amazing the things we saw, talked about, and experienced.
I went for a 25 mile bike ride yesterday and came home invigorated and not tired. I shot some images with the little Coolpix, non of which will see the light of day. We went to Tony Roma’s last night for dinner. I had mahi – mahi, which is the first time in my life. It tasted good but not my favorite. I also had some fancy, garlic green beans and a salad with no bread of course. Also no wine, no potato, and no bread. Did I mention no wine? 😦
Learning how to eat again is an experience but I am enjoying it.
The little guy above is a frequent visitor to the bird line. He probably isn’t the same one but when I’m taking his image he will turn his head this way as if to say, “how do you want me to pose.” 🙂
That’s it for today. Jeanne is going to Ames today and tomorrow to help her Mother. The carpet layers are back today so I won’t get much done other than baby sit the dog.
Thanks for stopping by the blog. Enjoy your day and be careful.
Good day. As promised this is the story about the Rise of The Phoenix. Yes it is about the rebuilding of my damaged Phantom so if that is of no interest to you feel free to click the back button. If you stick around you should enjoy the story.
This is the Phantom 2, which is the second generation Phantom without the built-in camera. I have to supply the camera, which in this case is a GoPro Hero 3+ Black edition. I purchased it with a Zenmuse 2 axis gimbal and I have had a lot of great moments of flight with it.
About a month ago the Phantom, while coming in for a landing, decided for whatever reason to take off on its own and it crashed into a sidewalk several blocks away. Put a nasty scar on the camera, destroyed the video transmitter, and broke some props but no other visible damage. Jeanne and I scoured the neighborhood for almost an hour before finally finding it. I re-calibrated the compass, put a spare transmitter on it, and it seemed good to go.
That was the first crash.
The second crash was a monumental brain cramp on my part trying to please people I tried to fly it out of the Maquoketa Caves from floor level. I posted the story and the video of the major crash if you’re interested you can click here to see the video.
It hit a rock wall and fell 35 feet into 10 feet of water while all the electronics were still hot. It spent about 10 – 15 minutes in the water upside down until a couple of really nice kids got it out. The damage included broken props, destroyed ($150) battery, bent landing gear, a destroyed Zenmuse 3 axis gimbal, and a lot of electronic damage I didn’t realize.
So I bought about $20 worth of rice and buried all the components in the rice and left them there for 4 days. Spent another couple of hours getting all the rice that had affixed itself to the parts that were wet cleaned off and meticulously checked everything that I could.
I put it back together and turned it on (without the props attached.) Unbelievably it actually went through its start-up routine. The flashing lights indicated that it was properly set up and ready to fly. I started the motors up and they sounded a little funny but they ran. I hooked it up to the computer and looked at the data and all seemed good. So I put the props on, re-calibrated the compass, and got it ready for a test flight. The video below is only 08 seconds, but it tells the story.
That was the third crash. It flew into me and cut up my left thumb pretty good. The damage included broken props (are you seeing a pattern here), bent Zenmuse 2 axis gimbal and a broken landing strut. So now it was obvious that even though it checked out on the computer the lack of control was due to one or more damaged motors that were not operating at the level they were designed to operate at.
So over the last few weeks as time permitted I gutted the Phantom. I installed 4 new motors (not an easy feat for me.) Put a new compass on it, replaced the landing struts, rewired and repaired the 2 axis Zenmuse (the 3 axis Zenmuse is toast) put it all back together and it flew late yesterday afternoon. It is still is a bit unruly in the air but I think that is due to that fact that I didn’t calibrate my controller. I did that after the flight.
The Phoenix has risen. By all rights, after what it has been through, its pieces should be in a box in the garage. 🙂
In all honesty I probably would have been better off to buy a whole new system (as they are reduced in price now.) But it flies and the camera still works and the gimbal still works. I hate it that the 3 axis gimbal is beyond repair (it was expensive) but that was my fault. I could have and should have said no.
So below is a short video (3 min : 49 sec) of the flight of the Phoenix yesterday afternoon. It’s very short and nothing exciting happens. You will see a lot of movement in the video and that should not be happening. My next part that might fix that is the GPS system and I really don’t want to buy that and then have to install it.
Health update. I went to the Ophthalmology department of Medical Associates today. I just love that clinic. There are so many wonderful professionals there and all the information from my personal doctor was transmitted to my eye doctor and then he will send that back to my doctor. They just do wonderful work there and we’ve been with them for over 30 years.
Anyway my eyes have changed (a lot) so new prescription should help that and there is a small cataract just beginning in my right eye (which is the cause of the fogginess.) He felt that would self correct once I got my blood levels in-line. So I was very relieved and thankful that my prayers were answered.
I discovered a new thing about this disease which really hit me yesterday morning. It’s called the Dawn Phenomena and it is replete with a variety of uncomfortable issues. I worked through them and by the afternoon I was fine. I go back to work in a couple of days so it will be interesting to see how I get along. I am so thankful I’ve had this time to adjust to the medication.
That’s it for today. Sorry to be so long-winded but had a lot on my mind and I wanted to get it off. Now I feel lighter. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by the blog. Enjoy your mid-week hump day and be careful.
The rise of the Phoenix will have to be delayed one more day. One because of some technical issues and two because Josh and Gabby came for lunch and a visit today. Well, when they are around I have to take images of them. It’s part of the Grandpa code. 🙂
Two things happen when you put kids next to water. They have fun and they get wet.
I took Gabby out to see the birds feeding at the sanctuary and some of them let us get pretty close. Soon Josh was curious about what we were doing so he came out carrying two of his toys.
It wasn’t long before he spotted water in the bird bath and in went the toys, splishing and splashing. Well of course it wasn’t long until Gabby wanted in on the action and so as was to be expected she got soaked. 🙂
No harm done and the kids had a lot of fun. I filled the bird bath back up when they were sufficiently wet and all was well.
I go to the eye doctor tomorrow to see what’s going on with my right eye. Very foggy and hard to see out of it. I’m hoping it just a temporary thing or perhaps a cataract, which can be removed. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
It was a good day yesterday. I was a little low on energy most of the day and that may be as a result of my 20 mile bike ride on Sunday. Jeanne and I went for a quick 10 minute walk last evening just to get a little exercise.
That’s it for today. Hope you enjoy your Tuesday. Thanks for stopping by and be careful.
If you read the blog yesterday you are expecting a post about the rising Phoenix. It was not my intent to mislead you when I said that. Things change and I found some very interesting things to photograph yesterday that I wanted to share today. Well interesting to me anyway.
I had a reasonable day yesterday. My vision continues to be a worry but I’m getting along with it. I went for a bike ride yesterday and got a full 20 miles in. Not too bad for my 3rd time out. There wasn’t much left in the tank when I rolled into our driveway but made 20 and that made me happy.
The image above was taken by Angie with my little Nikon Coolpix point and shoot camera that I carry on the bike. I rode over to her house because I wanted to show Joshua that Grandpa had a bike too. It took him a little while to process me because he has never seen me in this get-up before. You can see he is not real interested in holding my hand.
Angie asked me if I had a snack with me in case I got a little low on energy. I told her I didn’t so she gave me some fruit chews to take with me. It was a blessing because I needed them to finish the ride.
Along the route I found this flower-pot just hanging by the side of the road in between some shrubs. I loved the colors so I stopped and grabbed a shot with my little Coolpix.
I love being on the bike and enjoying the sights and sounds at a slower pace. I also enjoy the challenges of making it up a hill with some gear left. I haven’t found too many of them lately but that will come. I made it up the biggest hill on my route yesterday without stopping and that was a great accomplishment to me. 🙂
Finally out on my photo run I came across this interesting group of birds. A Blue Heron sharing the dead tree log with geese and ducks. Again not something you see everyday so I thought it worthy of a capture.
That’s it for today, I’m going to take a nap. My stomach got me up way too early this morning.
Thanks for stopping by the blog. Enjoy your day (even if it is a Monday) and be careful.
Pretty good day yesterday. I took a bike ride in the afternoon and got 10 miles in before I wore out. We learned a lot more about fueling the body yesterday through our research and a dear friend of ours whose husband has had Diabetes for ten years. Her information was so helpful.
Tomorrow I’m going to write a piece on the amazing rise of the Phoenix. Hope you’ll check the blog tomorrow to see what I’m talking about.
Every morning when I’m shaving I see the soft yellow light of the morning sun bathing the surrounding objects in its golden warmth. Of course I can never take advantage of that because I’m always running late and no time to get some images.
So this morning, ham and eggs were on my menu for breakfast and after my meal I took my coffee, camera and gimbal out to the patio to capture the morning light. It was a peaceful period filled with reflections, anticipation, optimism, and enjoyment watching and photographing my favorite little creatures.
Jeanne and I went to dinner last night at Applebee’s. We had a gift card and one of the things I like about them is they put the dietary information about the food right on the menu including the calories. It made ordering very easy and without worry. Plus the food was pretty good and the service was exceptional.
Finally I leave you with this image. I am not a very sophisticated individual and certainly not a world traveler. So when I see something like this it gets my attention. I was on my bike ride yesterday and came to the end of one of the trails and saw this. Now I don’t know about you but I happen to think this is cool. A water fountain for adults, children, and pets. Is this a great country or what!
Thanks for stopping by the blog. I hope you enjoy your day in a restful and relaxing way. Be careful and wear your sunscreen if you’re outside today.
Happy Monday ~ 214
After his retirement he would enjoy sitting in the back yard of their home in Bethany, Missouri and just enjoy the sights and sounds of the nature around them. They lived on the outskirts of Bethany so there was a fair amount of wildlife that would wander though their property.
I have a picture (11 X 14) in my home office of Rocky sitting on a tree branch eating his oatmeal cookie. Jeanne actually took a picture with my 35 mm film camera of Rocky climbing up my pant leg to get a cookie I held in my hand. I was standing at the time and his little claws hurt some but it was an amazing thing to see. 
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