Fine, three articles in a row on garden plants. And over a month since my last post — I’ve been busy with starting the multifarious, multistep process of starting our big remodeling project, a.k.a., the Replacement of the Ugly Backroom and Kitchen et al. So it goes.
Nevertheless, the spring wildflowers are coming to an end [...]
Tag Archives: photography
Farewell to Spring
Friday, 29 May 2009
More wildflowers in the yard
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
I continue to be amazed by the wildflowers in our garden. I had low hopes, since the last time we tried wildflower mixes — which was, oh, six to eight years ago in the front yard and parking strip — all we got were Calpops. Those are nice of course, but they’re rather short-lived, and [...]
March showers bring April flowers
Thursday, 2 April 2009
Some say it’s April showers that get the flowers going, but here in sunny, rainfall-challenged California, things pop out about a month (or more) earlier. Even though March had its typical paucity of precipitation, the single hailstorm — complete with rain and wind — had occurred right at the peak of apricot blossoms. (Indeed, I [...]
Hot bird action
Friday, 28 March 2008
Unfortunately, the title of this entry is quite literal: Last week a hawk died in our neighborhood. As the poor thing expired, it managed to take out a transformer and blow a power line —rendering our block powerless until dinnertime. It had (the remains of) a squirrel, so one theory was that as the squirrel [...]
Bathroom remodel from… a couple years ago
Thursday, 6 March 2008
For years we lived with a bathroom that I called the Pink Horror. No ventilation (other than the window and door), a rotten (literally) paint job done by the house seller, and pink tiles. I hate the color pink, and Pepto-Bismo Pink just ain’t gonna be an exception.
Before bathroom remodel.
Birds in Winter (and a squirrel)
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
In autumn and winter the birds arrive from the north to keep us company. This typically means a lot of White-crowned and Golden-crowned Sparrows around the yard, but my flagship migrator is the Yellow-rumped Warbler. Or, as Simon and I call them, Yellow-butts. For their 2007 arrival, I first noticed them on the (easily remembered) [...]
Hello Zenphoto, Goodbye Gallery2
Sunday, 13 January 2008
After less than two years of using Gallery 2, I opted for change and have migrated my online photo gallery to Zenphoto. While powerful and feature-rich, Gallery became too cumbersome to maintain. Zenphoto, however, is easy to install, use and maintain. It looks and feels refreshingly streamlined. Whenever I work on or look at my [...]
Seeking online gallery software
Monday, 17 September 2007
I’m looking for a flexible (if not powerful) online gallery package. What are the free, preferably open source choices for online galleries? There are quite a few!
Wikipedia has a photo gallery comparison article. However, it’s not comprehensive since it’s a stub which needs cleanup (e.g., lists only basic features, and doesn’t mention other projects like [...]
Chickadees in the garden
Sunday, 29 April 2007
While picking peas, I’ve been subject to vocal commentary by various avians.
Anna’s Hummingbird: Scritchy scritchy complain scritchy… BzzzzzzPINGk!
Black Phoebe: Pfee pfee. (Wag tail.) Pfee.
Western Scrub-jay: (Insert loud, rasping squawk of choice.)
…And: Chichichi chichi chichi hyeenhyeenh! Hyeenh hyeenh! (Repeat.) Chestnut-backed Chickadees have become our neighbors.
Chestnut-backed chickadee during a bath: “Hey! I haff not yet coiffed my [...]
