Wordy Wednesday

In just 3 days I have taken 64 pictures? Wow. Well, my son took a couple, so it's probably more like 60 or 62, but still. I took quite a few on my walk. I would have been more, but my batteries were dying. I think my rechargeable battery pack is going downhill. It's lasted a few years, though, so I guess it's time. I seem to recall saying last year around this time, that I really need a new camera. It's still true, but this camera does have it's redeeming qualities.

One of the things that I love about this camera is also one of the things that really frustrates me. I like to be able to control the focus, which is why I REALLY have to have an SLR next time. I like to turn off the flash, focus and shoot. I can do all of that with this camera, except the focus is the type that you push the button, and it focuses (or refuses to do so) and then you shoot. This has given me some serious bouts of eye twitchin'. It has also given me some really cool stuff, as well. Shooting something a little out of focus makes a great subject for a painting, for instance.

Like this one from my walk on Monday

I also enjoy smearing photos, so to speak, which is basically just catching motion in the picture.

Like these

The one on the left, also from my walk & the one on the right from a concert, his dread locks were fun to shoot

It's really fun to play with lights at night, as well. I don't have any of those shots at hand, since SOMEONE deleted them from this computer, after they had been meticulously cataloged and described. (ARG! Walk the plank ye scurvy toad!)

ahem

When my camera is playing nice and focuses well
I get some really nice stuff, too.

Oak Trees are cool. I love how twisted and bent and gnarled they can get.


<-- I wonder who lives in there? There was plenty of stuff to take pictures of on my walk, the pic to the right is a dry creek bed. It's really more of a drainage gully, or whatever. There are places where there is water standing most of the time, but there's only running water during a good rain. It like a flash flood place, so there is a lot of erosion.

And where you have erosion you can often find fossils! I found a few on my walk, which brings me back to my frustration with my camera. When you have an auto focus camera with a macro setting, you are supposed to be able to get close to things and focus. This particular camera has serious issues with this setting, and it REALLY chaps me. I tried and tried to get a good pic of something really weird in one of the rocks I picked up. It has fossilized things on both sides, and I actually picked it up for what was on the other side. When I got it home, I saw the other fossil, it was much more interesting. It looks like a claw or talon or something. It also(since I see faces in stuff) looks very much like an eye, which means I also see nose and mouth, now - so I have an odd cyclops looking fossil thing. I may have gotten one good picture of it after slaving over it for half an hour.

Well it's not good, but it shows what I mean, both by the camera refusing to focus and by showing why I see a face in this rock. lol

The mouth is perfect! It looks like an odd alien Picasso thing, right? lol

OK! Enough with my imagination.


Are you tired of hearing about bread yet? If so, RUN AWAY!

ni

The varied flours I got on Monday were very interesting to work with. I let them rise the first time much longer than 12 hours, more like 20 or 24. I let the whole wheat/barley loaf rest WAY too long the second time, which caused it to really flatten out. This means I sort of lost control of it when you flip it upside down off the thing it's been resting on, onto a towel. So when I plopped it into the baking bowl it hit sorta hard and folded in on itself and I think it fell a little, but it still turned out ok. The crust is VERY hard, but the inside is a very nice texture. I decided that this is the type of bread you break instead of cut, I've always wanted to say, "Come! Break bread with me." ( I don't know why, sounds like something Abraham would say )

The other loaf was made with spelt flour. Now that stuff is very odd to work with. It didn't hold together like normal dough. It was really sticky and freaky, so instead of chancing getting a towel tangled up in it, I used two of those strong paper plates and bunches of flour. I really expected it to not be bready at all, but it turned out rather nice. Maybe next time I'll scrape some of the flour off? The flavor is AMAZING! It's really different and I don't really know how to describe it. I think it would be really good with a strong cheese. It was a great with coffee! It's very moist inside, though, so maybe I need less water in the next attempt.

Anyway, it's been great fun making bread and trying out some different flour. Thanks Micah! =)

I'm most of the way through the 17th repeat on the Fern Lace Stole and I am seriously close to the end of my first yarn cake, which means ***bomp bomp BOM*** The next post should be my Russian Join demonstration! OH, did I mention that my next yarn cake is a different dye lot? (and that I totally don't care -- yet) Anyway, it may end up being slightly two toned, but it was over a year ago when I bought the first one, so the odds of finding the same one, not high enough to attempt it! Well ta ta for now, my lovelies, I'm in the mood for tea. (what are crumpets, anyway?)