Rediscovering Photography - It's a Digital World

May 15, 2005 - Sun

I went out for a hike around some of St John's University public property this afternoon. There is a lot of area to explore. I took some shots of wildflowers. Most of these are old friends from last year. Here is my favorite spring 'flower', Jack In The Pulpit:

And a 'Large Flowered Bellwort':

Is this a 'Yellow' Violet?

And the Bloodroot's are out of course:

Oh, and if you haven't seen your spring Robin yet, here is one:

May 11, 2005 - Wed

I went out to a new place this evening after work. It is called Benton County Park. I will post more info about it. It looks like Benton Co bought an old farm right on the East side of the Mississippi River about 4 miles south of Rice. The farmstead home and outbuildings are still there, and the County has put out picnic tables in the yard. A 'different' kind of park. You can take a short walk right down to the bank of the Mississippi. It is an interesting place. It would have been more interesting if it wasn't so cold today.

The walk along the path down to the river follows along some old farm fields and woods. I took this shot of the sun shining on the new leaves of some gnarly old oaks. I hope it looks as good here as it did in person.

I took this shot down by the river bank. It is a reflection of the trees in the water. I kind of like this shot. The water was very still and calm.

May 8, 2005 - Sun

I went out to Quarry Park for a small hike. Tried looking for some morels, but no luck. So I went to check out the cactus plants instead. Looks like they made it through the winter with no problems.

And I have to put up another shot of a wild violet. They are very little flowers, but blue flowers are rare. So many wild flowers are white or yellow. So you have to put up with this sample...

May 3, 2005 - Tue

I stopped at Heim's Mill on the Mississippi after work today. Here is (in my opinion) an 'OK' goose picture.

I will have to make you put up with a 'goose taking off' picture <grin>. This one is pretty bad.

May 2, 2005 - Mon

I went out to Sand Prairie for the first time this year. They just burned the entire plot off in the past few days. It was a complete burn. I didn't think they did it that way. This is what it looks like. Maybe I'll be able to take a shot a few weeks from now to see how things change.

Here is a shot of the geese way out on the pond. I wasn't able to get very close.

Just in case anyone needs proof that the dandelions are really out, here is it is. If the dandelions are out, the morels should be, shouldn't they?

May 1, 2005 - Sun

It was mostly cloudy today, snowed a little bit, but the sun came out for a while this afternoon. I stopped by Heim's Mill and got this shot of a Mallard Drake:

Apr 30, 2005 - Sat

If you wondered what I have been doing all winter, here are some shots of the 'fruits' of my homemade wine making hobby. Tom got me interested in this and I've been working on a few batches to see how they turn out. According to what I've read on the Internet, you need to let it age at least 6 months, and really more like a year. We'll see. I don't fancy myself a wine connoisseur, so I'm not sure I'll know if they are any good or not <grin>. This is a jug of strawberry wine that is about a month old. It sure smells like strawberries.

And here are a few more... (1) Peach and (2) Blueberry

And a photo of the Wild Rice wine. (This one should be interesting) I didn't realize it until putting up these photos, but is just about exactly the same color as the peach wine. Hmmmmm......

I have two more batches in their primary fermenters yet. One is Lemon-Lime wine and the other is Apricot-Cranberry. Photos to follow (maybe). I also want to do four more wines at least. They are Dandelion, Lilac, Chokecherry and Crab Apple. We'll have to see if we can find the ingredients over the coming Spring and Summer.

Apr 30, 2005 - Sat

Well it has been a long dark winter, at least as far as photography goes. Now that Spring is here, it's time to get this back up and running. We'll see if we can make it a full twelve months this year.