The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Sorry - no TWD today. But there ARE some Ghostly Steam pictures to see instead!

Here are a few photos I took one morning last week.  We'd had some frost, and I went outside to start up/warm up the truck.  The sun was rising higher over to the east there, and as the rays and warmth touched places on the truck, the frost would melt and ghostly steam would rise. 

I darkened the images and enhanced the color saturation level just a smidge, so the ghosty steam would be a bit easier to see.  Plus - there really were these colors in the steam - I'm guessing it's a prism effect from the water droplets. 

Anyway, I thought the steam was pretty, and so I share it with you.  FYI, the cab of the truck is the big dark shape in the left of all the vertical images.  And this first shot is looking at the side of the truck bed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TWD (for me) will resume next week.  But in the meantime, if you'd like, you can go check out the TWD blogroll to see what everyone else had done this week.

The Sky This Morning at About 6:45, Eastern Standard Time

 

 

 

Sunday Morning at Chepiwanoxet Point

 

Chepiwanoxet is a Narragansett Indian word that means - depending on who you ask - "devil's island" or "at the small separated place."  Personally, I like the latter. 

Some Answers to Some Camera Questions

I've had a few people ask me what kind of camera I'm using, or what kind of lens, particularly in response to posts like this and this and this.

(okay, I have to interrupt myself to tell you that Scratchy has crawled up UNDER the slipcover of the loveseat - where I'm typing right now - and is tunnelling along beside my arm, a sage green ghost with claws.)

Anyway.  Here's what I'm using.  Nothing very fancy, really, as far as cameras and lenses go.  I've got a Canon Rebel XT that I've had for...um...two years now?  Of course, now there's the Canon Rebel XTi and the XSi...there's always a newer version.  But anyway, that's what my camera is, and I have the kit lens that came with it - an 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 lens.  See?  Nothing fancy.  I've also got a Quantaray 55-200mm f4.5-5.6 zoom lens that I use most often when we go to the zoo, so I can get as up close and personal to the elephants as possible.  I love the elephants.

 

But for the close-up stuff - I bought a set of Opteka close-up lenses - they attach to my kit lens.  I had originally wanted to buy a separate "real" macro lens, but it just didn't fit into my budget at the time.  So I bought this inexpensive set, and I'm pretty happy with it.  The set includes a 10x macro lens, and that's the one I use most often for up-close-and-personal shots of food or bugs or dewdrops or whatever.  It's fun.

Eventually, some day, I'd like to get the Canon EF 50mm f1.4 lens, which will allow me to take pictures in lower light without using a flash than I currently can.  (Which will be nice for when I'm taking pictures of something I made for dinner, for instance, and the natural light near a window is waning, and all I've got are the stove light, the overhead light, and/or the flash.  Ugh.)

That's about it for equipment.  I should use a tripod for the close-up stuff, too, but I don't.  I just plunk my elbows down on the counter, inhale slowly, and snap the shot on the exhale.  Not particularly good picture-taking advice, but I'm not a professional anyway. 

The little close-up lens set is a great investment - a lot of fun macro bang for relatively little buck.  If you are so inclined, you should get the set and start playing.  It becomes addictive.

A Closer Look...at Garlic

Last week I posted this photo and left it for people to try to identify.  Here are some images from the rest of that series. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fungus

Ooh, now there's an attention-getting post title in a food blog!

This has been growing on one of the railroad posts we use to border some of the gardens, and I kept meaning to take pictures because, well, I just think it looks pretty.

So here it is.

 

 

 

 

Dew Drops

My friend Veronica sent me this fabulous link - if you like the look of dewdrops up close, go check out the photos.  Amazing stuff.

A Closer Look...at Blueberries

Fireworks, Farmers' Market, and the Fourth

 

Wednesday night our family and another family (my son's best friend and his parents) went to watch the Pawtucket Red Sox play the Syracuse Chiefs (we lost 6-5) at McCoy Stadium. 

And there were fireworks after the game.  It's a four night event that runs, I think, the 2nd through the 5th.  It was sold out on Wednesday, and we had free tickets, as that night's fireworks display was sponsored by Dave's Marketplace, and each store had 300 tickets to give away.  Woo hoo! 

They were general seating/bleachers tickets, and we should have gotten there earlier than we did - we ended up walking all over the place looking for 7 seats together or 3 and 4 together...no luck.  So we ended up sitting on the bleachers out near right field.  And that was probably for the best, as the kids could get down and run around a bit and work off some of their excess energy.

 

And Would You Care for Some Tea With That?

This morning we were outside looking at all the gorgeous dew, left from the early morning fog and last night's rain.  Simply beautiful.

I posted the story over on my little gardening site, because it seemed more appropriate over there.  But then again, since it involved my son taking it upon himself to serve breakfast, which, you know, is more FOOD-oriented, then I figured I should mention it here, too.

Of course, the breakfast was served to a spider, so if you're at all squeamish about that, just look at all the dewdrop pictures above the jump.  The dewdrops are nice and pretty and not at all creepy.

And that's my PSA for my arachnaphobic friends out there in blogland.

A Closer Look at a Red Onion

 

A Closer Look at Meringue

Just because.

At Joe and Em's

Last Saturday we went to a surprise 25th birthday party/housewarming party for our nephew, Joe.  (The housewarming part of this also included his girlfriend, Emily.  Hi Em!)

Anyway, I am mildly jealous about WHERE their house is - the back of the property ends at the edge of a pond - the western end of the property, which means not only a beautiful view of water, but also a beautiful view at sunset.  We weren't there when the sun set, so I don't have anything like that.  I just have images like this:

and this:

   

And while we were there, not one, but two families of Canada geese stopped by to collect the bits of rolls my kids and another little girl (one of Em's little cousins)

were throwing into the water.

The first family on the scene had 6 goslings...

 

And the second family brought 4...

And at some point, amid the carb frenzy...

The goslings got a little confused...and instead of six and four, there were five and five...

And then there were three and seven...

But eventually they sorted things out...

And the 4-gosling family went on their way first...and then the 6-gosling family went off in the opposite direction...

And we trooped, through a mine field of goose droppings, back to the party.

Some more pictures from that afternoon can be found right here.

Camera-Happy X 3

Okay, I've set up a couple of flickr badges over on the left so I can share my kids' photos.

The first sets (and, like their mother, these children are not hesitant picture-takers, so the sets are rather large) are from this past weekend - Saturday, when they first got their cameras, and Bill and Joe caught some awesome fish, and then Sunday when we took the kids fishing in the morning and to Southwick's Zoo in the afternoon.

I still haven't posted my own pictures from the zoo or the fishing trips - yeah, I'm a slacker.

But - I have to share this - the coolest creature we saw at the zoo on Sunday?  An albino peacock.  Tail feathers on full display.  Stunning.  Just stunning.  Just wandering around outside the zoo.  With an albino hen and a couple of guinnea hens. 

And so now we have three sets of shots of the same bird.

Here's one of Alex's:

And one of Julia's:

And one of mine:

Okay, make that two of mine.  It's my blog.

Amazing, isn't he?

Snap Happy

Yes.  They've each got a Nikon Coolpix.  Julia's got the Coolpix L11, Alex has the Coolpix L14.

They have each snapped about a hundred pictures this morning.  And yeah, I spent a bit of money on the cameras and memory cards.  And yeah, my kids are little.

But.

They can fill the memory cards and if the pictures aren't worth printing, I don't have to print them.  I don't have to pay to have a disposable camera processed and printed, only to find out all the pictures were of the rail on a fencepost right at Julia's eye level.

So the way I'm looking at it, these cameras will have paid for themselves by the end of the summer, what with trips to the zoo and just happy kids snapping endless shots of the cat.

So you know what?  We're ALL happy.

And the kids know the deal - if they break the cameras, then that's it. 

Later on today I'm going to make neck straps for both of them.  Those wrist things don't really impress me at all.

Know what else?  It's been fun to see what they take pictures of.  They've been all over the house this morning, shooting pictures of the lizard as he sheds his skin...the cat, each other, their stuffed animals...books...Alex took a picture of a pancake on a plate...and so on.  It's really interesting and fun...looking through the lens through the eyes of my children.

Treasure

Yesterday, completely on a whim, I decided to bring the kids to the beach.  Alex is in the middle of a 4-week study of the oceans and sea creatures of all kinds, so I figured this would be especially cool for him.  It was a gorgeous day, too.  And the best part was, I didn't tell the kids where we were going.  Just bundled them up, gave them rubber gardening gloves to wear in case it was cold (and because we'd be collecting sandy, wet treasures along the shoreline) and off we went. 

First Day of T-Ball Practice

Alex had his first T-Ball practice this afternoon.  Bill helped him get his gear together, and the two of them headed to the field while I stayed home with Julia and made dinner.  It's cold and windy today, and we just didn't think Julia would be all that thrilled to sit on the bleachers for 45 minutes.

Anyway, I took a few pictures of Alex before he and Bill took off....

My Dad, the Young Photographer

I've had this monstrous project looming over my head.  Well, maybe not looming, because it's not a scary evil project.  Just a long-overdue one.  And it's big.  VERY big.

I have not put pictures in photo albums (with the exception of small albums of my kids' photo shoots when we go to the zoo) since, oh, before Bill and I started dating.  Which is going on eleven years ago.  Actually, since, oh, since my sister's son - her firstborn - was born.  So that's fifteen and a half (sorry, Mere) years ago.  So you may or may not be able to imagine the tons and tons of photos throughout the house, just sitting in their envelopes, chatting with their negatives, waiting patiently for me to get my act together and put them some place where people (including myself) could actually sit and look at them from time to time. 

And now that I've gone digital, which is going on...wow, two years this July...there are also all sorts of images in my laptop and the external hard drive I bought JUST SO I'D HAVE SOMEWHERE TO STORE THE PICTURES BECAUSE MY LAPTOP IS CONSTANTLY FULL that no one looks at but me because I don't print enough of them or upload to flickr on a regular enough basis, because I am disorganized or lazy or something.

Oh, and in addition to the pictures in all their envelopes, there is a good-sized box full of a huge melange of pictures and negatives that were caught in the flood in our basement in August of 2003.  Yes.  Four and a half years ago.  There were pictures down near the floor - a box of them or something - oh, yes, I think I had begun to attempt to try to think about to hope to organize them back THEN.  And they got wet along with anything else on or close to the floor.  So I spent a bunch of that afternoon/evening laying out all those pictures on the furniture and floor in the living room and our bedroom, and fortunately they really didn't get too badly damaged...but they did get totally mixed together.

So anyway.  On Sunday, I started working on this.  I sat down on the floor in my bedroom and started just sorting envelopes of prints and negatives into boxes loosely categorized thusly:  Before Bill.  With Bill But Before Kids.  With Kids.  Black and White.  Bill's Family Way Before My Time.  They're broad categories, but it was the easiest way to begin, rather than with years, for example.  And so far that's all I've done.

But while I was going through things, I came across a small envelope of some black and white prints my father gave me - copies of prints someone sent him, actually, of him (my dad) when he was a young photographer with a big ol' camera and before he had a wife or daughters. 

Here's one:

 

And here's the other:

 

Aren't they cool? 

Anyway, I just wanted to share them.   

I'll probably be posting other pictures, too, as I go through the mess.  So be warned!

Little Thinker

Haircuts

Alex's hair had been getting rather shaggy lately, so last week I brought him to my sister's house so she could trim it.  To save time, she was just going to use the electric clippers on the longest setting (so he'd at least HAVE some hair left at the end) and, knowing how expressive Alex's face can be during these events, I sat there and took pictures through the whole thing. 

If you're interested, here's how it went....

Sunday Morning Shots

 

Mini Me

When I take all my backyard nature photos of squirrels and assorted birds, I set up my camera (w/telephoto zoom attached) on a mini tripod on the kitchen counter just to the left of the sink.  That's the spot for the best view of the back yard, including the shelf on the deck rail that was originally constructed as outdoor counter space but currenly is the winter feeding station. 

Anyway, Julia likes to sit on the counter and take pictures, too.  I've let her look through the viewfinder of my camera and snap pictures.  That's the lovely thing about the digital camera - she can shoot as many pictures as she wants and if they aren't any good - I can delete them. 

Anyway, last weekend she and I actually had a tug-of-war with the camera because she wanted to take a picture and so did I.  The thing was, there was a male cardinal in the cherry tree and THAT was what I wanted to shoot.  But Julia wanted to take a picture of the bluejay in the same tree.  And so she is trying with her little fingers to pry the camera out of my grip, and I'm trying to fend her off, focus on the cardinal, and prevent my nice shiny equipment from slamming into the sink in the process.  Ultimately, the possessive big sister of my personality reared up and shouted (I'm kind of ashamed) "It's MY CAMERA!"  At which point Julia burst into tears and the cardinal flew away.

So.  Yesterday, in order to avoid all of that, I went digging around in camera bags and found this:

My father gave me this for Christmas in 1984 and I've shot zillions of rolls of film with it.  The majority of my adult life has been viewed through that lens.  Or through the other two lenses I have for that camera.  With that camera, I've photographed my sister's kids as newborns, and also my own. 

Anyway.  I got this camera out and found a couple rolls of film and another mini tripod, and I set Julia up next to me at the window.  I taught her how to focus (sort of - she doesn't really have that down yet) and how to crank the film over IMMEDIATELY after taking a picture.  (This is a big deal for me - it drives me INSANE when someone - like my husband - doesn't crank the film over.  SO frustrating.)  Anyway - my children will be brought up right, in this respect at least.  I quizzed Julia this morning - Julia, what do you do after you take the picture?  "Crank it!"  That's my girl.

During a lull in the backyard wildlife activity, we went to take a look out the front window, to see if the birds or squirrels were doing anything there.  No.  But Julia took several shots of our truck, which was parked in the street.  And then we sat on the couch and took pictures of each other.  It was really fun....

Okay, now see my delicately extended pinky in the shot below?  (She and I switched cameras.)

Now look at her equally delicately raised pinky here:

She has decided the camera is hers.  I try to explain the concept of borrowing, but she ignores me.

She shot two rolls of film yesterday.  It'll be interesting to see how they come out.  At times she would also say "Let's trade!" so she could snap away on my digital at lightening speed for a while.  I'm not going to show you ALL the pictures she took.  But there are about twenty that look almost exactly like this one:

Eventually the squirrels and birds ate all the food or at least became too bloated to eat any more.  So Julia turned to family portraits.  She used the last couple of shots on her second roll of film up, and then asked to borrow my camera. 

Because you know how it is when you're trying to do a group photo.  Someone blinks in one or someone's not smiling - you have to shoot a bunch just to get one or two good ones.

Here are hers....

Gearing up for Spring Training

Shortly before I left to get Alex from a field trip today, I looked outside and saw 6 crows in the yard.

One in particular caught my eye. 

Chillin

The one on the left is named Dinoraptosaurus.

The one on the right...he's the newer guy.  He's had a number of names, and we can never seem to remember any of them.  Currently, Alex has named him Cricket Catcher.  Which is pretty accurate.

They're both males, and when Cricket Catcher arrived on the scene, they did NOT get along.  The were constantly doing all sorts of macho lizard posturing at each other.  But at some point that changed, and now they're pals. 

Which is good, because Cricket Catcher has grown to be a much bigger lizard than when we got him (he was the same size as Dinoraptosaurus) and he could probably make himself an only lizard if he were so inclined.

And wouldn't that be an interesting bit of reality for the children to experience.

Carolina Wren

We had two of them Saturday morning.  One who came to get something to eat on the little platform on our deck, and the other who perched briefly on the tire of our truck and then disappeared.

Wildlife

A Little Snow This Morning

 

We Interrupt This Photo Essay on Last Night's Dinner Preparation...

So yesterday Bill (mainly Bill - I was soft shell crab fry cook, dishwasher, and photographer) prepared this absolute FEAST of Japanese food.  Primarily sushi - related things, but not just that.  I'll post the recipes separately, because there are too many to cram into this one post.

But after the meal, and after the clean-up, I uploaded the pictures I'd taken while the meal was being prepared, and what struck me funny were not the pictures of the food, but the unexpected pictures that showed up here and there in between the chronology of the food prep.  Basically what happened was while Bill was making the soft shell crab maki rolls, and I was taking pictures of them, Alex yelled from the other room "Mommy!  Come quick!  The sky is pink!"  And so I just peeked out the kitchen window, saw that yes, the sun was setting and pink clouds dotted the sky, and took a quick step outside to take a few pictures before the pinkness was gone.  Alex knows I will to this, so he is vigilant.

So here's an example of my viewing experience...

Ready For Her Close-up

Some people, like myself, do all they can to avoid being photographed.

Others...

Icy Wonderland

A few pictures I shot this morning...

 

Of course, after prowling around the front yard and then skipping any shots in the back yard because the sun wasn't up enough, I stepped on the pavement just before the back stairs and felt my left foot slip forward and then my right (because I wasn't looking down, I was looking all around for more glimmering ice on the trees) and I nearly went over backwards.  I mention this mostly for my sister, who will appreciate the humor in the near fall and awkward recovery.  And would appreciate the humor even if I did fall over and crack my skull on the driveway.

Sunday Morning Frost

Pickled Peppers

From my sister.

Summer

Bill called me at work yesterday afternoon - he'd picked up some sushi-grade tuna steaks and would be grilling them (just ever so slightly) for dinner, along with some zucchini.  And he'd make rice.

It's a lovely thing to have someone else decide what to make for dinner.

Anyway, I got home with the kids, and dinner was just about ready - just waiting for the rice.

I changed into more comfortable clothes, and put the kids in bathing suits and we watched them play in the pool their Uncle Bob recently gave to them as a joint birthday present.

They had fun:

And after a lot of screaming and squealing and laughter, we ate dinner outside on the deck.

When they were finished, the kids went back to play in the pool some more, and I wandered around taking pictures of flowers and pea tendrils and whatever else looked interesting.

I especially like this:

That's it for the moment.  I'm home right now - I'll be taking Alex in for his pre-K testing in a little while, then dropping the kids off at daycare and going in to work. 

It's warm.  Summer's here.