Twinkle, twinkle, little star...

I've done it now. I've invested in some new camera equipment. My Nikon D40, my little workhorse, has been used and abused for almost four years now. It's been to the camera doctor for replacements and needs to go back again. I love this camera but something is wrong with it. It's not focusing all the time. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I think something is wrong with the lens and my pictures are out of focus more than usual.
This is my excuse paragraph(above) for buying a new camera. I bought a Nikon D5100 camera with all the bells and whistles. I will tell you more about my new camera in a future post.
When I was ordering some other camera things I saw this filter. It's called a digital star8- 52mm filter. It only costs $3.31 and well... I found it hard to believe that this inexpensive filter would do anything for three dollars and thirty one cents. So I ordered it. It came yesterday and I have been having some fun with it.
This is called a "twinkle" filter and what they say it does, is allow you to remove unwanted reflections from non-metallic surfaces such as water , glass etc. Well, I need to use it a lot  and experiment with it to get some of the effects that they showed as examples, but yesterday and this morning I took some pictures with the filter attached.
This is an effect that you have to be careful with. You could overdue it and you could also ruin a really good photo with it, but I think I will have fun with this.

The shot above was taken on my porch, as the sun was coming up in the east. Do you see the eight point star in the bush at the end of the porch? This is the 8 Point Cross created by the filter surface, that generates crossed ray beams. They emphasize glaring sunshine when you take a picture directly into the sun.

I really like this picture, above. It's just enough to let you know that the sun is there but it's not distracting. But, oops, there are some blue dots in the middle of the photo. Now that IS distracting.
I just realized what it is. I took this picture through the sliding glass door. It's a reflection of MY CAMERA.You have to look where you are shooting from. You can ruin a good print doing dumb things like this. Unless, of course, you want a reflection of something in the glass. That can be good too.

 I thought this one was going to be too dark but look... there's a double star! Now the sun IS the main attraction.

Cutter wasn't impressed with my new toy, but he kept following me around, so I took a picture with the sun behind him. I should have use a flash for his face. Sometimes you need a flash when there is too much light behind your subject.  I do like the light around his head, ears and feet... and , of course, one of those Corgi looks of determination.. the steady stare.

I like this one but, as I said, I needed more light on the "pooch". I love shots with the camera on the ground. I'm not really happy with this photo though, but it does show the star rays from the sun.

Back in the house, I caught this little sun sparkle in one of the sun catchers in my kitchen window... One perfect little twinkle.

The sun was flooding into the living room and it hit the plant, lighting up the leaves and the container. Can you see the little stars on the upper left edge of the ceramic vase? The star8 filter translates that bright spot of white into a familiar image... a star.
Below, you can also see the prism rays from the sun across the photo because this picture was cropped and the original had the sun in it. I'm not sure what happened near the crow against the wall. That an interesting light anomaly that I don't understand.

This reflection is really kind of cool. It's a reflection from somewhere else, because that part of the sign is just like the rest of it... ochre colored and antiqued.
So, as you can see, I will have some fun with this filter. It seems very substantial and screws onto the lens without any effort. I can't wait to try it at night, in town. All the lights, especially Christmas lights in a few months, will be wonderful and twinkle like stars . I can see it all now.
 I guess I'm easily entertained and can get pretty excited over little things... but for three dollars and thirty one cents it's a cheap date.

Creative Visualization

"Whatever our individual troubles and challenges may be, it’s important to pause every now and then to appreciate all that we have, on every level. We need to literally 'count our blessings,' give thanks for them, allow ourselves to enjoy them, and relish the experience of prosperity we already have.” ~Shakti Gawain~

Do you see the "infinity" pool that reaches out to the edges of my mountain top? Do you see the beautiful reflections of the grape arbor and the blue sky of the early morning?

Alas, it is not the pool of my dreams. In reality, it is a birdbath in my back yard.

This morning I filled it with water and saw myself swimming to its edge, resting my head on the warm, sunsoaked concrete "sand" of this container. A miniature me, swimming in the luxury of this round deep pool with a stunning view.

I breathe in the fragrance of the lavender, spreading into its own reflection, in this pool of my imagination.

Avoiding the one visionary rose that survived the summer heat and never needed watering.

My swimming is over. I feel the heat of the day starting to seep into my pajama clad body. No bathing suit? No, it was only a moment of creative visualization. But... a fine one.
I will leave the infinity pool of my dreams to the sweet, yellow finches...

To the beautiful bluebirds.

Victory Lap

Even old earthquake prone, "We've seen it all.", "There's never anything good on the news anymore." Californians can get caught up in a once in a lifetime event like we had this morning.
The Space Shuttle Endeavour said goodbye to the sky and flew over the capital city of Sacramento and then San Francisco, on its last fight, before being taken to Southern California to its new and permanent home at the California Science Center (CSC) in downtown Los Angeles. 
I waited outside this morning, hoping that the shuttle, piggybacked on a Boeing 747 jumbo jet that took off from Edwards Air Force Base, would fly up across the Foothills before heading to Sacramento but it didn't. I waited, hopefully...

...watching the skies to the south. But, other than a heavier than usual amount of contrails, nothing much was going on. The California skies were pretty, but uneventful.

So I went inside to watch the whole thing on TV.
I became hopeful when I heard a large plane flying overhead, but it was one of our old, fire spotting monsters with a prop engine and it was going in the wrong direction.
The Shuttle finally came into Sacramento from the middle of the Central Valley. The excitement was overwhelming for those who could see it coming. I tried to take some pictures of the flight right into our TV, but they didn't come out well. These are the only ones that even look like they have an image.

Talk about a piggy back ride.
Most of the photos I took into the TV were blurry and awful. That's what I get for not driving down to Sacramento. But if you go here and here you can see some really good photos and videos of the flight.

I made the mistake of not going down to my friend "C"s house last night and being there for all of this. She said, this morning, that the shuttle went over her house and that, I quote, "I just got to see the Space Shuttle fly over my apartment! It was so huge and so low, and was going (relatively) slow. It was going southwest, after making a loop around the capitol..." She called it "strangely thrilling".

Yes, I blew that one. Should have been down there... with my camera.

Here is some history of the Shuttle. I thought it was interesting that the shuttle was named after Captain James Cook and his ship the British HMS Endeavour ,  the ship which took him on his first voyage of discovery (1768–1771)^. This is why the name is spelled with the British spelling, rather than the American version. ("Endeavor"). 

I emailed my son, in Oakland, to see if he saw the shuttle from his place of employment. He wrote back and said that he was in Los Angeles and was hoping that he would see the shuttle before he left the airport down there. Hope he gets some pictures. My other son works in San Francisco. I'm sure he got to see it too. Wow! I'm feeling like I missed the boat up here.

While I was waiting outside this morning, I did see the orange, double winged dragonfly again. Does that count?

 It was probably waiting to see the Endeavour too. One natural beauty and one created by man. Both astounding. Both amazing...

A Reunion

The Prospector and I drove down to the valley and stayed overnight, in a HOTEL, on Saturday.

 A very nice hotel, with a swimming pool and a hot tub.
Why did we leave the farm? Why did we leave the dogs in a kennel overnight and venture down to the town of Manteca in the great central valley?
Because 50 years ago, the Prospector graduated from Manteca High School and we were celebrating the occasion with a PARTY.
Yes... FIFTY years. It was 1962.
John F. Kennedy was our president.  No one had been to the moon yet, but John Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth. The average home cost $12,500. and a gallon of gas was about .28 cents. We went to the Drive-In movies to see West Side Story and To Kill A Mockingbird... and "make out". It was a good time to be a teenager.

 Manteca was a small farming community between Stockton and Modesto. Today the railroad tracks still run through town and the old Lincoln Elementary School, where the Prospector went, is still teaching children everyday. Yosemite Ave. looks better than it use to and has murals of Manteca at the turn of the century on some of its buildings.
We arrived at the Golf Course on Union St just in time to sign in, get our pictures taken and start meeting all the "old" folks that were walking around looking for signs of recognition. It's a good thing that they not only gave everyone name tags, but they also had the good sense to put a photo of the person on it from the yearbook. Everyone that walked up to us looked at the name tag first, then the lights would go on in their eyes. "Oh, it's ... my gosh, you look great.", and they would smile and give the Prospector a big hug or a hand shake. He was on the reunion committee so he did know quite a few people, but there were a lot of people that were total surprises. That's the fun of a reunion of 50 years.

It was quite dark in the room. I brought the little Canon point and shoot, instead of my big Nikon, so a lot of the pictures didn't turn out well. But we had a great time and it was a beautiful evening with good food and "happy to see you" ambiance.

The next day we met everyone for breakfast and then drove to the Manteca Museum. This was an amazing place.

It's an old church that has been revived and filled with everything Manteca has done for the last 150 years or so. This photo above is a replica of the old, original high school. The walls were covered with class pictures from the very beginning.

This is a PE class in 1923. Can you imagine wearing a skirt and stockings to play sports? Life was definitely different then.
There were all kinds of rooms filled with what life was like in the 1800's.

You know. What they called "woman's work". And it was.

Look at the smile on that "dummy's" face. She's happy and she's ironing. What's wrong with her?

Even when it was a new invention, it was still a lot of work. This washing machine below, still used buckets that had to be carried, emptied and cleaned out every wash day.

 Then, as I was contemplating the efforts of my grandmother and her dislike (hatred) of housework, I looked up on the wall.
There, before me, was a familiar face.

There on the wall, for all the world to see, was a picture of my staid and rather stern father-in-law, doing the HULA. He is the lovely one, second from the left in the back row... with the blond hair.
Yes, it was him.

He was 33 years old and doing a skit for the Manteca Jaycees in 1952. Oh my gosh!! I never pictured him doing anything like this.
 But there were moments, years later, when he would say or do something that would make me think he was still a little boy... and his blue eyes would twinkle. I never saw him like this however. I don't remember him ever being a skinny dancer with a blond wig.
 I met him 10 years later, for the first time, and life had settled him down a bit. He was a good father-in-law and always treated me with respect and love. In 1968, in a hospital room, the night I gave birth to his first grandson, he quietly put his head through the doorway and whispered "Thank you." to me. I was scared, hurting and not quite ready for parenthood. Those words made such a difference to me. That was a moment that I will never forget.
He was a good man. He died too young and we all miss him.
So... to see this serious, and sometimes harsh, man dancing in drag at 33 years of age was astonishing, to say the least. He looks like he was having a great time. The Prospector said he kind of remembers his dad doing this, but he was only nine years old at the time and the memory is vague. We all had a good laugh over the photo. It was a moment in the history of Manteca that surely gave some of the town folk a good laugh too.

The weekend is over. I'm kind of tired and have sore feet from dancing (very little) and standing for long periods of time in "fancy" shoes. But it was a great reunion and we all decided that we better not wait another 50 years, for the next get-together, because there might not be anyone left.
We drove home Sunday afternoon and picked up the dogs.
Everything is back to normal. The weather is cooling down, finally, and the fancy duds are back in the closet.
This is us... at the reunion.

 We clean up pretty good, don't we?... for a couple of old, farm folks.

Wordless Wednesday: "The Bean"

Wordless Wednesday: Clouds that look like water

This one's a keeper.

Remember all the veggies that we bought on Sunday at the Farmer's market.

  I said, yesterday, that I wanted to make a vegetable galette with all those tasty little squash that we got at the market and some of my abundant tomatoes from the garden. .
I started with this recipe and made some major changes for lack of  ingredients.

The dough was pretty basic accept that it called for cream cheese. Never did that before, but it sounded good, so I tried it. I did half unbleached all purpose flour and half whole wheat. I also put wine vinegar in the ice water, like my mom always did, and looked it up to see why. Lots of controversy on this and endless discussion on the subject. Some folks even use Vodka. Amazing.  Take a look at this link. I, personally, don't think it matters what you put in the ice water, but I will continue to use wine vinegar because mom always did it and I'm kind of partial to my mother's old recipes. She made excellent pies. Why change something that works. There is one thing I have never done. I don't use LARD, for savory pies, like she did. She never used butter, either, until her neighbor made a pie for us using butter. Then, once in a while, Mom would make a crust with butter. But not often. She always used Crisco.  I like butter in the crust, especially for fruit pies. It's delicious. You have to like what your are cooking or baking. It's too much work to create dishes that you can't tweak to your liking.
I used cottage cheese in the filling because I didn't have any ricotta. I didn't have any mozzarella so I just didn't use any substitute for it at all. I didn't have fresh thyme. I used some dried thyme and added some dried Tarragon too. I layered the sliced squash and then covered them with  thin slices of tomato and topped it all with some olive oil and some hard Irish cheese that I get at Costco.
I always use a whole egg, not just the yolk, to wash the dough with. The rest is up to you.
It turned out beautiful... and RUSTIC. I felt very European and creative.

This Galette is so beautiful and the fragrance in the kitchen is to die for.

This beautiful open vegetable pie and a salad were a wonderful dinner.

I can't tell you how good this was. Do try it.
It makes quite a mess, but you can clean it all up while the Galette is in the oven.
Then sit down and have a glass of wine... and another with dinner.
I think that next time I will use less of the filling and more vegetables, but all the same, it was a great dinner and a wonderful way to use your excess vegetables. This recipe is very adaptable. You can really use any vegetables you want. I forgot the fresh basil. That was almost a sin. Don't forget the basil.
Please try this. It's sooo good.
And remember 9-11 today. Remember how it happen and why. 

A Hudson Hornet and Beer Bread

 I have to act like I don't like things, sometimes. You know... not showing  enthusiasm for something that brings a passionate twinkle to my husband's eye, when I know that it's another really expensive proposition...  so that the Prospector doesn't get any ideas about buying something that will require a lot of money (which we don't have) and will also require WORK. ( That was a run on sentence wasn't it?)  I tried with "other woman", our '38 Chevy. I have to try discouraging this passion in him for OLD CARS or we would have an "vintage car" lot in our driveway and we would be BROKE. I'm not being cruel, I'm being the same way he is when he doesn't get excited about the antique buffet that I want at the local antique store. The one that needs refinishing. The one that will cost twice as much by the time I get through restoring it. I understand passion, I really do, but enough is enough. One old car at a time.
The Prospector may be good at a lot of things, but fixing cars is not one of them. So if we invest in an old car, like "the other woman", it's not just the initial cost of the old car, it's the "restore and make it road worthy" part that becomes a budget breaker.
So today we drove into town to pick up some veggies, garlic and other things at the local Sunday Farmers Market. We went to the hardware store and then, when pulling onto the highway, the Prospector, as if he was being drawn by an invisible rope, turned right instead of left and headed for the Auction House car lot. I should have known what was going on. I should have known that this was about another old car.
This is what he HAD TO CHECK OUT.

It's a 1952 Hudson Hornet.

 It's a very cool car. Reminds me of my old Buick Roadmaster that I drove around in high school.

I like the sun visor over the windows, the real, solid chrome bumpers...

 The very cool hood ornament.

 and the "hornet:" insignia.

 It's a BIG car and it's in beautiful shape.

 We looked. We checked out the price... $8000... and we left.
Sometimes you just have to be brutal about these things. You just start walking back to your own car and don't say anything.
 I actually would have liked to trade the Chevy for this Hudson. It's all done. It's finished, reliable, drivable and... it's BLACK. I love black cars.
So if any of you want an old '52 Hudson Hornet for $8000. please drive up to Jackson, CA. and BUY IT, so we don't have to look at it sitting there... waiting for someone to want it. It would be the right thing to do.

We went to the Farmer's Market and got more vegetables than we needed but that's OK. We will eat them all. There is no tomato shortage, here in the garden, but we needed some good vegetables and fruit for dinners. It's still hot and the tomatoes are still doing their thing.
I think I will make a vegetable galette tonight. Sounds good doesn't it?

Isn't this a bountiful photo. Just makes you want to eat something.

 The bread is a rosemary, walnut beer bread. Oh my... we couldn't resist. My daughter in law baked some bread when I was down in the Bay Area a week ago. It was Ciabatta bread and it was beautiful. I don't make bread, so this was a really treat. When I saw this beer bread I thought about my DHL's bread and found myself buying  the beer bread... just until my grandchildren's mom shows me how to do it myself.

And at the same booth, calling my name, were some raisin, pecan cinnamon rolls. I did exercise some restraint. I only bought two of them. I could have bought the whole pan. Do you think it will help if I take a long hike tomorrow morning BEFORE I eat the cinnamon roll. Do you think that it will balance out the calories? NO? Well... I just thought...

Then we drove down to the Mokelumne River. The water was very high. Lots of water being held back. P,G&E has a power house at the end of Electra Road and they regulate the water that comes down the river. Sometimes it's high and some days it's very low. 

I asked if anyone had seen the PELICAN and a woman, who was fishing from the bridge, said that it hadn't been there for weeks. She said that it turned down a blue gill a few weeks back. Grabbed the fish out of a net, and then dropped it in the river. Guess the Pelican is a trout lover only.  Picky bird.
Hope it comes back. I still want to get some photos of it....maybe, with a trout in its mouth.