HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

For quite a few years now, my sister-in-law and her husband, Mary and Richard Smith, have been sending me santas at Christmas-time so that now I have a fairly good-sized collection. That's where the picture above came from. I took it during the holidays last year. It's quite a nice group now, don't you agree?


A WALK AROUND THE LAKE

Dickie and I occasionally take our morning walk through a nearby gated community that boasts a couple of large lakes that accommodate quite a number of waterfowl, including Canadian geese, assorted ducks, an occasional cormorant, three swans, and every now and then a blue heron. I've made a run at the heron on several occasions. It often surprises me and flies away before I am ready with my camera. Last week was no exception in that regard, but I had my long lens and managed to pick him up from the other side of the lake. He's a fairly large bird, as is evident in the picture below when you compare him to the mallard.







WEB SITES FOR POSTING PICTURES

I have several sites that I normally use to post photos for the internet. One of the best I've ever run across is Flickr.com. That's what I used in the santa claus photo above. Another decent place to post and share pictures is Photobucket. I used that site to link the heron picture. You can double-check that yourself by right-clicking on the picture and then clicking on "Properties" in the dialog box that comes up. You'll see the address of the picture in the middle of the next box. Of course, one can also upload pictures straight to this Blogger.com site, but Blogger cuts the picture down to what I'm sure they consider a more reasonable size. That doesn't always please me. I like the larger display most of the time.


CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

Our town green here in Windsor is all lit up at night during the holiday season. All the lights are white and make for a pretty sight. I took some pictures up there the other evening. Here's one of the tree that is decorated with silver balls and icicles and this time I am using Photobucket:





We have a house at the end of our street that usually rivals every other one when it comes to the number of Christmas lights and decorations. This year is no exception. Take a look:



Have a great holiday yourself. See you later!

MARKING TIME IN NOVEMBER

COMPANY

Dickie and I are expecting company this week. Her sister, Mary, and husband, Richard Smith, will be arriving on Thursday to spend a few days with us before they travel on down to Arizona to celebrate Thanksgiving with their daughter, Margaret, and her family. We don't get together all that often, since Mary and Richard live in Belleville, Illinois, so it promises to be a real treat. Hopefully, we'll be able to show them a bit of the fall countryside here in Sonoma County, if the sunshine prevails.

WINERIES, VINYARDS, AND FALL COLORS

According to the Sonoma County Tourism Bureau, there are now some 200 wineries in Sonoma County. One doesn't have to go very far in any direction to find one. Dickie and I have driven out to Alexander Valley several times in recent week to feast on the changing colors in the vineyards. Here's a sample of what we've seen:



One of the wineries we've visited recently is the Field Stone Winery near the end of Chalk Hill Road. It's about a ten-mile trip, but it's worth it. I took this next shot looking south from the winery. I didn't notice the little bird resting on a twig in the center of the picture until I got home and enlarged the photo, but I thought it was a nice touch:





The other day after one of our fall rains, I spotted a flock of sparrows bathing in the puddles at the local park. This little fellow let me get close enough to catch his reflection in the water:




One thing I’ve always liked about this part of the world is the fact that flowers bloom all year round. At the entrance to the gated community here in Windsor there is a bed of poppies that are flourishing just at the moment. That’s where I took this next picture:




ANOTHER NEW CAMERA

By the time you read this, I hope to be the proud possessor of a Canon 400D SLR. I’ve been intrigued by its specifications. It’s not a large upgrade from my present Canon 350D which our daughter, Gretchen, is taking off my hands. Gretchen is a good photographer and has taken some stunning photos on her hikes in Yosemite. I posted one of her winners last July. Here’s another one of her shots that won her a “Picture of the Day” this past summer:




That’s it for today.

WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN

I can't thank my high school English teacher enough for asking me to memorize James Whitcomb Riley's autumn poem that began with the line above. I can still recite most of it by heart, although I learned a different version from the one available here:

http://www.bartelby.net/104/10.html

This is a great time of year, with the air so often crisp and cool and leaves on the trees turning all kinds of beautiful colors. Thank goodness, we have that experience to some extent here in northern California, too.

I've managed to document it with my trusty camera a time or two lately. Here's a shot I took the other day, just around the corner from our house. It was good enough to win Picture of the Day on DigicamPlus.com:

LAKE SONOMA

The other day Dickie and I decided to vary our routine (a morning walk in the neighborhood) and we drove up the Dry Creek Valley north of Windsor and Healdsburg to the Ferrari-Carano Winery and then on up to a little roadside park that overlooks Lake Sonoma. It was there that I took this photo of a flowerbed that was flourishing there:















Dickie got the best shot of the lake. She pretends to be a complete novice, but she's actually quite good with a camera. Here she was using my Olympus C-750:
















Don't know about you, but Dickie and I are getting our fill of major league baseball right now, especially with the St. Louis Cardinals doing quite well in the playoffs. That's why I have to quit now. It's about time for the ballgame!

An Experiment

This is Christmas with the Schmidt's several years ago. Just wanted to see if I could do it.



That's it!

WELCOME SEPTEMBER

With young people headed back to school and old sol headed lower on the horizon, we’ve come once more to the cooler part of the year. Well, it probably won’t be real cool around here for a while yet, but the heat of the summer is mostly past and, with a little help from the sprinkler, our lawn should return to its customary green color; although, our tomato vines are about ready for the trash heap at this point. Those tomato vines have given us much pleasure in the last two months, especially from their production of those little yellow cherry types that taste better than candy. I took this shot back when they were still looking great:



Camera Go Bust

Did I mention that I’m in withdrawal? I tried to clean the dust from my Canon SLR and wound up ruining the sensor. At least, I think that’s what I did. As I write this, I’m still anxiously waiting for the verdict on it from a Canon repair technician in Irvine, California. Hopefully, it is not beyond repair!!! Meantime I’m back to using my Olympus point and shoot. This Olympus C-750 really isn’t a bad camera, but it’s not the Cadillac of camera bodies either and I can’t wait to get back to the SLR.


A Walk Around Town

Dickie and I tried something different for our morning walk today. We drove up to the town green and walked around that new part of town, getting better acquainted with some of the local shops. Among other things, we visited a nice little kitchen-ware shop where Dickie picked up an egg coddler she’s been wanting for a while. I am not personally acquainted with how big the tourist trade is in that new area of our town. Some shops have come and gone rather quickly, but others seem to be thriving. The new construction has a lot of eye-appeal. Here’s a couple shots I’ve taken in that part of town recently:








My “Mustard in the Vineyard” Photo Wins Again

Back in March of this year I posted a photo that won me a “Picture of the Day” at azcolt.com. You can still see it here in my blog if you scroll back down far enough. Alternatively, you can take a look at the web site of our local Sonoma County Tourism Bureau where they liked the photo enough to make me the winner of their summer contest. Here’s the URL: http://www.sonomacounty.com/photo.aspx . The winning prizes included a limousine trip through the wine country, a gift certificate to a local restaurant and this fancy new camera bag below. I left the coffee mug there to give you an idea of its size. Now all I need is a sherpa to carry it for me!:




So much for now.

AUGUST

Here we are in the middle of August and I still haven't made an entry in my blog. Well, actually, I did, but I deleted it. Can't recall why anymore. It was causing some kind of a problem. Whatever, here I go again.

AROUND THE WORLD

Now I remember! I found this site recently where a person could check off the countries he/she had visited and it would display a map with the visited countries marked in red. Unfortunately, the site seems to go up and down, so it didn't always display. That's why I took it off again. In any case, I found that I had visited only 16% of the countries of the world (there are some 225 or 230, depending on what you count as a country) and it looks like I won't get to all of the rest in this lifetime. What I have seen of this planet was worth it though. Some fellow by the name of Frysinger (from Wisconsin) claims to have visited 169 countries by 2002. I guess that makes him the champ, although my brother, Ralph, and his wife, Ilse, can't be far behind. You can check out the site at: http://www.world66.com/myworld66/visitedCountries , if you'd like to do your own calculations.


PELICANS AND A HERON

Dickie and I drove out to Bodega Bay recently and I got a chance to snap a few shots of the brown pelikans that are presently visiting our part of the world. They come by the hundreds and line the banks, waiting for the fishing boats to return so they can catch a meal. Here's what it looks like:

Looks like that's it for this time. I can't get any more pictures to upload, since blogger is being finicky at the moment. I'll try again later.

Or maybe not. There is always a way to beat this game. I wanted to post the picture below. It's a heron that I discovered fishing on a local lake here in Windsor the other day. He/she cuts a fine figure, don't you think?:

Okay, that's all I've got today.

Hummingbird

Hummingbird
Originally uploaded by zampi.

Took this shot the other day. The hummingbirds were really humming in this mimosa tree. They obviously loved the blossoms and kept buzzing me as I took their pictures.

JULY

BACKPACKING IN YOSEMITE

It's not something I'm up to at this point in life, but our daughter, Gretchen, loves hiking and makes, at least, an annual trek to Yosemite. She recently spent the better part of a week hiking there and got some incredible pictures. This one won her a "Picture of the Day" at www.azcolt.com today. You can find it there in the "archives" for July 8, 2006, if you want to see a larger version:

A GROUSE

Gretchen also got this shot of a grouse doing a little puffer dance when she came too close to its young. I've never seen one in the wild, but they are definitely a pretty sight:

AFRICA

My brother, Ralph, and his wife, Ilse, just came back from a trip to Africa where they saw their share of wild life - lions, cheetahs, giraffes, elephants, hippopotamuses - you name them, they saw them. Here are a couple samples:

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CLOSER TO HOME

My own picture-taking has been limited to the nearer environment lately. Here's a shot I got in Mary and Christopher's garden the other day:

So much for this day! See you soon!

JUNE

GRADUATION

This is graduation month and our family has its share of graduates. Our grandsons, Jonathan Zweig and Jesse Schmidt, are graduating from high schools here in the West. Our granddaughter, Claire Schmidt, is graduating from high school on the East Coast. It's a great time and we wish them all the best as we celebrate their achievements.




ROSES AND TOMATOES

With the allergy season still in full bloom around here, perhaps it isn't the best thing to be surrounded by roses, but there's no denying their beauty. Dickie and I are blessed with some beautiful climbers on our back fence. Here's a sample:





I promised everyone occasional updates on our progress with the barrels of tomatoes in our back yard. Maybe I do have a green thumb! Here's a comparison from last month to this. As you can see, we're making steady progress. Should have ripe tomatoes by the end of the month:





THAT KILLDEER NEST

Our killdeers are still nesting on the local schoolgrounds. The did move several feet from where they had been nesting in the rocks. Now their nest is in the bark adjacent to the rocks. We had a hard time locating this nest at first, although it's only about five or six feet from the sidewalk where everyone traipses past. I don't know how those birds manage, except that they're so hard to see, and most people who pass by probably don't even notice them. Here's what it looks like at present. There were four eggs up until a couple days ago, but now there are only three. Hatching time should be about next week:





DAY LILIES

They say that the pollen in the air these days comes mostly from the grasses. Hopefully, such beauties as this are not among the culprits that plague us. However, they're certainly in full bloom, too, and plentiful:






THE VINEYARD

Vineyards have a beauty all their own. Something else they have is an abundance of wild life. We see quail and jack rabbits almost every time we walk past our local vineyard lately. Here's a jack that kept a wary eye on us this morning:




THOSE WOODSTOCK STATUES

I'm still making forays into Santa Rosa to look for Woodstock statues. With 76 of them to locate, I expect to be busy for a while yet. So far I've captured some 22 of them on my camera smart card. Here are a couple I found the other day:






More again some other day!

MEMORIAL DAY

It's a holiday weekend and parades abound. Dickie and I drove up to Healdsburg last evening to see what was happening there. It was quite an affair. We never did get the head of the parade, but we saw plenty of flags:





There were lots of horses, too, most of them with riders, but some of them pulling a variety of coaches:




I'm not sure who this fellow was supposed to be, but he looked mysterious:




There were plenty of old cars. This one struck my fancy:




Of course, the fire department was out in force. This vehicle may be a bit ancient, but it still cuts a fine figure:




Some of the horses were quite goodlooking. Here's a pair that looked especially powerful:




These mules struck my fancy, too. I think their ears are bigger than mine:




It's always great to view the costumes. These young beauties certainly enhanced the scene:



There were a variety of smaller animals in the parade, too. These dachshunds seemed to enjoy the show:




The military was there as well. This young Navy gal took the cake:




It was a great parade. Hope you saw one, too!




THE SUMMER OF WOODSTOCK

Last year the City of Santa Rosa, home of the late Charles Schultz, the cartoonist, sponsored the erection of Snoopy statues all around the town. This summer the theme is "Woodstock" and 76 statues of that little yellow friend of Snoopy have been placed in selected areas around town. Dickie and I sought out a couple of them the other day. We hope to find the rest as the days and weeks pass. Here's what two of them looked like:







ANOTHER QUILT

Dickie and her quilting buddy, Nadine Heppell, have been working away at a couple of new quilts. Both quilts look alike. Here's what one of them looked like spread out on our livingroom floor. Nadine and Dickie have entered it in a local Santa Rosa quilt show in the month of June. You can see it there:

ON OUR DAILY WALKS

We're still out there on our walking routine as often as we're able. We travel a variety of routes. One of them takes us out to the vineyards where I took the picture of the mustard plants back at the end of March. You can look at it again by scrolling on down this blog. The vineyards look quite different now. Here'e approximately the same scene as back on March 28. As you can see, the vines are leafed out and, though you can't tell it in the picture, the grapes are growing:



Something else we still see on our daily walks along the vineyard are the woodpeckers. I caught these two ignoring the "high voltage" sign the other day:



This young green-eyed damsel in the white dress got in the way of my camera lens the other day, too:



And that's it for May!

MAY DAYS

I think I have the May Days' malaise, if there is such a thing. I know I should be making an entry in this blog of mine, but I can't seem to find anything worth saying. Sometimes, under those circumstances, it's better just not to say anything!

However, throwing caution to the winds, I'll make a stab at another blog today.

Dickie and I planted some tomatoes in a barrel in the backyard about two weeks ago now. They're coming along fine. Here's what they look like today:




Just for the fun of it, I'll put up a picture here with each new blog so you can see what green thumbs we have (or not!). They're supposed to bear fruit in about 62 days. Since we planted them on April 28, that means we could have tomatoes by June 28. We'll see!

Our climbing roses took a hit this spring. I think the frost got to them just as they were beginning to leaf out. They look like they're recovering now. The roses bloomed, as you can see in the background of the tomato picture above, but there were hardly any leaves at first. They're just beginning to leaf out again at this point.

We do have a pretty good stand of poppies in the back yard now from some seeds Dickie strewed a year or two ago. Poppies will grow anywhere in this part of the world. They multiply quickly, too. I think, if we let them, they'll take over the backyard. Here's what ours look like today:





THE MOON

I took some pictures of the moon in the early evening the other day. I like to see what kind of a picture I can get with my longest lens. This was in broad daylight. The moon is not quite full yet, but it's getting there (this coming Saturday). Here's what it looked like yesterday (May 9) at about 7:10 P.M.:





DWARF FROGS

Until recently, I had never seen a drawf frog, and I still don't know anything about them, but I did get some pictures of one last Sunday out at the ocean side. This one was hopping around on the deck of a house we were visiting in Dillon Beach. My daughter, Mary, furnished the fingers:




Speaking of dwarves, the hummingbirds that usually visit our backyard have not showed up recently. We're not sure what happened. The hummingbirds are still around. We know that. This fellow was sitting in the top of a tree we passed on our morning walk the other day:




JUST US

Guess that's enough for today. We're enjoying the beautiful spring weather. It's great to sit outside and bask in the sunshine. Here's us doing just that: