Happy Friday! My dirt is coming! My dirt is coming!

LOL! Oxborrow is delivering my garden soil and decomposed granite today ~ asked them to give me a call here at work before they deliver so I can get home by the time they get there.

Am getting 3 cubic yards of Double Mix (topsoil and grape compost) and 3 cubic yards of D.G. 5/16″ (coarse). Have my wheelborrow and shovel ready!

Well have to go shopping for seeds and some plants afterwards. List has been made:

Here’s a picture of where it’s all going ~

Soil in the boxes ~ decomposed granite all around the boxes where the dirt is now. It’s going to be nice not having dirt all over the patio when the wind blows. Tired of sweeping out there all the time! I was going to get the fine D.G., but the lady at the counter asked what it was going to be used for. Told her and she suggested the coarse as the fine is like sand. She said that the coarse D.G. is what everyone uses in their xeri-scape landscaping. Small pebble size, like your pinky finger nail. I plan on using it in the front yard where I’ve been re-landscaping too.

ALSO! Wanted to remind everyone in the Reno/Sparks area that the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension office will be holding their:

ANNUAL MASTER GARDENER PLANT FAIRE next Saturday, May 17th, 2008 at 7:00 am to 11:30 am. 5305 Mill Street, Reno, NV. 784-4848.

From our gardens to your’s at great savings! Wide variety of annuals, perennials, vegetables, herbs, grasses, shrubs, grapes and more. 4-inch and 1-gallon plants.

Here is a link to their Calendar of Events.

Bullock’s Orioles in Washoe Valley, Nevada

On that fieldtrip we took to Washoe Valley we thought the bird we saw a Western Tanager…but after looking closely at my sister’s pictures, it’s a Bullock’s Oriole. Am posting two of her pictures of the birds and one of their nests that I took.

Photographs from the Mark Vollmer Fieldtrip to Washoe Valley

Well ~ Saturday we all met up at TMCC’s Meadowood building and carpooled down to the south end of Washoe Valley. Our first stop (besides Wendy’s so Colleen could buy a hamburger) was the wildlife viewing area with the boardwalk.

Very windy (what’s new for Washoe Valley, eh?!) down there. Not much to see but blackbirds ~ both red-winged and yellow-headed. You can’t see far into the lake from the viewing platform unless you have a telephoto lens that goes to as least 200mm…mine only goes to 72mm. So I took lots of fence pictures ~

We saw a flock of pelicans towards the enterance of Washoe Valley State Park so three of us headed back to see if they were still there. Parked at the trailhead of Deadman’s Creek trail and walked over to state park. No pelicans, but there was a redtail hawk sitting in her nest, who flew off once we were close enough for pictures. The bugger. I walked down to the beach while my sister and mom stayed under a couple of bird nest. Colleen got GREAT photos of a Western Tanager…and continued to get great pictures while teasing me with none.

We then went back to the trailhead to wait for the rest of the group ~ took a few pictures in the bottom part of the trail. Figured out the stupid macro on my camera there.

Lots of Phlox, Indian Paintbrush and Alpine Lupine on the way up to the top and at the top where the gazebo is. Sunset wasn’t that great, but pretty none-the-less.

And here’s a picture of Mark Vollmer setting up his shot of the sunset ~

DESERT IN BLOOM SLIDESHOW ~ I put most of my pictures (I took over 200 so I’ve narrowed it down some) onto my webshot’s album ~ I’m nv_michelle there.

All photos taken with a Canon Powershot S2 IS.

Front & Back Yard Gardening ~ Roses are in!

I took yesterday off work to work in my yard…wanted to finish up the front side-yard and my FIL came over to help me ro-do the raised garden beds.

THE ROSES ~ almost didn’t get my English Roses! G&G Nursery had a run on them over the weekend and there were only two Hansa’s left and a few David Austin Roses.

I bought a Weeks Roses Hansa ~ bred in 1905. Medium-tall/bushy round shrub that is suitable for growing in pots and hedges. Tolerant of poorer soils. Ornamental value of hips/large fruit. Very fragrant ~ spicy cloves. Large, full reddish-violet blooms. Very hardy and disease free.

In the ground ~ and a stock photo.

The Squire ~ a David Austin English Rose. The large double blooms of this rose are a deep rich dard red. The attractive strong fragrance of this wonderful cutting rose is a welcome addtion to your garden or bouquets. These roses are a wonderful combination of old world charm and new advancements in rose culture. They will help create a wonderful English Garden feel in your landscape and are excellent for bedding and hedges. Superb border plants.

They look great! Can’t wait for them to grow, grow, GROW! I did a jig out there on the lawn after mulching and watering!

Now onto backyard ~ I decided to take the top boards off of the raised bed as it was just way too deep. My FIL came over yesterday morning and we whacked the crap out the top boards (5 nails each side into a treated 4×4 ~ OY!)…took us a while but we were able to pry them off. We then made a 6×6 box and a small 18″x18″ for a tomato box. We left a nice walk way in between the raised garden beds and will put DG around the beds. Now I have to call Oxborrow and order the double or triple mix of topsoil/grape compost/organic lite.

Now the beds are 5′x12′x1′ and 6′x6′x1′ ~ Soon to be planted ~ tomatoes, peppers, sugar peas, bush beans, potatoes, onions, garlic, corn, zucchini, yellow squash, pumpkin, lettuce. Near the corn I’m going to plant a couple of rhubarb plants and maybe some asparagus.

Capture Desert’s Spring Colors Workshop ~ Mark Vollmer

Last night was our class lecture and the highlights were:

* Class overview & introductions
* Opening multi-media slide show
* Slide show lecture: how natural light and compositional elements such as lines, patterns and colors come together to make pleasing spring photographs.
* Depth of field discussion
* Slide show lecture: how to use knowledge of lighting and composistional techniques to bring your emotions onto your image

Improving Your Photos:

1. Seeing Like Your Camera ~ Film nor a memory card can see details in light and dark at the same time with the same clarity of our eyes. Exposing for shadows tend to wash out bright areas just as exposing for sunlight will darken shadows. To compensate for this problem, expose the key part of the frame…since the main subject is normally at least 60% of the frame, expose for that most important highlight.

2. Realizing Your Vision ~ Mark states that the Goal of Photography is translating what moves us about a scene into a photograph. “A successful image resembles the feeling we had at the time. If someone views our photo and reacts with the same emotions that we had when we saw the scene, then the photo works”. Achieving this goal involves two processes:

A. Focusing our senses before focusing the camera. Smell, touch, taste, hearing ~ these four senses combine with sight to heighten our awareness with our surroundings and our creativity as photograhers.

B. With knowledge of lighting, design elements, intuitive use of the Guideline of Thirds, and awareness of how the camera will render the scene, we can successfully transfer our emotions into the image. Practice, Practice, Practice!

The class lecture brought a lot of new ideas along with jarring out what I already knew, but seemed to have filed away as I use digital now. It certainly has me thinking I should go buy an old 35mm camera, I don’t think I would even know where to look for the one I had over 15 years ago!

I have a Canon PowerShot S2 IS digital camera now. It’s a great little camera that I can shoot limited manual if I wanted to. It has all speeds, but the apetures only go from 2.7 - 8.0 ~ I wish it would go to at least 16.0. I can also buy different camera lenses, the lense now is a Canon Zoom Lense 12X 6.0-72.0mm. Maybe one that shoots to 200mm would be nice.

Washoe Valley, south end of lake looking north. 7/2006.

Tomorrow we are going to Washoe Valley for our field shoot. Looks like we’ll be going to the south end of the lake to the birding area where the boardwalk trail is. Then off to Deadman Creek Trail and hike up to the gazebo. I’m hoping that the Bald Eagles will be out for the photo shoot!

I’ll post pictures over the weekend!

Link to more trails out in Washoe Valley.

Ending with two quotes Mark had on his handouts ~

“To become a better nature photographer, one must first become a better naturalist.” - John Hendrickson

“The true voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” - Marcel Proust

Copper Hammering and Photography Class

It’s Thursday…and I have my photography class tonight through Truckee Meadows Community College. Capture Desert’s Spring Colors ~ taught by Mark Vollmer. Can’t wait. The field trip is on Saturday…wonder where we’re going to go take pictures!?

I’ve been having lots of fun hammering and wire wrapping copper during the evening this week. Decided to practice on copper as it’s much cheaper than sterling silver…will wait to work with that wire.

All of my soldering tools are outside in the backyard shed/tool shop, and I haven’t had any desire to go out there at night so I’ve been sticking to wire wrapping the pendents. After hammering, beading and wrapping I put them in a tupperware with LOS (Liver of Sulphur) for oxidizing.

Here is what I’ve done so far ~