March 16

I have been busy the last few days. Not as busy as I should have been, but busy none the less. I taught two full classes last week, and have another six to go. It feels strange to be teaching, but less intimidating(not the right word) now. This week's classes should be less stressful as I move from doing all the work towards having the class do more writing and focus on their essays. It will still require a great deal of preparation, but I suppose that is normal.

During the last 16 days I have managed to take one photo that qualifies (though some days just barely) as a photo of the day (see link in side bar). Yesterday I got a cool photo of a spider preparing its breakfast. I have seen a few deer, and taken their photos, but I always see them in low light conditions, and as they are moving, so my photos tend to be blurry and poorly lit. I need to figure out how to change that. Maybe if I increase shutter speed, open up the exposure, and use a higher iso? course most times I barely have time to lift the camera to my eyes before the bouncy things have sproinged into the bush. And as the undergrowth greens up (as are many of the trees), the little beggars vanish quickly.

Friday was spent at the arboretum taking photos. Some of the blooming trees and shrubs are magnolia hybrids, flowering apricots (which are beautiful trees, black gnarly bark and stems, but gorgeous red flowers all along the branches length), some kind of autumn cherry or Cleveland cherry (?). If you look at the photo of the day page you will see a guy working one of them street light changing trucks and in behind him are the trees. Part of what makes these trees so spectacular is that they are set up against a gray background. At times it looks like it has snowed, and these branches are covered in the white s**t. They are a hardy tree (zone 4-8) so those of you living in the bleak northern wastes might be able to grow them as well.

I have added some links to some more photo albums at the bottom of these posts, so if you are interested you can go look, but be warned, most of these albums are full of unedited, and at times poorly exposed, photos. But there are also some cute kitty pictures as well, so maybe it all works out in the end?