Tagged with home …

May 11 2008
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Journal

Planting Red Crape Myrtles and a Weeping Willow

Planting Crape Myrtles

Wow, what a busy weekend (including Friday here). We stared off the weekend Friday night with the most wonderful thunderstorm. Since we hadn’t seen any rain here in what feels likes years it was a pleasant site. I took several photos of the lightning, one is in my post, Lightening in the Sky Tonight, and another is just above here. What a great site for an area of the country that hasn’t seen a lot of rain lately.

One of my favorite types of photography, just not one that you can go outside and say, ok, today I am shooting lightning shots. To see the larger version just click on the image above. The bolt actually started out of the top of the clouds in the upper left corner and winded its way to the ground.

Saturday – Trees, Trees, and Trees

Saturday was a pre-Mother’s Day tree planting day. Deborah and I had planned to pick out several Crape Myrtles trees to plant along the driveway (which is about a 1/4 mile long), and a Weeping Willow tree at the end where the driveway turns up to the house.

We went to our local Plant World which usually has a huge selection. They didn’t. There was a great Weeping Willow we would come back to get, but it was off to Lowes (in the rain) to check on the other possibilities. We found 8 red Crape Myrtles that were going to look just great planted on the driveway.

After discovering how hard it was to plant trees in rock hard dry ground we were looking forward to something a little easier. So, off to plant the Azaleas we got on Friday for the walkway. It was a long and exhausting day, but in a few years the driveway should be very pretty. In total, we planted 8 Crape Myrtles, 6 Azaleas, 1 Weeping Willow, and left of bunch for the next day.

Lightning in the Sky

Sunday – Choosing our Words and Some Veggies

Sunday started off about 3am with a wild bit of lightening and then the power went off. Don’t mind right now, but come summer that will be a hot hot night. It was off for about 2 hours, finally came back on right before we got up. Good thing, we are on a well system, so without power, we have no water. We had a wonderful service on Sunday, see Acceptable Words in Your Sight, and tried to spend the day relaxing. What was left the Saturday was to get the Sweet Potatoes in the ground. We picked up about 16 plants on Saturday and had to get them in the ground.

Everything Else

I did receive a bit of new music on Friday. Sort of a strange mix today, but on the list for this batch was:

  • Sting – The Soul Cages
  • Green Day – American Idiot
  • Nickelback – The Long Road

These all came from my music trading pals over at lala. A bit of an administrative note for this blog. I have decided to post a daily digest of my Twitter conversations here on this blog. Simply for me to see what transpired throughout the day. This information will not be posted on any of my other blogs. This week promises to be a busy one with work and a few other things going on in the middle of the week.

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May 05 2008
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Journal

Star Trails Over the House in a Nature Kind of Day

If you are new to my blog, welcome, glad you came by. I usually do a wrap up of the day, called my daily post, and this is it. Not always the most exciting post in the world, but sometimes, days are just normal days.

I try to keep up with a quick daily post for myself as much as anything else. Looking back, I can remember things I never could have remembered before without writing them down. So, in a nut shell, that is what this post is all about.

I took this photo of my house, late last night, so I thought I would go ahead and include it for today’s post. The sky was clear with no moon. First time I have attempted to photograph our house at night, I am sure it won’t be the last (you may have to click on the larger version to see the star trails, if interested).

Please do excuse the boxes on the patio, thanks.

May 5, 2008

Today was a day spent at the office without leaving, which is fine, since I work out of my home. I got pretty much a little of everything done today, but it was mostly work with a little Twitter. Tomorrow will prove to be a very busy day as we take all our processed orders from today into town and do all our various tasks when we hook up with everyone in Auburn/Opelika.

Nature in View

Today was a nature viewing kind of day. It started off with three deer wandering through the pasture and into the pond. They did a nice slow walk all the way across the width of the property and ran off across the road to a graveyard near by.

After they left, we had a very loud pair of Canadian Geese they landed like a bomber without engines into the pond. They managed to take a bath leaving a ton of feathers behind when they left.

I had a headache that just wouldn’t let go so I decided to take an early walk around the perimeter and once back into the deeper part of the woods here I came up onto a Whip-poor-will sleeping in the leaves. I had never seen one before, and apparently they are not easily seen since they are nocturnal.

Seems I was walking in his sleeping area. As I made my second lap he was still up in the trees moving around from branch to branch waiting for me to leave no doubt.

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May 04 2008
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Journal

What is a Patio Without a Fire Pit, Not Much To Us

This weekend was busy but relaxing. Saturday was supposed to be a day for outside tractor work and various yard things we all seem to have to do on the weekend, but, it RAINED. Who’da thunk. We haven’t had rain in the southeast in what seems like years after last summer’s drought (in fact I think it has been a year). It was a nice rain shower and didn’t last long enough to rain out the entire grass cutting day.

The rain did let up enough for us a have a nice fire in our fire pit on the patio. We had this built into the patio when we moved in and we use it all the time. There is something about being able to sit outside around a “camp fire” that makes for a great and relaxing time. We sit around the fire pit on our patio all year round and enjoy it very much. If you don’t have one built into the concrete then you can do what we did before we moved in.

Get an old washing machine tub from a junk dealer (they will gladly give them away) or just dig you a nice whole in the ground and surround it with bricks.  When we were building this house, the fire pit in the patio was one of the must have’s of the house, but really it is just a circle in the concrete.  You would think such a thing would be an easy thing for a builder to get his hands around but nothing seemed to go that way with this house (see the category for house if you are interested).

The photo to the left here is actually a self portrait.  Something I don’t do all that often but I had the camera flat on the ground and used the timer to trigger the shutter.  The photo below is one I took of Deborah later on Saturday night. It is completely dark except for the fire in the fire pit. The image doesn’t show the fire because it would be to bright for the exposure, but you can see the spark trails of the fire just to the right side of her face. I did have her sit a little closer to the fire than she normally would so she was ready to move since her knees were a little warm.

Scott Looking at the Patio Fire Pit

She did real well to sit there through a 15 second exposure without moving. Thanks hun.  It is a little spooky (not Deb of course) with the fire glow as the only light source but I love how it turned out.  If you haven’t tried sitting absolutely still for 15-20 seconds at a time shot after shot after shot, you should try it some time.  Deb did great as a subject with fire on her legs.

Cold Night by the Fire

Sunday, May 4, 2008

We had a very nice service that completed the current series on missions. The rest of our Sunday was spent enjoy one of the most beautiful Spring days here in the lower south. We can now finally eat out on the patio without freezing to death. There is a new moon tonight, and I will try to take a few star trail images and see how they turn out for tomorrow’s post.

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Apr 30 2008
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Journal

Lopi Wood Burning Stove is Still Burning in April

lopi wood burning stove

Wow, today was a busy day of work. I usually wear many “work” hats throughout the day, today was no different, but there was a lot of heavy lifting on my part, mostly from boxes of books.

It started off by my normal reading of all my email and feeds from other blogs and as it would happen sometimes, I came across this really cool idea that ragamuffinsoul had about doing a time lapse of your day, A Day In The Life. Of course, I had to give it a try. I have to say, nothing like his, but it was pretty cool. I may just use it as my “welcome” video I have been putting off doing over and over.

A Fire in the Stove, In April?

The morning was quite cold for down here in the south, almost 40° when we woke up, cold enough that Deborah requested I get my act together and get a fire going in our wood burning stove. Yep, last day of April (in the far south no less) and we had a rip roaring fire. The exhaust temp got up to about 1,000° and the stove top temp about 350°, just about the same as dead of winter. We had the house built with a Lopi Wood Burning stove and we never have to run the heater.

Everything Else

I managed to get in a bit of practice on my E blues scale. I am getting a little faster at it but my bent up little finger on the end is having a hard go at the A blues scale. I am supposed to stretch it out, we’ll see. I was able to learn a nice little accompaniment to Hootie and Blowfish’s Michelle Post. All done pretty much with the g-chord, not to hard. After all that I still managed to get in about a 4 mile walk around the property before I was ready to collapse.

At the last minute I decided to join a small blogger group on Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s that should be good, if I can find the time, and that post is over on d.amasc.us at Vagabond Blogger Small Group, I’m In.

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Apr 16 2008
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Photography

Birmingham Botanical Gardens Cardinal Flower in Bloom

Cardinal Flower in Bloom

Sticking with the Spring feeling outside today, the Image of the Day is a Cardinal Flower, taken in Birmingham Alabama a few years ago.  Birmingham has a very nice botanical gardens and it is always changing.  I would go there to take photographs while I was attending UAB and there was always something new to shoot.  They had at the time some wonderful water lilies that produce a very beautiful bloom and makes for a nice clean background.  This image here was taken a little off the beaten path with a macro lens.

If you ever get a chance to spend some time in Birmingham and are looking for a nice quiet place to shoot, try the botanical gardens right next to the zoo.  I hear even in the winter time there are nice areas that produce some wonderful photographs.

Photo Specifics

  • Body – Nikon n90s
  • Lens – Nikon 105mm Macro
  • Film – Fuji Velvia
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Apr 14 2008
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Journal

A Long Day Coming Home From Dallas is Finally Here

This will be the first of my daily postings for this blog journal. My goal is to publish a quick blurb of each day as it goes by, for at least a year or so, and then be able to look back at the year and see what I did or didn’t get accomplished.  This of course is something that we do on blogs, but today I have created a new category called journal specifically to write some of the daily happenings in and around my life.

a Long Time Coming Home From Dallas

georgia christal

Today was the first day back at the house after being gone, for what seemed like forever, and it was a very busy day. Deborah and I have been in Dallas to stay with her mom in the hospital. It was probably one of the hardest weeks both of us have had in a while and we left after the funeral / memorial service for her mom was over. We will both miss her mom greatly and she has meant a great deal to both of us over our life time.  I am going to create a journal, called My Life in Europe, of her memoirs from her life in France and Germany as a way for me to remember her life.

Most of today was spent trying to catch up with various things after being gone for 10 days. Hordes of email to go through and time to make another to-do list for the day. First priority for me today was to finish some work for a client that I had to put off while we were in Dallas. Work completed, it was time to pick up the dog, Blazer, at the vet, get the mail, get some of the basic needed supplies at Wal-Mart and head back home. On my way out, our book supplier called to tell me that had an unexpected two truck loads of books and they needed to drop them off at the house. Just in time, since we have finally removed some of the boxes from the house. They were delivered while I was running around in town. Two to three pallets of books, enough to fill the entire living room. Deb had to bring them all in from the driveway since it was about to rain, she got her exercise in for the day.

Time for Orders and Music

The mail had a large assortment of CD’s I had traded and ordered before we left. This was nice and I have a good bit of new music to go through over the week. Delivered today was:

  • Johnny Cash – The Essential 1955-1983 Box Set
  • Phil Keaggy – 220
  • Billy Joel – All My Life
  • Harry Chapin – The Gold Medal Collection
  • The Mamas & the Papas – California Dreamin
  • Mark Knopfler – Golden Heart
  • Vanessa Carlton – Be not Nobody
  • The Church – Starfish
  • Moody Blues – The Best of the Moody Blues
  • Yes – The Big Generator
  • Collective Soul – Blender
  • Nirvana – Nevermind

Quite a mix and collection for the week. Usually I add a few to the collection each week but this week was a bonanza of music. I did decide while in Dallas that I needed to start archiving my images in a more direct way, along with slides and old photos from my extended family, so I picked up an Epson Perfection V500 Photo scanner. No time to unpack but when I can get to it I will enjoy getting, what I am sure is thousands upon thousands of images, into a digital format.

I managed to get in a little guitar practice today, not much, but enough for me to remember the three chords I was trying to learn before we left. Took a small but nice walk in the cold rain. Only did 3 laps (about 2 miles) but it was nice to get back into my routine of walking each day. I was able to walk back and see what the logging of the trees looked like. This started while we were gone and is continuing, what seems like in our back yard.

Last but not least I was able to get all the orders printed, no small task with about 70 book orders waiting for our return. All in all a very busy day. Tomorrow will be another busy day, and a trip into town for work and dinner.

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Nov 21 2007
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Journal, Sidenotes

First Bald Eagle Sighting at Our Place in Auburn Alabama

I had the first Bald Eagle sighting over our property today. A drought stricken pond gave up one of its last remaining fish for this Eagle, a magnificent sighting for here.  I had been looking for raptors on the property since we moved in but the most common one is the Red Tail Hawks (and a variety of other hawks) that seem to like to hang around our bird feeders and pick off the ones that hit the window or some other problem.  Not the Bald Eagle.  He only wanted the fish and quickly flew off.

I took this photo here of a Bald Eagle at an Auburn football game.  This is Spirit, one of Auburn’s Bald Eagles, but he looked just like this out here at our little pond.  I am working on a list of wildlife seen on our property. So far, a home for several families of Fox Squirrels, a Fox, Coyote, Armadillo, deer, Re-tail Hawk, Coopers Hawk, Kestrel Hawk, Bald Eagle, and a large number of species of feeder birds.

What does this have to do with faith… well… God made all the creatures of the Earth, right.

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Nov 14 2007
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Journal

Home Invasion or Plague of Ladybugs Has Arrived

I love ladybugs (or as Scott refers to them, manbugs). However, this is ridiculous! There are millions of them on every window, inside and out. This was the best shot I could get, but trust me, they are everywhere. On the bright side, we had NO mosquitoes this year so this is a wonderful alternative!

When I was little, and I found a ladybug, it was customary to release it after making a wish. Somewhat like blowing all the seeds off of a dandelion. Man, if that really worked, I could have anything and everything today!!

We have started to suck them up with a shop vac and slowly deposit them out in the yard somewhere but that just isn’t going to do it at this point.  There really are just hundreds and hundreds of these lovely little lady bugs and they can creep and crawl into any tiny little crack anywhere and they are covering our bathroom and bedroom which are outside walls in the house.  They are cute, but this is a little rediculous.

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Jun 20 2007
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Journal

Taking the First Amature Radio Test, What a Ham

I took my Ham Radio license exam, Technician class, about three weeks ago and passed on the first try (thank goodness). We have been waiting for my call sign to be issued and now it is official, I can finally use on the air KI4WLR.  I installed another antenna on the house and now we are just trying to figure out the first radio to purchase so I can put this new license to good use. The house is beginning to look like a NASA station of some sort. I can’t wait until we put up the tower. That should be a blast.

Along with the antenna installation we went ahead and got an ICOM 2-meter band radio to start off with.  The range of the 2-meter with the antenna installed seems to be very good so far.  We have been able to listen to people from north Alabama over to Atlanta and into Mississippi.  The 2-meter antenna sits pretty high on our property.  Our house is one of the highest points, the roof line itself is almost at the tree line, then add a 20 foot mast and the range from here is quite astounding (to me).

Don’t know what’s next but I am looking forward to the ride.

Ham Radio Test

Scott with Ham License

Antenna

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May 06 2007
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Journal

Installing a Ham Discone Radio Antenna on the Roof

Don't fall!!

This Saturday we installed what is to be the first of several radio antennas on the roof of our house. I climbed to the top of the roof and mounted the mast and antenna while Deb ran around on the ground fetching tools and lending moral support. After it was installed we went into attic to retrieve and feed the wiring from the antenna on the roof down the inside of the wall of his office and then out at the base of the wall by an electrical outlet. Hot doesn’t even begin to describe the temperature in the attic in the summer in Alabama.  It had to be something in the order of 130*F or more.

The hole saw’s that we own have been used for years and are quite lousy so after fighting with the hole drilling for a while we decided to bring out the big guns. I retrieved the new sledge hammer and it did the trick. Now the scanner is working great with the new antenna installed. It does look a bit sci-fi though.  This antenna is called a Ham Discone Radio antenna and I am going to be using it with his Radio Shack Pro-2052 (dual truncking) scanner until I get a 2-meter ham radio, probably an ICOM 2-meter radio.

Check out the view from up here.

Don’t fall!!

Installed

Can’t wait to see what configuration the next one has. Hopefully it will be a little cooler the next time we try this.  The heat was just incredible today and I probably lost 10 pounds just trying to feed the wires through the attic into my office.  This antenna can now be seen quite a ways off, maybe we can use it some day to put Christmas lights up with a star on top, you will be able to see it from Birmingham.

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