I Feel a Blog Post Coming On

And the very first thing I’m going to do is attempt to post that photo I couldn’t quite get right yesterday.

These are my grandbabies – photo taken by the male grandbaby – except they really aren’t babies anymore, are they? They are living in Texas now, and have developed their own busy lives so we don’t get to see them often. They are both heavily involved in Motocross, racing dirt bikes, that sort of thing that makes a gramma hold her breath and pray fervently that they survive. Grandson is also getting into filming these activities and is planning to take some college courses in that area once he gets his first degree in some kind of petroleum engineering (don’t ask me for details – he’s gone to areas about which I have no knowledge). It seems just yesterday he was a five year old and she was a one year old who was telling him to “stop that” – which came out like dot dit or some such thing – and when he did not, she simply punched him and knocked him over. She’s always been a feisty one!

Last night when I took the big furry girls out for their pre-bedtime potty break, I noticed an interesting sky. It was windy and the clouds were scuttling across the moon, so I ran back and grabbed the camera – because what else would one do when the skies are interesting?

I captured what I wanted – but only by resorting to automatic mode which in this case worked just fine. Judy suggested in a comment to a previous post wherein I was lamenting my lack of knowledge regarding aperture/shutter speed that I might try stepping down my aperture. I think I understand that, and I tried it, but obviously I’m going to have to resort to actually studying how the two work together.

And this morning, colored clouds. Exploring the available “scenes” on my camera, found one called “high dynamic” – or was it “high density”? – which had an inner setting called “art”, so I thought “what the heck?” and tried it. To show you how lazy a picture taker I am, I rarely pay attention to the scene settings because it is just so so much easier to put it on intelligent auto. I mean, after all, if the auto setting is an intelligent one, shouldn’t that be sufficient?

I think it odd that I seem to resist studying about camera settings, really learning how to take good pictures, because normally I am very much a “learn by reading instructions” person. It’s that part of my personality that made me a good escrow officer – because escrow is the neutral third party in a real estate transaction that follows written instruction, which instruction is prepared by the escrow officer in accordance with the terms of the contract between two other parties. I suspect my resistance to studying the camera is pure and simple laziness. Perhaps I’ll work to correct that. Or perhaps I’ll be content to stumble along.

This day is cloudy and very windy and feels like a good day to stay inside where it’s not windy and will remain dry in the event the rain showers that are predicted actually arrive. Yesterday I did some raking of pine needles, filling the trailer with piles of them and carrying them out to the burn pile where they could be dispatched quickly to bother us no more. Today the wind is replacing those needles – obviously Mother Nature does not like her ground undecorated. The wind will also test whether my tie-down method of the tarp covering the deck table and chairs was effective. Best to know now, before the snow starts piling up.

So there it is – the blog post that needed to come out – the words that needed to be put down on paper. Except now I don’t really put words on paper. I put words on this screen and then they show up on your screen, and it’s very magical, isn’t it? Back in the day, we would probably be considered witches and burned at the stake. Shivery thought, that!

The pine needles are flying, flaunting themselves in front of me, sticking out their tongues and going “nanny nanny na na”. But I will get my revenge on another day – I am the witch with the fire!