Both of us are sore from yardwork. You know we pulled up the lawn, and you’ve seen photos of the water feature in the front over on Jane’s site. Well, facing that we set Jane’s early birthday present, a yard swing, so she can sit in the shade out there and watch the traffic and the fountain, and the wildlife, when we get our plantings established.
Well, we had to level the area where the swing would be, then cover it in weedcloth, then cover it in mulch, then move the swing onto it, pin it down, then try to straighten up the surrounding territory, as our maze of mulched sunken paths and sunken ‘dry’ streambed of rocks and gravel becomes a clearer pattern in our design. One of our major features is the the path that will let us get the trash from the back door to the front curb—not too elegant a need, but definitely a necessity. That bin gets heavy!
We are also thinking of submerging the front walk in mulch, because the concrete is so fractured.
We’re going to set some low bushes, build a retraining wall—the spendiest part of our operation—and figure out what we can plant in the way of trees without obscuring the view from the front window, or our neighbors’ window. We plan a pink dogwood, and we’re moving one of those hemlocks to the front/side which would be a good place for it to shade our roof, ultimately. We have some red-twig dogwood, a bush, and various other things like iris which are going to be all over.
We would have had pix of the swing construction, but my camera died on the cruise, and since it’s under a 90 day return policy from Costco, it’s getting returned, bigtime. It started out being Jane’s camera, then my birthday present, and right now we’re just thinking we’re going to get something else than a Cybershot [Sony], because this breakdown is not a good advertisement for this camera. I have another in mind.
It’s one real good reason to get things from Costco. They are very good about returns, and this is as good a reason for returning something as I can think of. It was doing fine and normally on the cruise, and just started dying—then got to where it won’t do anything but turn on and cycle its lens over and over and complain [onscreen] about its battery. Some sort of switch probably died.
Was it a high pressure front? Those ARE killers if you’re sensitive to such swings in barometric pressure (I’m not, so I need a barometer to tell me the difference).
Dark room, horizontal position, eyes closed, put on some relaxation music, whatever, to help get over that headache.
Jane on a yard swing, I was visualizing one of the playground swings and can just see her out on the front lawn waving to everyone who drives by, “Look at me!”.
Nope, a very serene, reading-book sort of swing. 😉 Well, rain is coming. So that will help. 😉
Sometimes an ice pack directly on the point of pain seems to works better than analgesics. Headaches are the absolute pits! 🙁
Hope this is not a three day ordeal for Jane.
CJ, in re: the camera, if it is a pocket camera you’re looking for, I can heartily recommend a Canon Powershot A1000 (10MP) or A1100 (12MP). I have had my A1000 for about 2 years now and have been very impressed. Its image quality is sufficient enough that you can print a photo into poster size (24X36 or larger) with excellent quality. It’s what a friend of mine calls a “PHD camera”, where PHD = Push Here, Dummy, butit has sufficient features to keep most anyone happy. Cost would be ~$125.
I just got a canon powershot the 10 x zoom one SX 120. I had a lumix but I got fed up with being so wide-angled back from everything – which is very useful, of course. this is nothing like so wideangled and you can really zoom in and catch boats the other side of the estuary from the saltmarsh and stuff like that – also it has a nice video function, so far I actually find best for quite close-up – got a nice little clip of a red admiral butterfly feeding on my echinacea it’s no good with the zoom as it can only use the digital zoom and you just get “out of focus” film! (that is, I do, so far) also it uses ordinary A4 batteries, and the recharger I got to use with it just died – very annoying – but that’s not the camera’s fault. it has a huge screen and is much easier to use without my reading glasses that the other small cameras I have had, also as you already have an EOS, as I do, everything on it is pretty familiar. it’s like a scaled-down EOS in some ways. but quite a lot bigger than my old mini-camera, the lumix. I would not get a lumix again for another reason – the dreaded grey blob, which started out when I dropped it – then multiplied, and I was for ever photoshopping it out of the skies in my pics .. I googled it and found that others had had the same problem.
I have a Canon Powershot S5 IS. I bought it so I could shoot my work in the studio. Sometimes it’s a little big when traveling, but I do like the pics it takes. Since 35mm film days I have only used Canon and Minolta so those are the brands I lean toward. 8)
A camera maven once told me that although he generally favored Sony, he did not like their camera and car stereo equipment.
What I would like/need now is a PHD that is waterproof. My neighbor just dropped his in his little pond trying to photograph a kingbird. 🙁
I hope Jane is fully recovered from her headache. 😉
Hope your camera woes are being resolved. 😉
Thanks for the recommendation. Oooh, for water damage!
And Jane perseveres. I think it’s ragweed. Xyrtec helps.
Lots of us Canon Powershot folks. I have the SD790 IS digital and it ROCKS. I can’t remember how much it was ($200?), but when I tested it in the store, it could take a clear shot of the card detailing the features (distance 8 inches) and a clear shot of the banners on the other side of the store (300 ft). And it’s small enough to fit in your pocket. (PHD – snerk! And exactly what I needed. I have a Leica too, and it keeps refusing to take a picture because I’m too stupid a photographer to understand what it wants.)
Worth checking out DPReview.com – – probably the best camera site on the web. Their reviews are amazingly detailed and exhaustive and they recently did a group test on the superzoom market segment.
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/Q110superzoomgroup/
I ended up with the Canon Powershot SD940 IS, and have my fingers crossed. Costco made no fuss about taking back the thoroughly screwed-up Sony Cybershot. I haven’t been able to take any pictures on the Canon yet; am waiting for the battery to charge.
ah, very nice pocket camera!
Costco had it for 199, which was cheaper than the Cybershot I took back. And the early pix look great! Jane would have some up, except she is in the throes of book preparation for the release of her book tomorrow…
must say, my canon powershot gives lovely clear pictures. there is one little problem – I get a purple edging to things under certain circumstances, it’s not really noticeable until you are messing about in photoshop with close detail – but it is there … never had that before. but mine has a big zoom (not one of those super zooms, but big enough – 10 x), and I think it maybe something to do with the lens they have to use for that. I’ve been using it to photograph my new knit collection, that’s where I found it …
Weird!