And now for the real Happy St. Patrick's Day! The kids and I are going to march in the Raleigh St. Patrick's Day parade with Marbles Kids Museum today like we did last year. It will be a wee bit hotter, but I am sure that we'll have a good time. The only hard part about marching in the 1 mile parade is actually waiting to start moving after getting in line. I go armed with snacks and drinks and of course my camera!
Field Day at the kids' school yesterday was a ton of fun, but I was outside from 9AM - 3:30PM and totally wore myself out. Johnny was out in the morning with his class, and Joey was out in the afternoon with his class. I was very pleased with the participation of all the kids even in the hot sun and thought that the gym teacher, Ms. Wicker, did a great job designing, setting up, and running the whole event. I saw some kids getting exercise not to mention us parent volunteers.
The main goal of course was to have fun. I tried to capture a good shot of each child enjoying the events. Sometimes the teachers will let Picasa run through a slideshow of the pics for the classes to watch.
Hope you enjoy St. Patrick's Day and a fine 'spring' day as well!
I know St. Patrick's Day isn't until tomorrow, but I didn't get to take many pics yesterday, and I've got two leprechaun shots left to share with you, so here's one of them today and the other coming your way tomorrow. This one was a window gel cling combined with a Christmas Light bokeh background to give the effect of gold and jewels. Hope you find him cute and cheery spreading his Irish good luck.
We had the chance to have dinner at Bullock's BBQ with the Vollmer Family last night. They're an Air Force family currently living in Florida who used to live here. We sure do miss them and were very glad to get a chance to catch up over dinner. Here are the kids ( L-R Jacob Johnny Timmy Joey):
We miss the day trips where we'd all take off together to the zoo, beach, museum or wherever Patricia and I were motivated to go with the boys that day...
Off to Field Day at the boys' school today. Fun in the sun and heat:-)
I didn't pay attention to the high temp yesterday, but around 2PM it was 83. Wow!
The oncologist said to come back in 3 months. Everything is on track as hoped. I'll take it!
I didn't have time to shoot any pics to/from the doctor, but after school, Donnie and I ended up on a bike ride, and I took pics in two neighbors' yards. Besides the shot that I posted as my daily today, I also got this shot of the same tree/flower in front of yellow forsythia (or yellow bells). I guess this is a saucer magnolia.
We had to wait over 5 minutes for a huge cloud to move out of the way of the sun to take some daffodil shots and then I liked the in the shade pics better. Go figure! In the shot below, a blue car was conveniently placed in the driveway behind the flower bed.
While remembering my dad, we had our first picnic dinner of the year (hot dogs and potato salad) out on the back deck using the patio furniture that came from dad's house. Thankfully despite the heat wave the bugs weren't bothersome yet.
I stopped to take pics of a different pink blossomed tree on the way home from the boys' school yesterday afternoon. Here's an alternate shot with a bee that I liked but which was noisy. The light was pretty low when I shot these.
This is a 23 shot pano of Donnie's front yard created by Microsoft ICE. It cranks for a really long time on my computer but works great. I chose to manual crop and leave in the empty left corner (which I can fix with time). It really is a view down, and where the tall sweetgum tree is center there's a small creek that meanders through the yard. Bluebird box is to the left. They were starting to nest yesterday:-)
Joey and I made lasagna last night. I can't resist but tempt you! The spinach leaves melt so you barely know they are there. It is a huge 16X20 (I think) pan with 2lbs. of Jimmy Dean sausage and some eggplant in it too. The boys ate it right up. Kids love eating what they make!
My daily photo is a Bradford Pear tree shot taken on Saturday on the way to Yates Mill. I thought the patriotic flag added a nice touch of color to the already cheery scene. Donnie actually spotted this scene and turned around and suggested the shot. Everywhere you turn here this week there is a line of white Bradford Pears! Pretty, but in person, they don't smell very good.
Joey ended up staying home from school yesterday. While I took the screens off my 3 small ornamental ponds, he and Blaze were close by. For a while Joey read to her:-) You may remember that Blaze is afraid of my camera. It's all I can do to get her to look at me and smile for a picture. I get all these serious looks which really is not how she usually is. She's 12 btw. Joey got the idea to put the sunglasses on her, and of course that was too cute to pass up a photo op on!
Joey was good enough to go back to school today and so far so good for me. I'm feeling like I'm coming back around from the last chemo now. So good that I also got to scrubbing on the back deck yesterday in preparation for eating dinner out there before it gets too hot and buggy. The glass top table, chairs, and cushions are now ready! Only problem is is that it will be 80 here the next two days and the bugs and pollen are soon to follow. Gotta get in that picnic while we can!
The cute kitty pictures are from Sunday's trip to Madi's house to check on the pool progress. I can't tell Evan and Andrew apart, but the Kidd Family has two black kittens getting friskier and bigger every day and boy are they full of energy. One of them likes to use the empty pool as a playpen (they are inside kitties). That's quite the roll in the dirt! Oops! The other was enjoying climbing the screen door beside the pool. Naughty but funny kitty!
Saturday's dinner... Donnie says he doesn't mind me taking pictures of him and his meals but he does mind having to wait to eat his food while I take the pictures:-) I work pretty quick so no real worries. If I cook it, I often take a picture of it!
This is a composite of two images. I cropped the original in half to include just the bokeh that I liked. I had to fix the lower border center and top border left to get it how I wanted it. I used OnOne's Perfect Resize (Genuine Fractals) to make sure it was a solid 8X10 print. I then added in the blossom on the right from another shot. I did use a drop shadow on it. Both shots taken yesterday in a neighbor's yard.
Joey is sick like Johnny was sick. Ugh! I had better not get this!
Donnie took me for a picnic lunch and Heritage Mill Tour at Yates Mill yesterday. It was a really sunny day and reasonably warm, and it sure was nice to be feeling good enough to be out and about a bit.
Let me start by showing you a 16 image pano of the inside of the mill that I created using Microsoft ICE. Tip: Never include a person at least not one that is in more than one of the shots. I had to put Tom's head back on manually...not good.
One of the special things about Yates Mill is that it is still capable of grinding both corn (left) and wheat (right). Very early in the mill's existence, the mill was redesigned with a flour grinding system that used the technique patented (3rd US Patent) by Oliver Evans. George Washington was president and Thomas Jefferson was running the patent office according to our tour guide yesterday. Isn't that neat?!? Besides the Heritage Tour that Donnie and I were on yesterday, you can come for a Corn Grinding Tour or a Technology Tour. I really need to go back for a Technology Tour when I can go up on the 2nd flour and peek into the 3rd flour.
A couple of other things worth noting in this picture. Although the mill was heavily damaged after Hurricane Fran in 1996 when the mill pond damn collapsed, many of the original wood is was salvaged. Inside the mill you can see graffiti from some of the original people that worked in and frequented the mill.
There are several French Burr millstones at the mill besides the ones still in use (pictured is Tom who was yesterday's miller and another person on the tour):
The mill did run yesterday, and it's neat to be inside the mill when that happens. The rumble and the vibration the wheel makes is cool. Donnie and Tom were talking, and I overheard them talking about 10 horsepower capacity. I also think I heard Tom say 300lbs. of corn in an hour.
Notice the hole in the roof and the belt that's hanging but not currently hooked up to the wheel on the machine.
I didn't work to get any great shots of the mill yesterday. The light was intense and the sky was flat. But here's Tom right before he started the wheel:
If you've never seen a water wheel fire up, it starts out with a huge burst of water over the wheel which I've pictured as my daily and then quickly quiets down to mostly the turn of the wheel. I've sat on the rocks near the mill for over an hour before as the wheel was turned on and off capturing photographically pleasing milky smooth shots of the water coming out over the wheel, but I also like the intensity of this (POTD) regular shot showing the power of the water as it rushes out. As the wheel continues to run, by 30-45 seconds after it starts, all you see really is this tiny splash left at the bottom as the water spills through.
A big thanks to Donnie for taking me on the tour. The last time I went I had the kids, and I wasn't able to focus on taking pictures or the real history as well as I was yesterday.
I'll leave you with this parting video of the waterwheel running taken out of the shed beside the mill looking down.
Donnie's wife. Mom to Joey 14 and Johnny 13. Trying to do all sorts of cool stuff with life. Taking 1000's of pictures a month to preserve the memories.
