I’ve not felt great the past couple of days. Some sort of sinus problem kept me home from work yesterday. It has since moved into my throat and chest, but as bad as it feels there, it’s a ton better than in my head.
I have a new laptop. My old hard drive was getting pretty full, and the screen was showing its age. It’s not a new new laptop, but rather, something we had kicking around at work. I also got a new hard drive for it, and have spent the evening installing the OS and copying files from my old laptop to this one. While stuff was copying, I took Penny to the backyard for some stick throwing, and also to play with a piece of #14 welder’s glass that I ordered online (it came in today).
What kind of fun can a guy have with #14 welder’s glass? How about… photographing the sun!
The sun through a piece of #14 welder’s glass
It has something of a green tint, doesn’t it? So I adjusted the white balance to make the sun white.
Sun with white balance set to… the sun
These are not great shots, but they are also the first ones I’ve ever taken of the sun. The camera didn’t much want to focus, so I set it to infinity manually. I think 93 million miles is close enough to infinity as far as the camera is concerned.
Now if I lived a bit farther to the west, I might use this to take pictures of the upcoming eclipse. Yeah – that’s on May 20. But I won’t get to see that here. Instead, I will wait until June 5 and take pictures of the transit of Venus. That won’t happen again for another 108 years, so if it interests you, you’d better get on it now. Google it if you must. The Innernets know all.
I also made a lap around the front of the property.
Chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa)
American toad (Bufo americanus)
OK, the taxonomists have moved the American toad out of the Bufo genus and into some other genus. They keep doing that to a lot of frogs, and I just can’t keep track anymore. To me, it’ll be Bufo for a while longer.
While I was out doing all that, Va whipped out the mop. The mop and the dog are not compatible with one another, and since I was feeling better than I had been, I offered to take the dog down to the pond (even though there was only an hour of daylight left, and the sky was clouding up). I’m glad I did.
Lily of th valley (Convallaria majalis )
The lily of the valley was in bloom. There wasn’t a whole lot of available light, and macro photography does not much benefit from flash, so I did what I could. Jack up the ISO to about 800, minimize the f-stop, open up the shutter, and hold the camera as still as I could. I still need to make another attempt on that infernal tripod mounting hole.
We got to the pond, and the dock had been rolled out. So I walked out onto it and steadied my camera on a post to take this shot.
Sandogardy Pond
It was a nice evening, even if it was threatening to rain. Penny and I continued on, and I found the corn lilies in bloom.
Corn lily aka blue bead lily aka Clintonia borealis
I was out here a couple of day ago (before the black plague/Ebola or whatever took hold of my sinuses) and managed to harvest a few leaves from these. Peterson says they taste like cucumbers, and I would have to agree. I ate half of them raw, and I cooked the other half and had them with butter. They are pretty OK! You do have to get them before the leaves fully unfurl, otherwise, the flavor is way too strong.
Then Penny and I headed back to the house. I had been throwing sticks for her almost non-stop since we had left, and she was starting to get tired. She needs that. When we got home, she lied down next to her water bowl and just about emptied it. Yes – that’s the sign of a good walk!
Jomegat's Weblog 
May 16, 2012 at 11:42 pm
Interesting stuff! Those chokeberry blossoms are sure pretty. Out chokecherries are just beginning to bloom now, none fully in bloom yet. Wish I could see a corn lily! You shot of the pond is very nice!
May 16, 2012 at 11:53 pm
Corn lilies have green flowers. That doesn’t make for a showy blossom, but it does make for an interesting one.
What I liked best about the pond photo was that the dust on my sensor didn’t outright ruin the shot. I need to figure a way to get that off.
May 17, 2012 at 12:38 am
I have a little squeeze bulb for giving a squirt of air across the sensor, and that does some good, but I think I’m about due to have it cleaned by a technician.
May 17, 2012 at 7:17 am
My camera is a point-and-shoot, and there is no way to gain easy access to the sensor without disassembling the entire thing. That’s a bit scary!
May 17, 2012 at 2:20 am
A pretty good afternoon and evening walk for some one under the weather! I certainly enjoyed it, as long as I don’t come down with the same thing you have.
May 17, 2012 at 7:18 am
It was a good walk, and maybe it did me some good. I hope you don’t get whatever this is.
May 17, 2012 at 11:38 am
I like that shot of the pond. Do people use it or is it private? I’ve been looking for blue bead lilies and think I found some but they weren’t flowering yet. I’m still trying to figure out how, if you’re north of here, all your wildflowers bloom before they do here. There has to be some kind of microclimatology going on. It’s been a terrible year for pollen-hope you feel better soon.
May 17, 2012 at 11:57 am
The pond has a public beach, but it’s surrounded on three sides by private houses. So I guess the answer is… both?
Maybe it’s an elevation thing? I’m less than a mile from the Merrimack River. Of course you’re pretty close to the Ash, so maybe that’s not it.
I am feeling a bit better today. Still not 100%, but hopefully I will be tomorrow.
May 17, 2012 at 12:40 pm
Glad your feeling better. That’s fairly common for NH lakes and ponds. I never thought of that- it could be the Merrimack river and maybe your pond that provides just enough warmth to get them blooming a little earlier. Elevation also plays a role, but I don’t know the difference between yours and ours. Interseting.