Saturday, April 2, 2011

Spring!

Yesterday it snowed.  Not just a couple flakes, either; it was really coming down.  But true to Wisconsin springtime, today was nice and sunny--a great day for taking pictures!  The crocus in my lawn bloomed today, bringing vibrant color to the still-winter-drab landscape.


We spent most the day in the back yard.  I got some of the berries cut back and a fraction of the winter's fallen branches gathered up, played with Elias (he's amazingly good at soccer), and took probably hundreds of pictures as I learned the basic functionality of the DSLR.  I'm really glad I had a "real" camera in high school, because although pretty much anyone can take nice pictures with today's cameras, it was great training make fuller use of it and just enjoy it more, knowing how aperture, f-stop and ISO work.  It was great that Elias entertained himself nicely for the whole time, climbing, exploring, and chasing Zitta and Emily all over.  He doesn't really chase Emily & Jezibel, the larger chickens, but usually seeks out Zitta, the little Leghorn, who nicely obliges and runs endlessly around just out of reach.  When she wants a break she runs back into the coop and flies up to the high roost to look down at him.  I think she realizes that Elias doesn't want to catch her so isn't scared--actually, it seems she even likes their game.

It was 5:30 before I knew it.  I made a hasty (but surprisingly good, if I do say so) dinner while Elias read books to himself.  Actually, he has them memorized, but he is starting to pick out words and read them from the text to guide his recitation.  He's been much more willing to let me photograph him with the new big camera than my point-and-shoots.  Still, he'll rarely look up for me.

After dinner we made oatmeal cookies and read more books.  I also sneaked off and downloaded photos to the computer, and tossed out maybe 2/3 of them.  I wasn't successful doing any enhancements with the new photo editing software, but the pictures don't really need it.  This thing is great.

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