Tasha enjoys laundry in her own way. The rest of us merely do the wash.
It was a day off today so I did minor cleaning of things, some prep work on the Big Publishing Project, a couple hours for lunch out, with a little time for washing my shirts. I usually lay out the shirts in a stack on the bed to collect later for the trip to the basement. If she’s around, Tasha always takes the opportunity to nest amongst the shirts. A photograph of the practice was long overdue.
W00066279.jpg was taken on January 11, 2011 and received on Earth January 12, 2011. The camera was pointing toward RHEA at approximately 59,938 kilometers away, and the image was taken using the CL1 and CL2 filters. Sister moons are seen above and to the left of Rhea; the bright line is an edge-on view of Saturn's ring system. This image has not been validated or calibrated. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. Levels, contrast, and brightness adjusted by James Guilford.
It seamed like it might be fun to toy around with brand-new raw images just received from the Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn. I must say I didn’t do much with the image. Still, it was fun to see details emerging from a formerly soft, gray picture as I made adjustments to the image. I’m away from my home office so I used GIMP instead of Photoshop but I’m sure to play with pictures like this more often in future!
It's a beautiful day at Hinckley Lake though the partial ice covering says its waters are very cold. This Sunny January 2, 2011 was a good day to be out but not a good day to remain out.
Snow covers the tables and chairs of a bistro in Hudson, Ohio.
A crown of stacked snowflakes decorates the heads of Queen Anne's Lace plants standing, dried, in a field bordering a Burger King parking lot.
I was sorely disappointed with Lulu.com this year. I’d created my 2011 calendar using that company expecting the same very good results I enjoyed last time. What I received was, in several places, second-rate printing at best. So today I used Zazzle.com to create a new edition of the 2011 calendar. Their online creation process was easy though didn’t seem to offer some customizations to which I am accustomed. Still, I’ve heard good things and will hope for the best. So I’ll be placing an order for close relatives and dearly hoping Zazzle provides me with excellent product! All told, next year’s calendars are costing me a fortune!
UPDATE: The calendars finally arrived at my PO Box over the weekend and I picked them up today (Dec. 6). They look very good though slightly shorter than the Lulu 2010 product. Zazzle’s image quality is very good (way better than what Lulu did to the 2011 calendar) though perhaps a bit flat. Then again, I’m used to computer screen and photographic print renditions. At least I now have something decent to send and sell.
The last flower to bloom in our gardens, surviving even freezing and a snowfall, is the yellow iris. This one glows in the light of the November 20 sunset.
A black cat, resident of a hardware store's property, peers out from the wheelwell of a disused industrial truck.
During a little exploration Sunday afternoon, we happened across a couple of “working cats” — felines that live on the premises of businesses, not strays but not housecats. One cat lives in the yard of a small town hardware store. There’s a large industrial truck parked permanently in front of the store’s windows but behind the firewood for which we were shopping. On the giant tire of that yellow-green truck was a beautiful black cat that put us in mind of our dear departed Missy. The kitty posed for a few pictures then, wary of strangers’ attentions, took off for parts more secluded. Stopping by at a nearby winery we sighted another cat sunning and grooming itself on a sub-roof near the main entrance. Kit paused, took a good look at us, then went about its business and we did the same. The wine wasn’t very good.
A cat suns and grooms itself on the shingled roof of a winery. Photo by James Guilford.
Tasha, dry and warm on the bed, watches birds flit to and from bird feeders hanging from the tree.
It was a truly miserable November day. Skies were overcast, temperatures never rose out of the 40s, there was rain, there was rain with ice pellets. I started work on my 2011 photographic calendar. I ventured outdoors only to hang the freshly-cleaned bird feeders and travel to Taco Bell for lunch. That was enough. The damp cold seemed to penetrate to the bone. It was a good day to be an indoor cat… or a “cat” indoors!
Freshly-cleaned, the bird feeders were hung out today. Within a short time the neighborhood birds found the bounty and had some lunch. A red-bellied woodpecker and a cardinal were seen already. Shot through two panes of glass and a screen door!
The tall window at the landing in our stairwell. We have never put window treatments on that window -- the view of the sky, trees, and the light itself are too good to block.
The rising sun illuminates trees overlooking the West Branch Columbia River valley on a cold early November morning.
This day dawned bright and crisp making the commute to work more pleasant. Dropping into the valley, I looked around as I crossed the bridge over the West Branch of the Columbia River in Olmsted Township. The rising sun was kissing trees at the rim of the valley, trees that had so far held on to their colored leaves. I stopped for five minutes to snap some photos and enjoy the view and wished I could have explored the frosty fields I’d passed along the way. Hi-ho, it’s off to work I go!
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