No. 4: Spring Flowers

I thought it might be nice to post some more of my flower images. These pictures were taken last spring ('05) with my Canon Rebel-XT. I had just purchased it and was in the early stages of becoming familiar with it. Here's a photo of one of my tulips in the front yard. Ain't it purdy? The colors are brilliant!





Here's another one I took last year, just after a spring shower. Not much to say but, "Wow, God sure knows how to make beautiful stuff."

Go ahead ... click on the pictures. They enlarge. They're even better, bigger.

No. 3: Trains - Real and Imagined

I love trains. Always have.

When just a young lad of six or seven, our family lived just up the hill from Cincinnati's Mill Creek Expressway. Next to it ran an old railroad. I used to cross the footbridge over that expressway with my mom, when we went from our home in Edgemont over to the Carthage Fairgrounds. I remember those old steam-belching locomotives, moving slowly up and down the tracks as they loaded and unloaded cargo at the De-Kuyper Cordials plant. My Aunt Wanda and my Aunt Myrtle used to work at that plant. But that was a long, long time ago.

Cut to the present ... Above is a picture I took last June ('05) at the Manassas Train Station, as Amtrak # 157 was pulling in. This train runs every day from New York City, NY to Atlanta, GA. It usually rolls into town around 7:30-8:15. Sometimes I go up there and watch people getting off and on the train. It's fun, and sometimes you meet very interesting people. Click on the picture for a larger image.

When I was in highschool and we lived in Berea, Ohio, just outside of Cleveland, my best buddy and I would sometimes walk home from school after track practice (I ran hurdles). To shave about a half mile off of our walk, we cut across the rail yard. There were probably ten or twelve tracks running through there, and we saw all kinds of locomotives, both steam and diesel. Often, long, stationary trains blocked our way and we had to climb across the train couplings to get through.

Here's a picture of an old Norfolk Southern diesel coming up on a grade crossing. Oh wait ... that's not real ... it's a pic from an HO layout at the annual Manassas Railway Festival! Look at those goofy plastic cows. Click to enlarge.

I love model railroading, too. I used to have a halfway decent HO layout that I built when we lived in Fairfax back in the early '80's. It had switches and lights, and buildings--a few anyway. It was mounted on a big 4' x 8' sheet of fiberboard. Later, after we moved to Manassas, I sometimes set up a smaller version of that same layout around the family Christmas tree. I did this for several years.

I told Sally it was for the girls, but we all knew better.

No. 2: And the Answer Is ...

Two friends of mine came through. "The 2 red flowers are anemone," one wrote. And she even sent me the word's etymology:

"Latin, from Greek anemOnE 1 : any of a large genus (Anemone) of the buttercup family having lobed or divided leaves and showy flowers without petals but with conspicuous often colored sepals -- called also windflower."

Now, let's see if they can tell me what these flowers are:

Here is one more photo. I took this photograph out behind the office building where I work. It's a picture of a birdhouse.

Directly behind the office there is a small stand of trees separating our concrete pipe plant from the asphalt plant next door. In that stand of trees and the small patch of grass directly to the rear of our office building, one of my co-workers set out several bird feeders. Throughout the year, she maintains these bird feeders, enjoying the many varieties of birds that come to enjoy a meal.

Here's the birdhouse:

No. 1: Canon Rebel XT

About this time last year, I purchased a digital camera. I decided on a Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) made by Canon. It captures images at eight megapixels. It has been a wonderful investment and I have been having a great deal of fun with it. Here's one of the first pictures I took:
If you look very closely, you can see the bottle of DAWN dishwashing liquid reflected in the tiny drop beneath the drip. The photo was taken at my kitchen sink and I was absolutely amazed at the clarity. Click on the image to see the enlargement.

I wanted an SLR camera so I could control the settings and add different types of lenses over time. I'm still learning the basics and I'm having a ball.

The other photo I am publishing today is one I took in my garden on April 27th of 2005. It's a close-up of two flowers. Even though I planted them as bulbs, I can't remember what kind they are. Can anyone help me identify them?

Aren't they pretty? Click to enlarge. More to come soon!