Yucca

My mother had a beautiful yucca in her back yard. It took a few years before it ever bloomed. She painted a picture of it...I've always wanted a yucca growing in my yard and a few years ago on a trip over to Borrego Springs we stopped at a plant nursery and bought one. There are almost fifty kinds of yucca and I have no idea what kind mine is. We planted it and watched it grow. More plants grew and now there is a clump of them crowded into the space. One shot up quite tall and this year it bloomed. I still don't know what kind of yucca it is. I've looked at photos on the net and can tell what it is not...

http://www.dotcombs.net/desert/desert6a.html Photos of wild yucca taken in 03.

 

The sun was setting so the light became golden. The hummingbirds love to sit on the yucca and watch over the feeder. They zoom passed us as we sit with our coffee in the mornings and afternoons.

 

 

Looking at information on yuccas reminded me that the Joshua Tree is also a yucca. I was a child the first time I saw Joshua trees. We traveled up US 395 on our way to Washington state. The route goes through The Mojave Desert. Somewhere I have an old black and white photo of my mother standing next to a Joshua Tree. The great thing about digital is that I can remember a certain photo and can pretty quickly go find it. At first I numbered my digital albums starting with the number 1. That worked great for a few years. Then I had to invent my own system. It got hard to remember where to look with so many albums. Now I put everything into albums named for the year and then into folders named for the month and day plus a description of the photos. So if I want an old photo I can go back and find it.

 

My old print photos are not organized. URF. I was going to scan my negs and old photos and keep them on the computer but so far haven't...that is for another day...

August Sunset

This is the evening sky on the hills on the other side of our valley.

 

A close up of the same scene with my zoom to 200mm

 

Humming Birds

Yesterday morning we had several hummers visiting our feeder. The sun in the morning shines on the side of the house. That is why the background is what it is. Sort of bland...

Orange Moon

I saw a lovely orange moon and ran for my camera...well these days I walk...anyway when  I got out to take the photo a big cloud came down and had it half covered. I managed to shoot the photo and then waited hoping the cloud would pass...only to see the moon totally gone behind the miserable cloud.

Shooting in RAW

The camera set on vivid to take photos in jpg can take some very pretty picturess. Still I like to hedge and also set my camera to shoot in both jpg and raw. A good example of this being a good idea...

This is the jpg just as it came from the camera...size reduced for the web. I also like to take my photos as large as the camera will let them be. You can see that the snow is blown out. I could have had the camera adjusted for that but Hailey doesn't stand still.

Same exact photo in RAW. Yes I did use the sliders and I think I got a much better photo because that option was available to me.

Bottom line...if you have a camera that takes both jpg and RAW take advantage of it and do both. If you have to choose one then choose to shoot in RAW.

And if Hailey doesn't look like she knows how to walk in snow...this is So Cal...

American Kestrel Baby

The kestrels also called sparrow hawks nest in our driveway palms. Once in awhile a baby falls from the nest. Often they are killed or they die from the fall. This morning Hailey saw one on the fence along our drive. I took photos and got a pet carrier so ER and Hailey could take the baby down to Project Wildlife. They were very glad to get the baby at Project Wildlife. I hope with care it will grow up and fly.

Stolen Graphics

This is a scan of the original print of my famous rose. The photo is about 20 years old by now and was taken back when I was planning to become a real artist. I took three views of this rose. This one was the best. I had already taken classes in using computers. I took a class in CorelDraw and then a class in digital art. Back then the digital camera we had in the class was a black and white camera that the students shared in the classroom. Mostly the class consisted of working with scanned photos and photo editing all done in black and white.

Then I began to take art classes, drawing, water color, design, acrylic painting...no oil allowed, etc. My classes came to a halt once I had Hailey. I put my paints away. So computer art once Hailey was asleep seemed to be a life saver. At first I worked with CorelDraw then I got my own scanner and began to scan my rose photos. The scanner came with a nice little photo editing program and then I found that after it had been bought out by Adobe I could upgrade to Photoshop.

One of my earliest at home photo edits was the rose. I took away the background and brightened and sharpened up the photo. Then I did the same for the other photos of this rose and in one of the versions I placed all three together into one picture.

Back in the mid 1990s when I first began to post my work on the web it never occurred to me that anyone would want to take my work and post it as their own. This rose was copied onto pages all over the web. By the late 1990s I was not a happy camper. I often wrote to the offenders and asked that my rose be removed from their pages. I sometimes had to contact servers. Some servers insisted on forms being filled out an sent by snail mail. I used image searches to find the photos. After awhile the old collection sites shut down and there were better photos on the web than my old rose scans. I also got a digital camera and my photos seemed to get better. I have a series of rose photos that at one time I used image protection on now they are just posted on my web pages...as a sort of history of what I did in the past.

Anyway I thought that the old collection sites had pretty much gone. Photo sharing sites like Webshots began to insist that posted photos be the property of the poster so things seemed a lot better. Now there is a web server called Pinterest that has made image stealing easy and seemingly the thing to do. Pinterest encourages people to re post anything they see so users can quickly violate copyright and make it easy for other people to do it too. Pinterest says flat out that they are not copyright violators and that anyone uploading images is the only one to blame if the image owner objects. Pinterest is pandering to people that want to take credit for the work of others. Why else would anyone want to make web albums full of other people's creations? Image thieves are just no talent pinheads looking for approval with nothing of their own to show.

Last of the Lilies

They have been a splash of color for the last couple of weeks and now the last blooms are falling. So these are the last for this year...

Copyright

I saw post on my fb page about copyright, and I made this comment that I wanted to re post here:

"Your post was shared to my fb page. I read her blog and am happy she learned something about copyright. She is an author and even then she couldn't see that photographs like any other creative art are property of the photographer. I'm not a pro but have had my work stolen and learned the mindset of people that think a photograph is not art. One person even told me that God created a rose I photographed so I had no right to claim it as mine. URF! I wrote a lot of emails to people and contacted web servers getting my photos removed. They made me feel like the bad guy in all this. Thanks for letting me vent on your site."

Web collectors would surf the web and snag photos and graphics to re post in their own collections. These collections gave visitors the feeling that the graphic they saw were free to use. Some of my photos were added to web collections and used on other web sites. I did as I said above. I wrote letters and contacted web servers. Some servers insisted that I fill out a form and snail mail it to them. I did it all. I used a program to protect my rose photos and I also used Digimarc. After a few years it seemed that web servers were getting better about respecting copyright and there seemed to be fewer web collection sites. Servers like Webshots insisted that posters be the owner or copyright holder of anything they posted.

What was the purpose of these web collectors? It always seemed to me that they were no talent posers that wanted to use the work of others to gain some fame for themselves. Why else would they want to display photos and art work that was not their own.

Now I have learned about Pinterest. This web server is using the same mindset used by these early web graphic collectors only now to make money for themselves. They distance themselves by saying that any copyright violation is on the person doing the pinning. Yet they are enabling this practice. I looked through the boards containing sunset photos and there is no way to tell who owns the photos. Some are pinned to several boards. I tried to find the source and so far it is not possible. I cannot imagine that anyone who owned some of these lovely photos would ever pin them for anyone to use and to keep on pinning until the original owner was forgotten. The site was clearly created to eventually sell. Why anyone would buy a web site based on copyright theft is beyond me. It is time photographers checked out pinterest and sued the socks off them.

Some Photos and Another Lily

This is Mr Kitty. His name was originally just Kitty. He was left behind when his owner moved so I took him food every day. He was scared of me...of all of us...at first. Finally he let me touch his head. Just a quick pat. After awhile he he stood for a couple of pets...mostly because he was really hungry. Now I can pet him without putting food in front of his face. The other morning we sat out with coffee and doughnuts and found out he likes to eat doughnuts. Sometimes he will come in the house too. He is still getting used to us and to our other cats. Tuffy will act friendly but our tabby Fluffy still growls and hisses at Mr Kitty. I took this when Mr Kitty followed me out when I took the cactus flower photos below.

The cactus bloomed again. This time there were so many flowers that some of the stalks broke and the flowers fell to the ground. I'm not sure why this happened. Still there are lots of new cactus coming up and I can see that eventually they will have to be thinned back.

Lilies

Was sitting out enjoying the late afternoon, watching the birds and humming birds, then saw the last of the sun shinning through the lilies. Most of the glow was gone by the time I grabbed my camera. Will be ready for this tomorrow. Still I got a couple of nice photos.

Hailey

Agapanthus

Called Lily of the Nile these flowers are not lilies and they come from South Africa. They are actually closer to the amarylis also from South Africa.

Hot Day Cool Water

Hailey enjoying the pool.

Fire Planes

A few weeks ago we had a fire in the hills near here. We could see flames from my place and then the sky was filled with a haze of smoke. After the scare we had a few years ago fires make me very nervous. The fire department was on it and so were the air tankers from Ramona. There was a helicopter too. We could see the fire retardant being dropped. It didn't take all that long to get the fire out. Later we saw on the news that the fire was caused by a motorhome being set on fire. The person in the motorhome ran and while suffering burns was saved. I sat out and took some photos. Wasn't my best day for that. Guess I was tense from the fire and didn't have my camera set right. I did get two photos of one of the planes that were not so bad.

The sky looks light grey from the smoke.

Cactus Blossoms

Cirque du Soleil

Hailey and Jackie and I went to see Totem a production of Cirque du Soleil at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. It was wonderful. Lovely costumes and fun performances. Jackie had been to Cirque du Soleil before but it was all new to Hailey and me. Our seats were at the side but we were in the first row. We had a great view of the show. I had seen one of their shows on TV but it is so much better live. One of the acts was a roller skate couple on a small round platform. They were both beautiful and great skaters. It reminded me of a skating couple that did much the same thing on the top of a platform on top of a moving car in a parade we went to when I was a child.

Totem is so worth seeing. There are no cameras allowed but you can see the web page here http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/totem/default.aspx

I've been uploading my web pages and am pretty much done with all that I had before. I've been using the Coffee Cup editor and their ftp program. Works great.

My Old Web Page

For many years I had a webpage. A few months ago I took it  down thinking that I would find a new server and put it back. The hard drive where my old files are saved was missing for awhile. I found it shoved in a cupboard after some searching.

My new site for the most part it is the same as it was. I have my roses and some art work and photos. It isn't all there yet but it is getting there. My web address is dotcombs.net. I have another web address at dotcombs.org but that one will take awhile to do something with. Back when I started we didn't have the blogs and photo sites that we have now, so I used my pages to show off my photos.

A few years ago I took a class in web design learning Dreamweaver. It was interesting and a lot can be done now, but I'm still using the simple html that I started with. Somewhere I lost my Dreamweaver serial number and the original owners sold the program to another company. I downloaded it when I got it and so didn't have disks. So lost it when I changed computers. I do have it on a hard disk somewhere but no way to make it work. I learned the hard way to never just download an expensive program...send for the disks.

My Nook

I've been reading my way through Tony Hillerman's Leaphorn-Chee books on my Nook. I first read some of these back in the early 1980s though the first book in the series was published in 1970. This series is first great mystery fiction and second an insight into the Navajo of the southwest. The first books I read were borrowed and returned so over the years I didn't get the chance to re read them. So it was a treat to read them again. Almost as if for the first time. I'm getting old and my memory isn't always that good. Two of the later books I had in hardback from Costco...but they are packed away somewhere so now they too are downloaded onto my Nook. I didn't start at the beginning with the first book so the continuing story of Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee was not chronological. I would suggest that anyone reading this series for the first time start at the beginning with the first book and then read them in squence.

There was a movie made of one of the books in 1991 that to me was disappointing. Then PBS filmed three of the books and this series was very well done.

A critic writing on the web had some hard criticism for some of the last of the books in this series. Re reading them I like them just fine. One book, "The Wailing Wind," was sad and a bit hard to re read. I think that is my only criticism of these wonderful books. Tony Hillerman wasn't an author that put out several books in a year. So there are just 18 in the series that covers a period of 26 years. The lives of Joe and Jim changed and grew and aged over these years. It is sad to think that the last in this series really is the last. Tony Hillerman died in 2008.

Kitty House

A few days ago I posted this on facebook.

 

"Last evening when I was using my laptop to surf, I saw a web site about a kitty house. I watched the video...there was a link to see more so thinking I had remembered it I typed thecathouse into my browser. URF! Never type thecathouse in your browser! There is supposed to be an s after cat...catshouse...anyway I got a virus. The darn thing redirected what ever I searched for to sales sites. Guess ...the sites are reasonable OK but so annoying. And I wasn't getting what I wanted. Hopefully I got rid of the virus. And the kitty house is in San Diego and I had read about it a few years ago in our Sunday paper. The couple have put in ramps and stairs and holes for their cats to travel through the rooms of their home. Worth seeing...just don't type cathouse in your browser."

 

The link http://www.thecatshouse.com Just make sure you use this link or if you type the link type, "cats," with an s or you will see something you most likely wouldn't want to see.

Faith

Guess there is supposed to be a lot of people giving up on religion. Someone is saying that more atheists are out there these days than there were in the past. I haven't heard that the Jews as a whole have lost faith. Muslims have become stronger and more important. It must be Christians that are loosing ground. In past years many people became born again Christians. I wasn't raised going to church. In fact I was never in a church with my mother or my father. They both would have called themselves Christian. Some church people stopped by and took my sister and I to church for a few weeks one year. That came to an end when my foot was swollen with a red ant bite and I couldn't get my foot into a shoe. The church lady got upset with my mother because I wasn't ready to go with her...my sister was ready but after a few words were exchanged between the lady and my mama she left and was told not to come back. After that my church experience was going with friends a few times. Then in the 1980s I joined a church that my friend Janey took me too. I wasn't born again though. After a few years I stopped. Not because I lost faith. I've always had faith. I had faith before that childhood experience with the church lady. I guess my mama did raise us to have faith in God. So my faith has always been there.

Mama taught me to say the prayer, "Now I lie me down to sleep. With angels at my head and feet. If I should die before I wake. I pray the lord my soul to take." Thinking about this prayer...It could be scary for a child. I was too young to understand about death though. Anyway my father came in one time and changed the last line to, "O bury me in jelly cake." I thought that was so funny and I laughed and laughed. After that I wouldn't say the prayer the way it was supposed to be. My mama gave up having me say my prayers.

My parents got divorced when I was four. I wasn't as happy after that. Something was missing. I remember looking across the road at my Daddy's house hoping to see him. We were at my Uncle Burt's house then. Sometimes I would walk across the road. Wasn't supposed to do that and if I got caught I got spanked. I would do it anyway. Most of the time I never saw my father there. Later I learned that he had rented the house to other people.

My first stepfather built my Mama a little brick house down the road. My Uncle Burt gave my Mama a small piece of his property for the house. They were going to build a big house and only got the concrete foundation done. My sister and I used to play on the foundation. We lived in the little house when I was six and I remember thinking about God and I knew he existed. I only felt that I might not be good enough to go to heaven. My sister and I got spanked a lot. My mother's marriage to Bob was done and she wasn't happy. Guess it was hard. I don't know how I had faith. Years later I found out that my sister didn't have any faith in God and grew up not believing. Most of all I found out that my Uncle Burt didn't believe there was a God. Would knowing this when I was a child have made a difference in my faith. I know it would not have. We are what we are.

More 1940

Found my husband's family. They lived in Knott County KY. It took a little time but there they were. I used the information from the 1930 census to find them. The last name is his grandmother. She passed in 1949. This was the family in 1940.

1940 Census

The 1940 census is now public. I wasn't born in time to get counted but it didn't take me all that long to find the names of my mother and father. I found the right pages right away and then it was just reading through them one by one. My family was on page 50. I recognized many names of people my family knew along the way. My great grandfather is there with my great uncle. Name spelled wrong...they put an e on the end of Clark. They did get their first names spelled right. Something earlier census takers often did not do. And they mixed up their places of birth. Oh well.

My father's house was right across the road from Grandpa Clark. My mother wanted to go to school so when her mother and step father went back to Washington state my mother stayed behind. She kept house and went to school and married the boy next door...well across the road.

June was my cousin and Russell a family friend. It is strange to see these names on this list and know what was ahead in life for them. They have all passed on and though I wasn't listed I really was there and now I'm the only one left.

Family Photographs

My mother took lots of photos of my sister and I. She had a nice little camera...a bit better than a box camera. She used it for years. I used that same camera to take photos for my high school photography class. Later I took lots of photos of my children too. My sister got our photo album but I took my baby photos out of it first. A few years before my mother died I took her negatives to the drug store and had them printed and made an album so it was right for Barb to have the original album...except for my baby photos. My mother didn't have the negatives for those. I also kept the few photos my mother had from her childhood. Her mother and father also took many photos and kept an album. After the divorce and my grandmother married Sam Dotolo the girls would ask their mother if they could look through the album. One time was too much for Sam. He started yelling at my grandmother and in anger my grandmother threw the album into the fire. The few photos my mother had she got from friends later on.

Mama had many extra photos that didn't go into the album so she separated them and gave them to Barb and I. So with those and the copies I had made I have most of the old photos from my childhood. Now the sad part. My son with the mental problems took my old photos out to a shed on our property and went through them. Some of them were ruined. Some of them were thrown on the ground. I thought they were safe in a closet in the house. It was looking for something else that we found out what had happened. Hailey and my daughter Elizabeth worked very hard to gather them and save them. Now I plan to scan as many as I can to further save them.

This is my great grand father Dexter Clark and his son George Clark. Grandpa Clark was over 40 when he married. He had five children. My great uncle Burt Clark was the oldest. Then there was a girl named Mable then George and then a boy named Lew. Last of all was my grandmother Grace Clark. George was in the Navy during the first word war. He was in an observation balloon that came loose from it moorings and he landed in the sea. A ship rescued him and brought him back to America. George caught the flu on the ship. He had been exposed to TB as a child and he came down sick with that and never recovered. My Uncle Burt had been very close to George. Their mother died of TB when my grandmother was a baby. The youngest children Lew and Grace were put into a children's home. Mable lived with her grandparents and Burt and George stayed with Dexter. Uncle Burt was never sure what happened to his baby brother, he wasn't ever sure what his name was. I found his name and death information on Ancestry.com. Lew died at two years old of pneumonia. My grandmother was taken home by a childless couple who had come to the home to adopt a boy. My grandmother was very sick and the family took her home so she could die in a good christian home.

Junk Mail

I posted this on facebook and think it is worth putting it here too. I use every filter I can think of so seldom get risque or downright icky spam any more. It is surprising how many words needed to filter this stupid stuff. They keep trying. Lately there has been a lot of, useless because I can't read it, foreign language spam. ...anyway here is the post:

Junk mail is something that gets through the filters so we live with it. Sometimes it is worth a laugh...often I just zap it to the spam file. Got this one today supposedly from "INTERNATIONAL POLICE AUTHORITY" that says, "YOUR FUNDS IS HELD AT JFK AIRPORT BY THE INTERPOL" As if! I always wonder if these spammers think they are fooling anyone. Usually the spam says I won money in some contest I never heard of. This one did make me laugh so thanks to whoever is hoping they will get some of my non existant money. LOL

Sunrise Highway

The Sunrise Highway is the place thousands of San Diego's people head for when there is snow in the mountains. It snowed on Tuesday and Wednesday and some on Thursday too. We drove up hoping to see snow in Pine Valley but the snow was gone. It must have rained over night. So we drove up to the Sunrise Highway. There was snow along to road and on the hills. Lots of cars parked along the roads where parking is allowed and people with small children playing in the snow. We stopped at a lodge and had lunch. The lunch choices were skimpy. Grilled cheese and hamburgers. The price was high. Oh well!

We were going to head back to Pine Valley but Jackie mentioned pie so we drove toward Julian. The Julian Pie Company has some wonderful pies.

Years ago the Sunrise Highway had a section of road cut into the side of Mount Laguna that over looked the desert down below. Thirty years or more ago that streatch of road was deemed unsafe for auto traffic and the road was by passed and closed. I miss being able to travel that section of road. This is a view that shows the closed road and some of the desert view.

It looks narrow and like cars couldn't travel over it but once-upon a time we did. Then I took a photo of the view toward the desert. I think the snow covered mountains are the San Jacinto Mountains.

We took a side trip to Cuyamaca Lake and then headed back toward Julian.

Cuyamaca Lake is man made. When we lived in Ramona in the 1970s we often took our children fishing there. Lots of fun.

Julian was crowded for a Friday. Probably lots of people looking for snow. Last year we found snow in Julian and I got some nice photos. We drove down to Santa Ysabel to buy the pies and then headed home.

Snow in Mountains...Hoping to get up there...

It is mostly cloudy today and supposed to rain again tonight.  It is cold too. And this storm is supposed to bring more snow to the mountains. I so want to get up there with my camera. Hailey said that there was lots of students missing from her classes. I think that they all headed up to the snow. I can remember back when I was in high school and snow in the mountains meant that we had half empty classrooms.

Whitney

I posted this on facebook...

The only think I can think about this is how sad it all is. Whitney was one of my daughter's favorite singers. Whitney had so much talent. She let drugs bring her down.

I have a son that did drugs and no matter how many chances he had, he couldn't stay off drugs. His first sentence was probation and he had to pass drug tests. He failed the tests and they put him in a rehab. He failed again and finally they sent him to prison. He got out on parole several times and continued to fail drug tests and back into prison. Finally he finished his prison time and was out and not on parole. He couldn't stay off drugs. Meth is his drug and meth causes user's teeth to fall out. He had not lost any teeth up to this last time out and then I heard that he has lost some teeth. He started borrowing friends cars and ran into a neighbors fence and made that into a hit and run. His friend turned him in for stealing their cars. He couldn't work and wrote some bad checks. He is back in prison. There are people that have done really bad crimes and have done less time than my son. It may not be fair but while he is inside he is off drugs. I always pray that God will keep my children safe. Maybe all that prison time is keeping my son safe.

I wish someone or something could have kept Whitney safe.

Visitor

A few years ago we saw an egret at the Wild Animal Park. Some of the people there thought that the egret was a resident of the park. Not! They come and go as they please and we have a couple of them that visit our yard once in awhile. Today was visiting day.

More Pastels

Just because I didn't make it to my class doesn't mean I haven't been busy. I've been working with my new pastels. I realized that they needed to be organized somewhat so that I would know what was where. It isn't easy sorting out so many colors. I really like these colors too but they are are a work in progress for the maker and while colors in different color groups are numbered the groups cannot be sorted by these numbers...if I want the blues, or reds, etc. to be together. I could just dump them together by color but I don't know these pastels that well, and I like using the same red or orange when I go back to working on a pastel painting. And I want to know where to find it. I can still see color shade differences but am not as good at it as I used to be. I read that when we get older the lens of our eyes yellows some and that changes how we see color.

My Mama was really good at seeing color. My Dad was partially color blind. I've always felt that I could tell colors and color differences but then if I couldn't...how would I know. Anyway I sorted the pastels and that took me awhile...trying not to be obsessive compulsive about all this too...

And I will post some work soon...I promise.

Pastels

Getting old means too much stuff. I couldn't think of anything I really wanted for Christmas...other than winning the lotto...yeah right! Anyway I saw an ad for Mount Vision pastels at a wonderful sales price. Less than half of list and and lots less than most discount offers. So asked my husband for the amount to get them. I was so excited when they got here. I love mail order...but it also means waiting for stuff. When I took them out of the boxes to look at them...all 350 of them...I spread them still in their foam packing accross my desk. I wanted to look at them and get familiar with the colors. Mount Vision is a soft pastel and the sticks are a little larger than most pastels. I bought them on faith. I've found that I like the softer pastels to work with.

Last year I bought a set of Sennelier Soft Pastels half sticks. The set was on sale but still expensive. They are really nice to work. I've been taking these to my pastel classes. No way could I get a full set. I did buy a few open stock Sennelier pastels and found one was pretty much crushed to powder and two sticks were gritty. Then I bought a set of Rembrant pastels. These are a little harder than I like to use but a very nice set.

My new Mount Vision pastels remained on my desk for several days. One day I came into the room and my big black cat was curled up asleep right on top of the pastels. Urf! Good thing the foam protected them from the 20 pound cat! So I decided to buy some pastel storage boxes for them. This is a good time for getting stuff on sale. they were sixty percent off reg price. Now my new pastels are safe ready for me to start messing them up.