Category: home improvements

attention to detail, attitude adjustments, backyard visitors, birds, Florida wildlife, fun, home improvements, Just do it, live and learn, nature, Nature's beautiful creatures, perseverance, photography

From the lanai…

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Just been sitting on the lanai for the last day or so, trying, but not always succeeding, in taking shots of the visiting birds. And other wildlife. Today I told Bernie that our scene out there is too cluttered. We need another post, and more feeders for the woodpeckers. And plants to bring in the butterflies and pollinators. And more stuff that I’ll think of in a minute…

The red-winged blackbirds are here every day, but the female has the posing thing down a bit better.
I said to myself that the woodpecker looked bigger today.
But when I saw the pictures in the computer I had a horrified moment thinking that I’d told you that this red-bellied woodpecker was a downey woodpecker.
But then I saw this picture from yesterday and felt better. A little downey woodpecker. So now I have two kinds of woodpeckers out there.
This squirrel could see me in the doorway so he thought long and hard before he came out to see if there were droppings under the feeder.
I got a kick out of the female cardinal and the tufted titmouse sharing time on the feeders.
With my long lens plus extender I couldn’t focus on both of them however.
The titmouse drops in and picks up a seed and flys off, much too fast for me even though I’m sitting there with the camera thinking I’m ready. Waiting for the cardinal slowed him down.
Now I see what he has been dropping in to snag.
It’s so much nicer to see the birds in the ‘wild’, so to speak.

I had complained that the butterflies that flit through the yard never land anywhere, but as you see in the feature photo one did land in the bougainvillea. So I zoomed and took some shots, and then cropped them like crazy, but I got him. The birds are busy late in the afternoon when the light is better. It makes for a fun way to spend a little time.

a second look, bluebirds, fun, home, home improvements, natural wonders, nature, nesting, perseverance, photography, technology

Homemaking…

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It seems like this bluebird pair have taken the admonition to self-quarantine to heart.  After not noticing any activity recently they have suddenly decided to cozy-up their little house.  They were back and forth all morning, arriving with nest building material and flying off ,only to come right back and do it again.  I took pictures out the window and then decided to go outside and shoot with the tripod and bigger lens.  Happily, they didn’t seem to mind the attention from me.  I only watched for a little while and got a zillion pictures, so I decided to let them be.  It would be so nice to have a front row seat to watch them raise a family.  I hope that will happen anyhow.  It will make staying home a lot more fun…03-16-20bluebird803-16-20bluebird703-16-20bluebird603-16-20bluebird503-16-20bluebird403-16-20bluebird303-16-20bluebird203-16-20bluebird103-16-20bluebird903-16-20bluebird10

connections, home, home improvements, life goes on, live and learn, losing battles, perseverance, photography, sky, sunset, technology

What’s missing…

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What has happened when I’ve gone missing I mean?  Well, maybe it’s been raining, or at least cold and gloomy, and I haven’t been out for pictures.  Or maybe I’ve started on a sewing project which has every surface in the place draped in fabric, enough so that it’s even driving me crazy, and the only thing to do is keep working on it.  And lately it’s the internet, or lack thereof, that has really taken me over the edge.  I’ve been using my uncle’s internet while I’ve been across the street here in Florida.  At first it worked so well that I had to ask myself why not pay him for the use of his service rather than the cable company?  But little by little my various devices won’t pick up the signal, and the only reliable way to watch Netflix is on my phone, and I’m sure that’s only because it’s using cell service.  My desktop was the last holdout, the last reliable device that would get online and let me write a post, and this morning even that wouldn’t work.  Which actually had me giving myself a pat on the back for calling the cable company yesterday and lining up my own service.  Internet only, but it includes ‘streaming channels’, which are yet to be determined.  I am choosing to believe that this will solve all the issues that have had me tearing my hair out the last few weeks.  So here I am on yet another gloomy day, waiting for the cable guy, and hoping for the best.  And did I mention that I can change my signal to seasonal for a nominal monthly fee when I head to parts unknown in the camper this year?

One thing you can be sure of when I’ve gone missing, it’s not because I’m doing housework.  I’m way better at making messes than I am at cleaning them up…

backyard visitors, birds, Florida wildlife, go with the flow, home, home improvements, life goes on, nature, neighbors, nesting, on closer examination, perseverance, photography

Be it ever so humble…

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This birdhouse of my uncle’s has seen better days, but it has hosted families of bluebirds for at least a few years now.  And two years ago I came over to his house and stationed myself out front with my tripod and camera and captured the action as they were feeding their young.  But last year the blue birds were chased off, evicted sort of, by another, larger bird, and they didn’t raise a brood in this house, so my uncle moved the house across the street to what is now my house.

Lately there has been a lot of activity at the birdhouse, and the other day I finally tried to see what bird was paying attention to the house, hoping for bluebirds of course. But I could’t see what they were so I took a few pictures, but I still couldn’t say for sure what they were since was getting dark out, and it was even darker under the carport.  But I heard some activity early yesterday and I saw a bird actually leave the house and fly to the palm tree close by.  It turned out to be a Red-bellied Woodpecker.  This may explain why the entrance hole is not the precise hole that it once was.  This bird has done some home improvements, made it her own.  I can relate.  Be it ever so humble there’s no place like home. 1-7-20meettheneighbor1-7-20birdhouseAh, but I wrote this a couple of days ago and there are new developments.  Seems I wasn’t too far off the mark hoping that it was bluebirds that were interested in the birdhouse.1-8-20Bluebird11-8-20bluebird21-8-20bluebirdfeatureAnd the other possibility is that there is an odd couple in the neighborhood.  Stay tuned…1-8-20oddcouple

home, home improvements, live and learn, losing it, perseverance, photography, technology, unintended consequences

April Fool’s…

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This isn’t a post about Sandhill Crane chicks, and yes, there are two now.  Nope.  At this exact moment I have taken a lot of photos in the last few days, some of which are nice (I hope).  And they are in this computer, well, I downloaded them to the external hard drive, and I have figured out how to find them, and I think I have figured out how to get them to open in Lightroom from here on in.  At least I hope so.  But this picture took over an hour for me to find, and editing has been torture because every step brings up the dreaded twirly-whirly thing as the computer thinks about it and decides whether to cooperate with me or not.  So I get sick of it and get back to sewing, which then has me wandering the house looking for the scissors/screwdriver (I’m hanging curtains), etc. Whatever I had in my hands a second ago is now lost.  Always.  And the house is a wreck because I cannot do a home improvement project without making a mess.  Usually all this would send me out the door for more pictures but that hardly seems useful at this point.  There is an upside to all of this though.  You may remember me complaining over and over about losing the TV remote, or not, but it’s a theme of mine.  Well, I found them, six of them, and I took a picture, but that’s lost in this computer also.

So it’s April Fool’s Day… and the joke is on me…

'scene' along the way, a second look, home, home improvements, nature, on closer examination, perseverance, photography, sunrise

Happy St. Paddy’s Day…

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There is nothing Irish about these photos, except that they were taken this morning from a bridge on Rt. 19 in Port Richey, FL.  I still haven’t scouted for new and different spots to shoot the sunrise and/or sunset from my new and different home base.  I’m too busy having brainstorm after brainstorm concerning decorating my new home.  And each new idea seems to require turning the entire house upside down to accomplish them.  That’s not new for me, my kids can attest to that, but once I’m ‘done’ that’ll be it.  It’s the getting there… 03-13-17stpaddy'ssunrise403-13-17stpaddy'ssunrise303-13-17stpaddy'ssunrise203-13-17stpaddy'ssunrise