A Long Suffering Project

 A few weeks ago, Shawn brought up "the hideous bed." Again. I call it "the hideous bed," not because it's hideous, or even a bed, but because Diana's husband called one of her flower beds right after she finished it "hideous" and never changed his mind, and thus "hideous bed" is now a catch-all for anything in the yard that the non-gardener/landscaper hates. Even if it is a half-finished project.

This is a "half finished project" because I originally was going to remove the rock, backfill with soil, and landscape. Unfortunately, as soon as I removed some of the rock (to use for 2 other yard projects), I realized that the area was actually graded in a way to direct runoff away from the house, so backfilling with soil was immediately out, but I was also too lazy to go get more rock, and I also wasn't sure if I wanted to try to do some sort of french drain system.  

So, while he was off on his boy's trip (mountain biking in Colorado), I decided to finally DO something about the half finished hideous bed.

Instead of getting more limestone piece like we've already got, I decided to change it up with some "shadow stone" instead. I went with angular rock just so it compacts together and provides a more stable walking medium.  Now it's officially "done" but I'm still debating on putting something in the center area - like the birdbath or the bird statue. 

Of course, now I'm also all about redoing the area between this spot and the house - removing all the plants (liriope and rough leaf dogwood) and starting over - maybe with a Rusty Blackhaw and Inland Sea Oats or Columbine

Well hello, Ms. Downey

So very happy that the downey woodpeckers have figured out how to eat from the woodpecker bird feeder - it definitely means that they end up getting more food than when they have to compete at the regular suet feeder with the starlings and other bird bullies.
 

Big Freeze Clean Up: Before and After

So I left off with the big freeze having happened. This means that plants got goobered.  Plants that hadn't been cut back in eons died back to the ground, some plants, like my Arizona Ash still haven't recovered since it was already budding out right as the freeze hit. 

The Asiatic Jasmine corner. Before. On the plus side, the freeze really did kill off most of this invasive plant making it much easier to get rid of.

After.  I realize it's hard to see the difference since it was all brown before and is still brown. But hopefully the tree appreciates it.

Can you find all the toads?  There was a whole family of them living under an old grill cover which was in the Asiatic Jasmine.  The cover had been full incorporated into the jasmine. 

The Toadrys.  I had to text my "snake guy" coworker because he's into all the cool animals - like seriously, I've brought him skulls, jaw bones, snake skins, and pictures of snakes in the past to find out what they are. So naturally I texted him a photo of the toads and was like "uh...I'm doing yardwork, how do I save these guys? Do I need to use gloves or anything?" So this was the first time in my life where I went about catching toads and putting them in a bucket.

"Hey! Where do you think you're going, mister?!". The amount of talking I was doing to those toads and the spiders I found probably had my neighbors questioning my sanity.

Adult Rough Earth Snake. We have these occasionally in the yard and I love them. This was my first time actually catching and holding one. And then I had to catch him AGAIN because he was intent on needing to be in the part of the yard where the asiatic jasmine was and didn't WANT to be in the garden area.  Bonus points to me that I didn't need to contact "the snake guy" since I joined a snake identification group on Facebook and now spend a lot of time looking at snake pictures and have gotten much better at identifying them - Shawn says hopefully this means I'll actually SEE the snakes before I step on them (I've almost stepped on a racer, a bull snake, a rattlesnake, and a rat snake).

As for planting things in this area, I'm trying to generally keep it unplanted through this summer (because I predict it's going to be a summer from hell a la 2011 again). BUT, this is also an area that like years ago I had planned to plant some beauty bushes in this area - bushes that I promptly had purchased with the misguided idea that if I had the bushes on hand, I'd remove the asiatic jasmine sooner rather than later. 

Hahahahahahahaha

Yeah - the beautyberry, Mexican buckeye, and agarita sat in tiny pots for YEARS. I needed to cut the containers away from the roots and still dig them out of the ground.  BUT! I did get them dug up and then replanted in this area. But since those plants were also damaged by the freeze, they all got a severe cut back and now I'm waiting for them to leaf out more so you can actually see them in the photo. But with the warmer weather, I am getting some of the Asiatic jasmine coming back from root pieces I missed, so I need to keep the area clear for a growing season or so, just to make sure I got it all.

Camera Things (Part 1)

Man...It's be like forever - almost 2 years, really - since I've done a blog entry.  There's been a Sunshine Community Garden plant sale and everything (spoiler alert: I bought too many tomatoes and they only produced a handful).

Anyway, today's blog entry is brought to you by Roberta's Camera, El Presidente.

El Presidente got sick about a month ago so he was sent off for treatment.  Now he's back, but there's a new stud in town (Pincay) so he's been relegated to second fiddle.  Because I always talk about how I need a better camera than my trusty ol' Rebel XTi, Roberta offered to loan me El Presidente with one of her lenses so I could play around and determine if I really wanted a new camera. 

I haven't done a "camera" test yet, but I did do a "lens" test the other night.  I used El Presidente with different lenses to see what type of difference a lens makes.  The lens I borrowed is a 70-300 IS lens.  The IS stands for "Image stabilization." That means that it tries to account for you moving ever so slightly while taking a photo so that you get a clear photo instead of a blurry one.  I have a 70-300 lens, and Shawn has a 70-300 lens so I put them all to the test.

All three lenses have autofocus on them, though Shawn's is a pain in the ass and you really have to use manual to get it close, then switch it to auto so it actually will focus.  In any case, while I took a bunch of photos, the ones on the tripod looked about the same, and the ones where IS was turned off on Roberta's also looked about the same, so instead I'm only showing the three photos that demonstrate why you either a) want to use a tripod when taking photos at full extension (i.e. at 300 or b) why you want an IS lens.

As mentioned above, because Shawn's lens doesn't really autofocus, I decided I'd use Manual focus for these photos.  Aperature (how much light is let in) was set to 5.6 for all the photos (meaning that the background should be kinda fuzzy).  The shutter speed was set to automatic, but ended up being at 1/20 of a second for all three photos.  Usually, to cut down on motion blur (i.e. the camera moved), you want your speed to be 1/your distance - that is, I had these all set to 300, therefore I should have set my shutter speed to be 1/300 to cut down on motion blur.  Unfortunately, because it was dusk, I didn't really have the luxury of setting my shutter speed faster (unless I changed the ISO - i.e. film "speed" - it's why they always used to tell you "use 400 speed film when photographing sports, 100 if you're doing portraits")

The lens line up:  My lens (on camera), Roberta's lens, Shawn's lens

First up: My lens at full extension (300) attempting to take a photo of our formerly feral cat, Stripsie.  As you can see - terribly out of focus.  This is worse than normal - Shawn's lens is closer to what I expect, but you also will end up with a LOT of photos looking like this.  In this case, I probably didn't properly brace myself (bend the knees, engage your core, breathe in, breathe out, and as you breathe out, press the trigger - it's like shooting a gun, really)

300mm, 5.6, 1/20, ISO 320, lens= Canon 70-300 EF 4-5.6 III ($200)

As you can see, it looks a little washed out, but that's something that's easy enough to fix in GIMP (free photoshop)

a little better but still really bad.  The one thing to remember about photo editing - you can fix a lot of errors, but it's damn near impossible to fix 'blurry' so you really want to start with a crisp photo.


Shawn's lens

300mm, 5.6, 1/20, ISO 320, lens = Sigma 70-3004-5.6 APO Macro Super ($200)

Much clearer, but still a little on the fuzzy side.  That fuzz is from motion blur - I probably stabilized myself well, but you still have to depress that shutter button which moves the camera a little.  This is the type of stuff that can be fixed by using a tripod or monopod.

And with the level fixing: (btw, this is what happens when you click that little sun at the top of the screen on Instagram if you go into "edit" mode - and aren't using one of their pre-set filters - I believe they call it "lux")

Finally, we have the Image Stabilization lens.

300mm, 5.6, 1/20, ISO 320, lens = Canon EF 70-300 4-5.6 IS USM ($650)

As you can see immediately, the image is much clearer.  It's not actually 100% clear - there's still a little motion blur, but it's so much less than the other photos that it appears clear.  I also technically had this set to the wrong type of motion correction - I had it set to II, when I maybe should have had it set to I as II is to be used for when you're panning, vs when you're not panning to the side.

And with levels fixing:

So yeah if you plan to be using a telephoto lens, it really does make sense to pay the extra cash for an image stabilization lens unless you're going to use a tripod/monopod for everything.  As I said, the photo above is STILL blurry from motion blur, and the only way to fix that would have been to have either a faster shutter speed or use a tripod.

Next up: the different camera bodies: 
- Canon D30 (Shawn's. It may not even work any more - it's been probably about 10 years since it's been used if not longer)
- Canon Rebel XTi (Katina's)
- Canon 6D (El Presidente)
** Also, sometime in the last 20 years, Canon changed their lens mount so I may not be able to do my camera test like I want to anyway.

Wildlife Wednesday

Clouded Sulfur on Sage plant

Desert Museum, Tucson, AZ

After hitting Saguaro National Park, we headed to the Desert Museum on the recommendation of my Grandpa. The Desert Museum is primarily a zoo and xeric botanical garden, but they also have minerals from Arizona and an aquarium.

"Be a bat" in the Bat Cave - this is also where they had the minerals area of the museum as well.

Metal javelina in a garden

A bee going crazy in a mallow flower

A hummingbird. With my regular wide-angle lens.

Another hummer

A view to the southwest

A saguaro skeleton.  The ribs are used to knock the saguaro fruit from the plant when they're ripe.

Metal fence art - maybe Bob at Draco would like it. 

A wild lizard eating some blooms

A look to the southeast - the saguaro skeleton with hawk on the right is actually a metal sculpture.

A crested saguaro - the growing tip ends up going sideways and it causes this weird brain-wavy thing at the top of the plant.  Euphorba Lactia is known to do the same thing, but does it much quicker (thus why it's closer to the ground)

Cochise Stronghold, Arizona

After leaving Davis Mountains State Park, we drove on to Arizona and spent the night at Cochise Stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains. The area was known as one of the locations where Cochise stayed. He is apparently buried somewhere in this area, but no one knows where - it was in a ravine and his dog and his horse were killed and buried with him.

A view from the road on the way to Cochise Stronghold

Our campsite at Cochise.  There were 2 other people there with us.  The campground is first come, first served with no way to reserve spots in advance.

On a walkabout in the campground while Shawn was off mountain biking.

The beginning of the Cochise Trail.  It is 8 miles round trip.  We did 4 - which was to the divide between the east and west stronghold area and back.

One of the mountains

In the creek.  I love the grass on the right side - I'm not sure what type it is, but I do really like it.  I also fell in love with the Manzanita bush which was all over in this area.

Looking up the mountain

Another look up the mountain

Scrub or Mexican Jay.  I love the look of this...like if I were going to get a tattoo, I think this would be a top contender.

Shawn taking photos in the morning

Rocks in the morning.

Half Moon Tank - i.e. it's a dam.

On the upstream side of the dam.  This is about 1 mile into the hike.

A different angle of the dragoons.  The rocks were so cool here - all rounded and shit.

Baby agave with some Manzanita seeds.  I didn't take any photos when we got to the divide because there really wasn't anything to take a photo of - but neither of us wanted to continue on for fear that we'd just keep being like "just a little further" and then we'd have to turn around and hike all the way back.  In other words, this was probably taken about 2.5 miles into the hike.

Shadow selfie

Again, Shawn leading the way.

Rocks.  It's really not difficult to understand how Cochise managed to wage a 10-year long war against the US government in an area the size of a postage stamp with his home-turf looking like this.

Cactus.  Some type of Mammilaria?

Blacktail Rattlesnake.  This guy didn't even start rattling at us until later.  This is about 3 miles into the hike. And we had obviously already walked past this spot on our way out.

After we went around the snake (we went off trail), we decided to go around back to see if he was still on the trail - he had already moved off the trail and was under a pine tree.

This was actually the point when he started rattling at us.  Blacktails are apparently the most docile of the rattlesnakes and least likely to bite...not that I want to put that to the test...

I think all the yellow is creosote bush, but I don't know that for sure.  These "Sky Islands" have a huge variety of plants and a lot of them are different than what you find at the lower levels.

More rocks

Heading west toward Tucson

At the McDonalds in Wilcox.  This was the first time I had heard of McDonalds having All Day Breakfast.  I don't think you realize how excited I got about that prospect.  I think the counter girl thought I was insane.