2010 Growing Season Wrap-Up

Well, its been cold enough to have killed my plants since just before Halloween. Documenting the progress of my potted garden fell severely by the wayside in the months leading up to that point. I was still taking photos, though, even if I wasn't posting them.

Mini Green Bell Pepper

Everything was great until August, as the hot weather we had wasn't particularly nice for the plants. It seemed during the hottest times, the garden became dormant and when it started growing again, the fruit seemed stunted. The thickness of the flesh of these peppers was unusually thin.

3 Perfect Vine-On Tomatoes

These tomatoes only grew to be about half the size they should have been, but they still made some tasty BLTs. Check out the great color! I like these tomatoes, but I think I'm going to see if there is a good heirloom style tomato I can grow in a container next summer.

Opal Basil Blooms

My herbs grew abundantly and voraciously though. And I even left my opal basil alone long enough for a few stalks to flower. The blooms really are so beautiful it was worth it. The seeds even produced a few volunteers in some of my other pots and in a patch of grass in front of my house.

Genovese Basil

One herb that for sure didn't get to bloom was this lovely basil. I made so much pesto, it was awesome. I am completely bummed that though I did get some herbs brought into the house so I can have access to them all winter long, both varieties of basil died of cold before I had time to break the plants into smaller pieces and into smaller pots.

In addition to two varies of lavender, oregano, and thyme, I also currently have 3 mini bell pepper plants in my windowsill. They're all growing pretty well, I hope it keeps up. I'd like to have fresh peppers all winter long, too!

Photo Catches Thief in Action

Sorry, I haven't been very interesting, but I did find a story about a special photo that is. Remember the Perfectly Timed Photos post from earlier? Its along those lines.

A family photo snapped by a New Jersey tourist managed to capture the image of Wisconsin resident Glenn R. Lambright as he stole items from behind their back.

John Myers' family from Bloomfield, N.J., had stopped in Madison several months ago and posed for a picture in front of the Wisconsin State Capitol.

Myers set the self-timer on his camera and hustled into the frame with his wife and two children. Behind them, someone grabbed their bag that held Myers' wallet and credit cards.

After Myers discovered the bag missing, he checked his camera. The image showed Lambright taking their bag.

Lambright was sentenced to five days in jail.

Abandoned Horseshoe Saloon

Spotted this towards the end of summer, somewhere along Highway 25 between Becker and Brainerd in Minnesota. Yeah, that's a lot of mileage in between, but really all the small towns tend to look the same.

Old Rusted Sign

This sign is really what made me stop. If I wouldn't have seen this sign, I wouldn't have even noticed the abandoned building it was in front of.

Abandoned Roadside Bar

Must have been abandoned for a while, there are a bunch of trees growing right up next to the foundation.

Horseshoe Saloon

Isn't this a great sign? The other side was so faded, you couldn't read the name of the bar. Grain Belt, before it was hipster!

Food

Yup, love this sign. So simple, so sun faded. The other side wasn't as faded and had more red on it, but I liked this side better.

Sam Really Can Shoot...

...I have just been busy. Though my Flickr and photo blog activity dropped off in August, my photo taking did not. Part of the reason for the update freeze was it only takes a millisecond to snap a photograph, it takes hours to sort through 900 milliseconds. Or in this case, closer to 4,000. And though I had plenty of time to snap photos, I had none to sort them.

But I've finally started muddling through because my busy-ness has decreased: As I mentioned in my True to Words blog, I recently got married and had a vacation/mini-honeymoon in Las Vegas! That meant lots of preparation before, and photos galore during. I couldn't download them for a while because I have snapped and downloaded without sorting so often since July, I had filled my hard drive and reduced its memory access capacity. I couldn't even open multiple photos at a time!

I'm finding that I haven't really been that great at sorting since I bought my camera last September. In my quest to free up space, I've been going through each folder to find the ones I haven't sorted through. Some of them were "sorted" already and yet there are still redundant photos. I guess I am a packrat even in the digital world, but because I need the space, I shall be changing my ways!

On the plus side, I am noticing that I take fewer photos to get the right capture than when I first started. In the beginning, I would take ten photos hoping just one would turn out. Now I have a three takes rule! I attribute that change to gains in knowledge and confidence as a photographer. But I think three is as low as I'll go if I can help it. More often than not, all three of the photos will be completely different.

So now I shall away and reconvene my photo sorting. Expect more updates in the near future!
(These random photos are some I hadn't previously uploaded to Flickr, click through to find out more about them if you're curious :))

Perfectly Timed Photos

I have been so busy, I haven't had time to do some of my extra curricular activities. Though I have been taking plenty of photos, I haven't been sorting, editing, or uploading them. Gotta start the blog up again somehow, or it could just sit languishing forever!

So I share with you Perfectly Timed Photos. This website is so much fun. I was alerted to its presence by this link, which has a handful of the best perfectly timed photos on the site.

"Told you I could beat the elevator"

"Everyone stands quietly as Susan magically hovers above the mud."

"Pew pew pew"

Such fun and unique photos! Kinda makes you want to keep your finger on the button at all times. I will certainly be checking back at this site in the future!