Digital Nuts is an online group to which I belong. As I have mentioned before, we are given seven photos each week to use as a starting point to create digital "art" for their Nutcracker Gallery. There are really no other rules. We are encouraged to do whatever we want. Often the photos are composed badly or exposed badly -- or otherwise not that great, so coaxing art out of them is sometimes a challenge. Here are two of my efforts this week.

On the first one of the fisherman, I cropped it to improve the composition and then attempted to emulate a Renoir painting.

On the second image, the exposure was a big problem. The face of the lesser panda was in the shadows plus there was a huge area in the middle of the shot that was black and no amount of tweaking would bring out detail in that area. I added twigs to break up the dead area and made many adjustments to equalize the exposure.

The original photos are the two small ones at the end. You can click any image to see it a larger version.

 

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Find of the Day: The Mission Statement that Changed the World
Photos: It's a Bird's World

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The dogwood tree outside Mother's window is in bloom now. This was my day to go over there and do her laundry and such, so I grabbed my camera and took several shots of her favorite tree while it was at its zenith. Dogwood is the official tree of the town I grew up in, and I'm sure that is one reason Mom loves them so much. Then there is also the legend of the dogwood... but one has to admit they have beautiful blooms.

I found this on the web about the legend:
"At the time of the crucifixion
the dogwood was comparable in size to the oak tree and other monarchs of
the forest. Because of its firmness and strength it was selected as the
timber for the cross, but to be put to such a cruel use greatly
distressed the tree. Sensing this, the crucified Jesus in his gentle
pity for the sorrow and suffering of all said to it: "Because of your
sorrow and pity for My sufferings, never again will the dogwood tree
grow large enough to be used as a gibbet. Henceforth it will be slender,
bent and twisted and its blossoms will be in the form of a cross -- two
long and two short petals. In the center of the outer edge of each petal
there will be nail prints -- brown with rust and stained with red -- and
in the center of the flower will be a crown of thorns, and all who see
this will remember."

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Find of the Day: Cool Package Design

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This is an image that is not new by any means. I took it when Chris and I were on a sister trip a few years ago in Arkansas. We were at Lake Bailey, a little lake on top Petit Jean Mountain.

I ran across the picture today when I was looking for images to use on greeting cards. Chris created some templates for me in Excel. She is a whiz in Excel. With the templates,  I can just drop in a picture and type in a message and print it out on card stock.

I don't believe it was even 50° yet when our garden club gathered at the senior center where Mom lives to do our spring planting in the flower beds we have adopted as a club project. We were dressed warmly, however, and were comfortable enough as we did our work.

We planted homestead verbena, scabiosa, columbine, a butterfly bush, shasta daisies, coreopsis, million bells, oenothera, purple hearts, magilla parilla, tall garden phlox, begonia, emerald sweet potato vine, fan flower, hosta, golden money wort -- and probably something I forgot to mention. We always have a great time when we do projects like that. It is nice to be part of a garden club with real gardeners and real garden projects, not just teas and programs about flowers.

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Find of the Day: A Great Tree
Another: Birth of a Poppy
And Another: Wildfowers

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Such a perfect Spring day we had. After church I worked outside. There are so many things to do in the spring that it is never hard to find an excuse to be in the garden with the weather so beautiful.

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Find of the Day: Octopus
Another: Mike's Amazing Cakes

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This picture is of Annie, taken years ago when she was young and healthy. Annie, who died several months ago at the age of approx 16, was the sweetest dog that ever was.  At first, after she died, we said we didn't want another dog. With the exception of the first few years of our marriage, we've had dogs all our lives. We've loved them all, but they tie you down, and the vet and grooming bills can be pretty high. After a few months of no Annie, however, we finally decided we were ready to give a home to another little dog.

I've been looking for weeks and weeks with no success. Every morning I check petfinder.com for the new dogs that need rescued. I check the classified and look up web sites of breeders. Oh, I find plenty of dogs, but my husband is very particular about exactly what he wants. What he wants is a puppy exactly like Annie.  She was a toy poodle who weighed about 7 pounds.  It would not be difficult if we could afford hundreds and hundreds of dollars, but we can't. The dogs I find that we could afford are either too old, too big, too far away... or her nose is not like Annie's was.

I really think his heart would melt and his standards would change if we found a cute little puppy that needed a home and did not cost very much, but it is looking like that is not likely to happen. I'm beginning to think that God is going to have to drop the right puppy in our laps or we will remain puppy-less.

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Find of the Day: Mad:)Words

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Some of you know that I belong to the Digital Nuts group. We
get seven new images each week to manipulate any way we want. Below are the two images I started with -- the small ones. The picture with the ducks at the top and the last picture posted below  are the images I came up with.  With the car picture, I decided to try to make the car look like it might have before the restoration.

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Find of the Day: What a Girl Wants

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The first picture is fritillaria uva vulpis, a little spring wonder that comes from a small bulb. They have multiplied for me and I am glad because I think they are precious little flowers, though they go unnoticed by most visitors to my garden. 

The second picture is an unusual creeping phlox. Phlox comes in colors from white to red to purple, but you don't see tri-colored ones too often.

The pictures below are vinca minor, also known by a few other names (Myrtle, Creeping Myrtle, Periwinkle, or Vinca ) It is a great ground cover and has these blue blooms in the spring. The lighter green foliage in the same picture is golden money wort.

The last picture is some kind of daffodil -- I don't know the variety name. I've posted pictures of some wildly different looking flowers and have called them all daffodils, which has prompted some speculation as to whether they are really narcissus. If you have ever wondered, here is the straight of it. There is no difference between daffodils and narcissus. None. The two words are synonyms. Narcissus is the Latin or botanical name for all daffodils. Daffodil is the common name for all members of the genus Narcissus.

It was colder today and windy. I only worked outside about an hour, but did pull quite a few weeds. I also set up my ceramic bird bath again for the season, and arranged the pots on the patio. I think tomorrow is supposed to be even chillier. Come on Spring! I'm ready to be a gardener again.

I watched the movie today "No Country for Old Men" I found it online (yesterday's "find of the day.")  Didn't this movie win all kinds of awards? I'm not saying it wasn't good. It was riveting, though a little too much blood for my taste. The thing that got me was -- and quit reading right now if you don't want me to spoil it for you -- was that the ending was far from satisfying. It was well acted and I can sort of see why it got all the accolades, but we don't know what happens to the really bad guy except that he seems to have gotten away with murder upon murder. All of the people we come to care about (except one)-- and dozens of other innocent people and some guilty guys too -- are killed. The Tommy Lee Jones lawman character retires in the end after totally failing to catch or kill the bad guy or even protect any of the innocent from him.

Mind you, I don't need a happy ending with all the loose ends tied up neatly to like a movie, but this movie was just plain depressing. Even though I like the actors, I hate to see it get so much attention because now there might well be a rush to make more movies like it. Isn't that what usually happens when a movie gets top awards?

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Find of the Day: kaleidoscope toy

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We had a bumpy night last night with one tornado touching down in the city about 1 AM. It wasn't anywhere near us, but was only about a mile from Gill. No one was killed, but a house or two lost their roofs.

We did get a good rain out of the system that brought the tornado. It was a lovely day and I worked in the garden pulling weeds for several hours.  The wet soil makes the task much less work. I only got about half finished with the garden, though, but I hope to get it all done while the pulling is easy.

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Find of the Day: Movie Links
Another: Dark Copy

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It was a bit chilly today, and a little misty this morning, too.  But I had things to do in the garden so I put a sweatshirt on, my overalls, and another sweatshirt and I went to work. I worked seven hours in the garden and finally got all my soaker hoses laid down and fitted with quick connections so when I need to water this summer I won't have to screw hoses on and off or stand there with the hose in my hand when there are other things to be done.
Tonight I am very tired -- but as they say, it is a "good tired."

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Find of the Day: Lunatic Marks

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Below is the crossvine that I bought new this year. Below it are some of the grape hyacinths that I planted last fall.

Winter returned today and it was just too cold to get outside. I'm hoping that tomorrow it will be warmer. You would think that I would have spent the time inside to clean my house, but I managed to find excuses for putting it off for a while longer.

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Find of the Day: Top Ten Grammar Myths

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