The wisteria has started blooming and it attracts these huge bees. Decided to try to get a picture, but they’re quick and unpredictable. Here’s the best I managed to get:
And some pictures of the wisteria itself:
Wisteria
March 15, 2014 11:00 am
Heather’s Chicken Dance
March 11, 2014 10:36 pm
Heather seems to have received the same Dickerson genes that provoked Erin into putting gloves on her feet and dancing like a chicken. Heather’s footwear of choice, however, is oven mitts. Enjoy.
Direct Video Link: Heather Chicken Dance
Breaking California’s Drought (or, Mom & Dad visited)
March 1, 2014 5:49 pm
We decided it was time to make Mom & Dad’s travel calamities work for us. So they came to visit in the middle of a major drought. It hadn’t rained any appreciable amount in 14 months. But, it started raining the day after they arrived and has been continuing to rain fairly regularly since then.
Heather was enamored of Grandpa.
We tried going up to the Redwood Valley Railroad again. It seemed like Heather was going to be okay with it, but the moment Jess tried to lift Heather into the car Heather lost it. With every shred of vocabulary she could muster she demanded that she didn’t want to ride the train and that Jess get off the train. I wasn’t allowed on the train either. So Grandma and Grandpa took a train ride while the rest of us tried to calm Heather down.
We also visited Duarte’s Garage which seemed like the kind of thing Mom & Dad do (it’s an old garage along the original Lincoln Highway that runs through Livermore). They have restored, old-timey fire engines and various related relics.
If you look closely you can see the sparks being generated by the hand-crank starter. The spark plugs are at the top of the metal brackets on the right-hand side of the contraption.
We also went to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose.
Before they left we took a few pictures of them with Heather, this somewhat candid shot (taken in between “real pictures”) ended up turning out best:
Come back and visit again anytime!
Rose in Sunlight
5:02 pm
This picture came out pretty well, but you can see it’s still a little overexposed on the petals angled towards me. The flower was in direct sunlight which made the exposure tricky.
Rocks in Water
10:24 am
I find it interesting that the reflections on the top half of the image are green and the reflections on the bottom half are purple. I presume it has to do with the chromatic aberration in the lens.
The wide-open aperture and a short object-distance resulted in the very slim depth of field.