My Backyard

2015 Mother/Son Photoff Results

Last year I had upgraded my camera to a newer better slicker model and I gave my son Chris the old one. He took to taking nature pics just like me and I was very happy to see the results. He took these 2 pics on a recent trip to Chicago and, wow, was I impressed. He's already out-doing me!
So in the vein of pure fun and friendly familiar competition, we decided to create the Mother/Son Photoff.

We agreed on several different categories and a few basic rules. The only editing tools we could use were your basic auto correct and, of course, the all important crop.

On my recent trip to KC we broke out our cameras and Chris and I went to Loose Park and also the Lakeside Nature Center. One is a beautiful landscaped park with rose gardens and the other is a beaten muddy path down in a small wooded valley area.

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The Results

After I got back home I edited out my shots and sent them to Chris who paired them up into categories. We then posted them to the Facebook so our friends could vote on their favorites from each category, not knowing whose was whose.

Debbie - 20 Chris - 10

Birds - One of my specialties but Chris has obviously had experience here, too. (See first pic above.)

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Chris - 12 Debbie - 17

I think Chris should won this one. He got points taken away because folks refused to vote for spiders. lol

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Chris - 21 Debbie - 8

An odd category set up because we had two interesting pictures with nowhere to go. Chris has an excellent pic of a frog and mine was an opportunistic lucky shot as a train raced by.

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Debbie - 16 Chris - 13

As Chris followed the railroad tracks I came upon this pipe that was 20 some feet up in the air. I walked the whole thing to the end and then climbed back down into the valley.

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Chris - 12 Debbie - 17

I think Chris should have won this one also. His is very striking close up.

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Chris - 15 Debbie - 12

We had the most fun with these 2 critters.

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Debbie - 18 Chris - 6

And this is the one picture of Chris' that I was positive would blow me out of the water. I saw this one straight from the camera and was amazed. Unfortunately, I believe the impact was lessened when he cropped it too tight. Rookie mistake.

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Here's Chris on the railroad tracks attempting a close shot of a bug. I said the kid was talented, I never said he was bright.

Thanks to everyone who voted!

Kansas City 2015

I finally made plans to go to Kansas City again to see Chris and Steph. I hadn't seen them in over a year. I made the trip a little shorter than I wanted but the price was right.

First day there we went to the Renaissance Faire. I'd never been to one before. We got to see the knights jousting and all kinds of stage acts like magicians and jugglers and we were yelled at by various people dressed up in old time outfits with bad accents. Chris and Steph did knife throwing and we all did the archery. An interesting experience.

It was hotter than hell and on top of the never ending hot flashes, I like to have died. I've been having heel pain from weak arches and I was really worried how long I would last. Thank goodness I had found some really good inserts. What a difference!

Next evening we had reservations to do the Escape Room thing. We went to one called BreakOutKC with some of their friends (meeting new people is fun) and did the casino room.

We FAILED MISERABLY! (lol)

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Last year I had given Chris my old camera and he has shown serious interest in photography. He does wildlife just like me so we decided to have the First Annual Mother/Son Photoff! We agreed on some basic rules, grabbed our cameras and headed off to Loose Park.

Beautiful rose gardens... here's Chris getting some shots in.

Next we went to the Lakeside Nature Center for more photo opportunities. They have a huge cage with some pretty neat birds being re-habbed on display. Look, it's an actual kite on the ground. I've always wanted to see one at rest.

Bald Eagle = Money shot.

Chris and I will soon be posting all the pictures we took for the contest and we are going to have all of our friends vote on their favorites. (I've already seen his pics... I'm screwed!) So there will be more later on that.

Here's the link to the Photoff

Lastly one of the main reasons for my trip is to watch some Knights baseball. Chris had taken a batted ball to the chest just a few weeks before and hadn't played since. We went out the day before and threw some balls so he could tell whether he was ready to get back on the mound or not.

Low and behold he pitched all 7 innings! Go Knights!

(They lost, not the point...)

The trip was really a day too short but I'm still glad to be back home.

Time to Clean Things Up

I haven't made a post in a while. Things have sort of been on hold. But now I have a trip planned to go see my little one in Kansas City and in so doing, I need to clean up the old files that have been sitting.

Enjoy some random bits from my backyard.

I'll see ya'll next time in KC!

We Made a Concrete Lily Pad and Frog

With a little time off from work and some rainy day boredom we once again attempt a cement DIY project.

We still have all kinds of odds and ends of concrete mix and masonry that we picked up for free several months back at one of the big home improvement stores. Here's the sneak peak of the finale.

Well, this stuff has been sitting in my garden shed for some time now and the place is far from waterproof. The first partial bag was all chunks and pieces. Mike worked hard to get this slightly usable. We ended up just throwing it into this old plastic planter and starting with a fresher bag. No problem, we'll use this somewhere.

Just like before we decided to do it with a depression sand mold. (It looks like black dirt but it's just really dirty sand.) And since it was a rainy day we just threw down an old shower curtain in my garden shed.

Next, like before, I wanted to use plant leaves to make a pattern in the mold. I picked up some sea grape leaves and cut them to kind of resemble lily pads.

Here they are cut and placed into a giant lily looking mold.

Mike managed to mix a good batch of cement, poured it in and smoothed it out.

Next up is the frog. This is an old lighted electrical frog. We used masonry mix for this and it was a lot of fun (read challenge) to get this to stick to the frame.

But I think we got it done although it's going to be very brittle.

There's a bit leftover so I plopped a bunch into this shell shaped plate and also attempted to make a lily flower. My lack of artistic skills ended up making a sort of sun figure instead. lol

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Que the "Jeopardy" music while all this dries overnight.

I'm looking out my window and I see this sliver of the moon and Venus really bright in the sky.

I'm just outside the front door and I'm being eaten alive by mosquitos but on a lark I focus on Venus.

And out of nowhere it just POPS into my viewfinder big and round. I'm clicking like hell... clicking and scratching and clicking and scratching...

Venus - Swoosh!

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And we're back!

Everything slipped out of their mold like a dream. The frog seems pretty solid, too.

Time for some paint!!

I also had this Flamingo bird house thing that had been sun bleached to death. So I painted it, too.

We chose were to place it and used a fat piece of PVC to set it up on. There was this moment that we looked at it and thought it looked more like a toadstool than a lily pad. (Next project, I guess. lol)

Here's Mike working a coat of bright blue paint on the lily pad.