Berkshire Botanical Gardens

We visited the Berkshire Botanical Gardens at the end of July. It was a great day to be outside, but the mid-day cloudless light was harsh.

I enjoyed walking through the gardens grounds more than I expected: the gardens look a bit small and uninteresting from the road, but it was well worth the stop.

See the original on Flickr.

At Cabela’s.

All of us went to Cabela’s to do some shopping. An of course Patrick, Isabella, and Sophia all needed to be fed!

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Chris took the photos.

Last night we had a party to welcome my brother Jim and his wife Lisa, as well as their three month old girls Sophia and Isabella. We had Chris (of Rakoczy Photography) take some family photos for us. He contorted himself on the ground to get some straight-on photos of all the little people!

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Mom, Lisa, Sophia, and Isabella.

When picking up Grammy, we also saw Jim and Lisa, and met Sophia and Isabella.

Sophia and Isabella (at three months) are both smaller than Patrick when he was born!

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Patrick and Sherree’s art at the Eric Carle museum.

I’ve done a poor job of sharing photos from our July vacation. Normally I’d create a single gallery on danandsherree.com, but in an effort to just get something out, I’ll post this "new" way.

We visited the Eric Carle museum as we were heading up to our rental in the Berkshires. They have a room full of supplies for kids to try making art in the same style that Eric Carle uses for his children’s books.

Ok, so Patrick wasn’t really much of a participant and his "help" was really just trying to grab whatever Sherree had in her hands… but still fun.

See the original on Flickr.

Troop 60’s first aid training, put to use.

One of the things I really enjoyed about Troop 60 is that the adults operated as a patrol, just like the Scouts. We even participated in district events — such as at this Klondike Derby in the late ’90s.

At this Klondike, an event was that your patrol had to split a piece of wood into as many strips as possible. An unexpected requirement was that you were required to show your Totin’ Chip in order to be able to participate. We were lucky because Charlie was the only one to remember his. And so, he was our designated “chopper.”

Charlie stepped into the axe-yard and began splitting the wood. Being the middle of winter it was very cold, however Charlie decided to work without gloves for the increased dexterity it offered. Unfortunately, with one swing of the hatchet he nicked his finger. He stopped to give it a closer look and it really was just a small nick — however it bled quite a bit.

Charlie pressed on, chopping the wood. And here’s the disturbing part: the rest of us just laughed at him. The blood coming from his finger was simply covering the wood and making it more difficult to work. It was funny!

Of course, once done, we pulled out our first aid kit and got him bandaged up.

Yes, Charlie still has his finger.

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Pumpkin seeds.

I think pumpkin seeds are one of my favorite parts of fall. Worceshire, salt, butter, and pumpkin seeds = win!

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Sophia and Isabella

My brother Jim and his wife Lisa had twin baby girls back on July 7. This photo was taken by Jim on July 15, just after coming home. Their names are Sophia Jacqueline and Isabella Jean (though I don’t know which is which).

Later this week, Jim, Lisa, and the girls will be coming to Connecticut to visit for a week. We’re looking forward to the visit, and to introduce Patrick to his new cousins!

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Snow geese, by Pop-pop.

One time, in the mid-1990’s, Grammy and Pop-pop were visiting. Pop-pop pulled out some photos to share: he had about a dozen shots that—when laid out on the table—created this large panorama of snow geese. I don’t remember where they were when he took this, unfortunately.

Anyway, I grabbed the photos and scanned them all in to assemble this single shot. It’s hardly a good stitching job, and of course the geese moved from shot to shot.

But, the best thing? Finding this scan about 15 years later, when I had long since forgotten about it!

See the original on Flickr.

In the beginning of August, my friend Pete started doing something called August Break, where he switched things up from photo-heavy posts to focus on some editorial content. What evolved was a really neat format of a photo and a small story. Something I want to emulate a bit here.

At the flowers.

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Pears.

Not quite ripe.

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Patrick tastes the apple.

They are pretty good, and just about ripe.

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Apples.

Dunno the variety.

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It’s too bright!

Pinball was laying between us. But, it was too bright for her to sleep!

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Merged star trails, attempt 3.

This is another set of 900-some 4 second exposures merged to create star trails. Not much different here from Attempt 2, except that I tried pointing the camera more towards Polaris. (Compare the arc of the trail and you’ll see that this one is much more curved.) I’m a little disappointed that my aim was still so bad that I couldn’t better center Polaris in the frame — but hey, I’m learning here!

See the original on Flickr.

Merged star trails, attempt two.

This is my second attempt at merging star trails. I shortened each exposure significantly (4 seconds each), and took 900-some photos over the course of an hour. So, this was a much longer "exposure," which accounts for the much longer trails. But the shorter exposures create a solid-line trail, rather than the dotted trail.

See the original on Flickr.

Merged star trails.

This image was created by a Photoshop action that merged 98 photos, each a ten second exposure. And that accounts for the dotted appearance of each star—so much time elapsed that it appears the stars “jumped” rather than a smooth trail. (Click to over to Flickr then zoom in and see the dotted stars of the trails.)

See the original on Flickr.

I obviously haven’t been posting much here. But, that doesn’t mean I’m not active online. One of the things I’ve been doing a lot is sharing photos on Flickr, and you may have seen that in the every-few-weeks Around the Web collation posts. So, here’s something easy for me to do: emphasize those photos more by posting them directly to the site!

This is a photo I grabbed of Patrick shortly after eating. I was close enough with the camera that he wanted to reach for it, and so I snapped several shallow depth-of-field shots of him. I really like the effect.

See the original on Flickr.