Chickens at home

Kitten chasing her chickens

I went by Star Bright's the other day and got a tour of the new chicken coop. Here's a picture of Kitten chasing them, trying to get a hold of one. So far, the chickens can out run and out maneuver her.

The chicken count is 7. Plus or minus three more.

Sadly, the gimpy legged one did not survive. And the three littlest ones are free spirits, escaping in and out of the coop at will. With all the dogs and wild critters around, it will be quite the surprise if they live long enough to outgrow being able to escape out the fence.

Cactus Peeps

Cactus peeps

When I saw these unripe tunas (amazingly that is what cactus fruit is called), I had to chuckle. I could see faces in them. Some sad, some happy, some grumpy, some dumb, some surprised, some goofy. Kind of like any given group of peeps.

Update: Great minds think alike. I posted this before I saw Rima's challenge. Use this one, if you want, as a warm up exercise. Or maybe it could be for the kiddos to do. But whatever you do -- go do Rima's challenge. I can't wait to see everyone's results of the water lilies.


What faces do you see?

• Go to Picnik
• Select the Photo tab
• Then select Get from Website
• Enter this URL http://www.dreamblanket.com/debi/blog2/20070720cactuscanvas.jpg
• Then go to Create tab
• And Doodle!

Thank you all amazing peeps

I want to thank you all for your kind comments and emails. I have friends who also read this but quietly and I want to thank them for their calls and love. (You know who you are, my silent types.) And of course my dear family who accept me and love me so valiantly.

Thank you all for understanding that I wanted to mark a sad, but important occasion to me...even though I've offered no explanation. I've been down this sort of road a time or two in my life so I guess I know the ropes. This time, though, I thought I'd try it without all the ranting and raving. At my age, that seems a little overdone. Besides, I'm old now and it tires me quicker.

I'll work through this. And while I do, I'll keep doing my Photo A Day. It's good for me. In no small part because of the new amazing friends it has brought to me. You guys are a special blessing to me.

Actually, we are to each other.

No title

Jorge's boots

After six years dating, last night Jorge and I said our goodbye. We care immensely for one another, but after a rough patch have come to different paths. He is unlike any one I had ever known. I'm glad I met him.

I feel strange sharing this. But I would feel stranger still posting anything else.

Pomegranate

Pomegranate

I wish I could say this was from my pomegranate tree, but sadly mine is barely plugging along after four years in the ground. I hope one day...

I love the way the fruit is taking hold while the bloom is fading. I think every woman beyond a certain age understands this.

Glassless window

Notrees, Texas July 2007

I didn't get around to taking any pictures yesterday, so here's one I liked from our big trip to Notrees. I used Picnik to punch it up a little. I liked the angles, mood, and abstraction of it.

Here's my imagining it framed...

Kitten's chickens

The gimpy-legged one

So, after a long wait, last night was finally the night for Kitten to pick up her chickens from Jorge.

Mr. Big suggested we pick them up after dark, after they've gone to bed to roost. This as opposed to chasing them all over the yard -- pretty smart thinking. He was right, and in about 5 minutes we had easily gathered up the ten surviving young chickens and loaded them into the back of Star Bright's SUV.

They aren't quite as cute as they were on this day, but let's hope they take after their Mamas and are good layers. Matter of fact, let's keep our fingers crossed that most of them turn out to be hens!

P. S. Here's an interesting Blog article on how to sex chickens. And no, I'm not talking dirty. It means how to tell the hens from the roosters before they are grown.

Texas native

Scrophulariaceae Leucophyllum frutescens

After a rain, good ol' reliable Purple Sage blooms.

Image Editor #1, Picnik was a picnic

Picnik

I've been wanting to give other image editors a whirl lately. I use an old version of Adobe Photoshop (5.5) for my blog images. Mostly, though, I just need to downsize and crop them, which is a bit overkill with Photoshop. And if I didn't have Photoshop already, at $400-$600, it's an expensive overkill.

On various photo blogs, I've been reading good reviews of Picnik. Picnik is a free online editor that is supposed to work with not only Windows but Macs as well. Here are my results and observations, creating the lightbulb graphic I used in the previous post. (I promise, it is one of the few incandescent bulbs I still own.)

Step by Step
Step 1:

I took a picture of the bulb. I went to picnik and uploaded it straight from my camera's USB cable. It was a 2Mb image and took about 1 minute to upload. Picnik gave me a progress bar so I knew how it was coming along. The image above is not the original size, but a smaller one for illustration purposes only. No need for you to get a close up of those dust bunnies.


Step 2:
I wanted this image only for a blog post, so no need to work with the original 2560 X 1920 pixel size. I selected "Resize." I kept the "Keep Proportions" option checked and selected my width. It re-calculated the height. My image was now 600 X 450.

Step 3:

Still under the "Edit" tab, I selected "Crop" and cropped the image down to the parts I wanted. I love the way they do crop. Very easy to use and to see what your result will be.


Step 4:

Now I moved to the "Create" tab where the fun effects are. I did a "focal soften." Almost all the options have slider bars so you can control the effect and see the effect as you move the slider. When you like it, hit apply, or if not, hit cancel. Even if you apply and change your mind, there is an Undo (and Redo). No matter how many tweaks you make and apply -- unlimited they say -- you can go backward with Undo.

Step 5:

I then selected "Tint" because, let's face it, the brown color was hardly inspiring. Any time you are working with colors in Picnik, they give you a palette. They don't have an eye dropper tool like Photoshop, but remember this one is free.


Step 6:

Then to make it look more graphic-y, and because playing with the effects is fun, I selected "Border." A few fun slider bars here to tweak with -- the outer color, the inner color, and rounding the edges.

Step 7:

And lastly, I did a little "Soften" on it to make the bulb even more glow-y.

I was satisfied with my image and was ready for the "Save & Share" tab. I downloaded the result to my computer. The total time from upload through download in Picnik was 11 minutes. If I had only uploaded, cropped, and resized the image, I suspect I could have been done in three minutes.

Summary
This was extremely easy to use, and I am impressed with its speed and large variety of effects. I loved playing with the fun stuff under the "Create" tab. I also like the idea of using software that I don't have to download onto my already burdened hard drive.

Right now everything in Picnik is free; you don't even have to sign up to use it. But they plan to eventually offer two levels -- the free version which will do the basic stuff like resizing, cropping, sharpening, converting to black and white, etc. -- and the premium version (I didn't see how much that would cost) to use the more creative effects.

Picnik is also working with other vendors, like Flickr, Picasa, and Facebook. (Wouldn't it be fantastic if they dovetailed into Blogger, too?) They have a forum where you can post questions, tips, and suggestions. They also do a blog.

If you don't already have an image software that you like, or you have it on one computer but not another, give Picnik a try. Heck, give it a try just to use some of the effects like Gooify, Duotone, and Lomo-ish. Play with a picture of yourself or your spouse, not a boring lightbulb, for the most fun.

I just had an idea...

While writing the previous Two Thing post about my inspiration journal, I had an inspiration!

I've been battling the problem of what to do with all these pieces of magazines for future collaging that I've been saving. It drives me crazy because there doesn't seem to be a neat way to store all those "snippettes" and to be able to find what I'm looking for later.

I used to put my cutouts in a magnetic photo album. But after a while, the cutout and the magnetic page would meld together, making it impossible to remove the image without tearing it. Of course, I learned this the hard way.

What about doing another spiral journal for collage material? Like my Inspiration journal, I could paste the pictures with a glue stick. If you've used glue sticks you know how they pretty much peel off easily after a few days. Besides, if I pasted the cutouts on only one side of the page and for some reason it didn't peel off, I could still cut it out. That's something I couldn't do with the magnetic pages.

I could even organize the images by either creating multiple notebooks, or by organizing individual pages by some theme. Now that I think about it, I suppose you wouldn't even have to do it in a spiral, you could just have folders with themed, loose pages with the images glued to them. Hm.

Anyone tried this? Any other ideas?

Two Things 2007-07-15

"Aspiration & Inspiration"

Aspiration is my newest spiral notebook I created this week. I painted the outside in lofty clouds, as in "the sky is the limit." When we begun talking about organization and decluttering, I decided I needed a better way to keep track of my time, my To Do list, ideas, and my goals. I've begun keeping track of all that in this notebook.

Inspiration is a very old visual journal -- I've filled two of them, actually -- where I glue ideas from magazines, recipes, household hints, or just things that appeal to me. It's part of my "aspiration" to declutter as well: I can cut and paste the best bits here and then toss the magazine.

Happy Birthday Windy!

Happy Birthday Windy! I hope you have a great day today. It's been a blast getting to know you and your family through your fabulous pictures and blog posts.

Here's wishing you many more birthdays and to sharing a long blogging friendship.

P.S. I won the Birthday Giveaway. Nanny-nanny-boo-boo! ;)

Summer rain

Quick summer rain

We have had one of the rainiest years I ever recall. Yesterday...

• A sudden downpour while the sun was still shining
• A rainbow above my head
• We have had a zillion of these little spade foot toads came to life this summer
• A raindrop hanging from a branch of my mulberry tree
• The rain didn't stop the Gulf Fritillary caterpillars from eating
• An extreme closeup of the red bugs we get out here after a rain -- we call them "rain bugs" but I have no idea what they are. They are also known as "velvet mites" as per Midland's Sibley Nature Center site.

Heavy heart

In memory of Aram

My heart is heavy at the news of the tragic death of Payam's son. For those of you that don't know him, Payam is a long-time friend from my high school days in Lebanon. Payam was then and is now one of the most joyful and loving persons I have ever met.

Aram, which means "calm or serene one," was 21, attending University when he was killed in a car accident on Tuesday. He was a straight "A" student, loved literature, and making people laugh. Sadly I never met Aram but that's a description of the lovely person he was according to an email Payam wrote a year ago, where he described each of his three children with glowing love and adoration.

I hope you'll take a minute to send a prayer for strength and comfort for the family. And give your loved ones a kiss in memory of Aram.

Cat Salad

Frixens

Sure, sure, I bought this salad bowl from Ikea just for you, Frixens. So glad it fits you.