James Hill > 20100207-4538  Stick a fork in it.

Nothing fancy, just a parting shot showing what's left of the snow and my brunch for today.  The sun is bright and any snow left in it's path should be gone by evening.  The birds have abandoned the feeder, apparently to dine in the less crowded undergrowth.  I couldn't even attract one to the windowsill to eat with me.  Maybe I should have showered first?

This shot is also a good representation of why I don't like to do food photography.  I'm too impatient.  Heck, often I'll eat part of my meal over the stove while the remainder finishes cooking.  Besides, by the time you get a shot set up, lighted, touched up, and fussed over; your meal is cold.  Where's the fun in that?  But I do have a new respect for Karina, Christine, and others who can pull off a tempting food shot when they want to.

So what's on the plate?  
Organic Belgian waffles (store bought since I no longer own a waffle iron) with homemade blueberry compote.  I used maple syrup instead of sugar for the compote.

And on the fork, poor-man's pâté, aka Neese's Liver Pudding. If you're not familiar with it, and I doubt many outside Piedmont NC will be, think very fine sausage made from liver instead of whatever is actually in sausage, and without the grease.  It was coated in leftover toasted flax seed from last nights bread, then pan fried in a little coconut oil until golden brown and crispy on the outside, warm and very pâté like on the inside.
James Hill > 20100130-4376

"Maybe if I just freeze in place he won't notice me hanging here, swinging back and forth like a school kid, sucking down seeds one at a time as if they were malted milk balls."

Obviously it didn't work.  And I didn't get a chance to shoot outside today because I didn't feel like fumbling around in the freezing rain.  Funny how it felt much colder outside today, in the rain, than it did a week ago when it was actually a good 15-20 degrees colder with blowing snow.  This was shot during that snow, from inside.

That OOF white blob in the background is the bud-covered Japanese magnolia.  Any day now it is going to burst forth with some spring color.  Right?  And the apparent statue with the static cling is one of my resident red-bellied woodpeckers.  I'm lucky enough to have several visit almost daily, along with several flickers, who have so far evaded my lens.  Normally woodpeckers and log cabins aren't a good combination, but fortunately these guys do very little jack-hammering.  They mainly pick and probe around crevices without too much commotion or destruction.
James Hill > 20100130-4341

Eye to eye with a curious and very persistent little tufted titmouse.  This cross-observation took place through a slightly fogged, and more than slightly dirty window in my living room. A steaming bowl of homemade chili and warm radiant-heated comfort on my side of the glass, while outside the weather was powder-fine blowing snow with temps in the 20-something degree range.  There were several of these little guys fluttering around on the porch, insisting rather vocally that more sunflower seed be added to the abundance of mixed seed already on the windowsill feeder.  Picky eaters, those titmice.

To be fair, in addition to feeding them and providing temporary shelter from the storm, I did spend about half the day out on the porch with the birds.  However, it was much too cold and windy to handle the camera with much finesse, especially given how I was bundled up as if I were making a summit attempt on Everest.  Yesterdays sparrow was shot the following day, when the sun reappeared and made being outside rather pleasant (except for the shoveling snow part.)

More birds on the way...
James Hill > 20100131-4436
James Hill > Cabin-0461
James Hill > March 30, 2009

Wow, it's hard to believe March is gone already.  I've been cleaning out tons of  image folders all day, so I didn't even pick up the camera except to put the batteries on the charger.  What I did do was look through all the shots I've taken throughout  the month of the corkscrew willows planted beside the cabin.  I love these trees - they have such interesting branches that twist and curve every which way, and they grow really fast too.  But the darn things are really tough to photograph well, especially when bare.

I picked these five images of the willows to sum up March - cold rain, snow, blue sky, new growth, and of course more rain. :)  The originals can be found in my What's New gallery.  And I finally got around to putting the March snow gallery up too.  That only took a month!

I also really need to reinstall some editing software other than Lightroom, since Lightroom doesn't do text or collages (it was a major trick just to get it to do this simple one) but after using Lightroom for all of my editing for almost two years, Photoshop just feels like a major hassle anymore.  Any suggestions on a lightweight editor with simple layout capabilities (preferably free or cheap) would be appreciated.

Update:  thanks for all the suggestions everyone.  I thought I'd let you know about a free editor I just ran across.  Photoscape appears to be a pretty cool little editing program with a bunch of built in collage (Page) options.  Warning for US folks - a lot of the settings/measurements are metric only. :)  It has your basic editing functions and seems to be fairly intuitive to use.  I'll probably use it just for collages, but it's free and fast (I put together several in just a matter of minutes) so I thought I'd throw it out there for anyone interested.  www.photoscape.org
James Hill > March Snow photo
James Hill > March Snow photo
James Hill > March Snow photo
20100207-4538 Stick a fork in it.

Nothing fancy, just a parting shot showing what's left of the snow and my brunch for today. The sun is bright and any snow left in it's path should be gone by evening. The birds have abandoned the feeder, apparently to dine in the less crowded undergrowth. I couldn't even attract one to the windowsill to eat with me. Maybe I should have showered first?

This shot is also a good representation of why I don't like to do food photography. I'm too impatient. Heck, often I'll eat part of my meal over the stove while the remainder finishes cooking. Besides, by the time you get a shot set up, lighted, touched up, and fussed over; your meal is cold. Where's the fun in that? But I do have a new respect for Karina, Christine, and others who can pull off a tempting food shot when they want to.

So what's on the plate?
Organic Belgian waffles (store bought since I no longer own a waffle iron) with homemade blueberry compote. I used maple syrup instead of sugar for the compote.

And on the fork, poor-man's pâté, aka Neese's Liver Pudding. If you're not familiar with it, and I doubt many outside Piedmont NC will be, think very fine sausage made from liver instead of whatever is actually in sausage, and without the grease. It was coated in leftover toasted flax seed from last nights bread, then pan fried in a little coconut oil until golden brown and crispy on the outside, warm and very pâté like on the inside.
James Hill > 20100207-4538  Stick a fork in it.

Nothing fancy, just a parting shot showing what's left of the snow and my brunch for today.  The sun is bright and any snow left in it's path should be gone by evening.  The birds have abandoned the feeder, apparently to dine in the less crowded undergrowth.  I couldn't even attract one to the windowsill to eat with me.  Maybe I should have showered first?

This shot is also a good representation of why I don't like to do food photography.  I'm too impatient.  Heck, often I'll eat part of my meal over the stove while the remainder finishes cooking.  Besides, by the time you get a shot set up, lighted, touched up, and fussed over; your meal is cold.  Where's the fun in that?  But I do have a new respect for Karina, Christine, and others who can pull off a tempting food shot when they want to.

So what's on the plate?  
Organic Belgian waffles (store bought since I no longer own a waffle iron) with homemade blueberry compote.  I used maple syrup instead of sugar for the compote.

And on the fork, poor-man's pâté, aka Neese's Liver Pudding. If you're not familiar with it, and I doubt many outside Piedmont NC will be, think very fine sausage made from liver instead of whatever is actually in sausage, and without the grease.  It was coated in leftover toasted flax seed from last nights bread, then pan fried in a little coconut oil until golden brown and crispy on the outside, warm and very pâté like on the inside.
20100207-4538 Stick a fork in it.

Nothing fancy, just a parting shot showing what's left of the snow and my brunch for today. The sun is bright and any snow left in it's path should be gone by evening. The birds have abandoned the feeder, apparently to dine in the less crowded undergrowth. I couldn't even attract one to the windowsill to eat with me. Maybe I should have showered first?

This shot is also a good representation of why I don't like to do food photography. I'm too impatient. Heck, often I'll eat part of my meal over the stove while the remainder finishes cooking. Besides, by the time you get a shot set up, lighted, touched up, and fussed over; your meal is cold. Where's the fun in that? But I do have a new respect for Karina, Christine, and others who can pull off a tempting food shot when they want to.

So what's on the plate?
Organic Belgian waffles (store bought since I no longer own a waffle iron) with homemade blueberry compote. I used maple syrup instead of sugar for the compote.

And on the fork, poor-man's pâté, aka Neese's Liver Pudding. If you're not familiar with it, and I doubt many outside Piedmont NC will be, think very fine sausage made from liver instead of whatever is actually in sausage, and without the grease. It was coated in leftover toasted flax seed from last nights bread, then pan fried in a little coconut oil until golden brown and crispy on the outside, warm and very pâté like on the inside.
See photo in original gallery.

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