31/100 Dogs ~ Snout

Snout is his name and running is his game.  He is half black-mouth cur and half greyhound.  He lives on property adjacent to our farm and has been known to chase cows.  He's very elegant looking in my opinion.

Tail Feathers

I have an absolutely innate ability to cause animals to face the other direction with their butt facing me when I try to photograph them.  At least this fellow has some good-looking tail feathers!  Sometimes they actually look blue depending on the light.

Hi Old Lady!

Wanna come over to my place for lunch?

This albino alligator is one of two at the Wildlife World Zoo outside of Phoenix, Arizona.  This fella lives in the aquarium building and you can actually have lunch on the other side of his habitat and be eye to eye with him during your meal at the Aquarium Cafe.  There was a piece of thick glass between me and the gator; therefore the glare from my flash on the photo.  Sorry for the imperfection but it's one of my favorite pictures from my day at the zoo.  I think he was waving at me and thinking my extra pounds I've added might make me a bit delicious!

The other alligator, for obvious safety reasons, is also behind glass in the reptile building. 

Just Another Horse Photo

Graceful Flamingo

Linking to CAMERA CRITTERS

Note:  Due to time constraints, I no longer comment on blogs which require word verification.

Got Milk?

I caught this newborn calf in our front pasture suckling his mama.  Can you see the milky froth around his mouth?  He was only a few days old as evidenced by the umbilical cord which was drying but still attached.

30/100 Dogs ~ Fats ~ English Bulldog

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Who is the handsome-est one of all?

Fats!

Deck Park Tunnel ~ Phoenix

I've always wanted to take a picture inside the Deck Park Tunnel in Phoenix but you'd have to have a suicide wish if you stopped anywhere within the almost 3,000 foot long tunnel, so during my recent visit I did the next best thing and shot this photo through the windshield of a moving vehicle.  And no, I wasn't driving.  Part of Interstate 10 through Phoenix, the traffic moves through the tunnel at interstate highway speeds.

Cowboy Boots

Got the blues?  

Then hop on over to Midweek Blues at The Dusty Cellar for the cure!

Rural Rusk County, Texas

"Rural Rusk County, Texas" is an oxymoron.  ALL OF RUSK COUNTY is rural!

LINKING TO TRICIA'S

BARN CHARM

 Due to time constraints and just because they're so darned frustrating, 

I no longer comment on blogs which require word verification.

Squirrel Monkey

One of the best exhibits at the Phoenix Zoo is Monkey Village where you can actually enter the habitat of (if I can remember correctly) 16 squirrel monkeys and watch them monkey around through trees and feeding stations and climbing ropes.  The monkeys wear a choker-type necklace (seen in the next photo) which I presume is an identification tag.

These little guys are extremely small (one to three pounds) with a body size of ten to fourteen inches and a tail length of about sixteen inches.  In addition, they are extremely fast, which I use for my excuse for the poor photos.  I took approximately 40 shots and this is the best there is!

Peekaboo!

I usually think of pigeons and sparrows as hanging around picnic tables waiting for a crumb to fall rather than ducks, but this mallard wandered up from a pond at the Phoenix Zoo when I was visiting recently to see what he could charm out of the lunch crowd.

LINKING TO CAMERA CRITTERS

NOTE:  Due to time constraints and just because they're so darned frustrating, I no longer comment on blogs which contain word verification phrases.

Thoughts on Word Verification and the Demise of Picnik

There seems to be a revolution going on out here in blogland over Google's new verification phrases and the fact that half of the phrase seems to be illegible to most people, me included.  I must join this revolution and as of today I will no longer comment on blogs which use this verification process.  If you love getting comments as much as I do, I urge you to remove that step from your blog.  I removed mine several months ago and by following the instructions given by bloggie friend TexWisGirl I have not received any spam on either of my sites.  The following is a link to her post today where she again gives instructions on how to remove this pesky, time-consuming step and what to do to prevent spammers or hackers from posting on your site.  Believe me, it's easy!  Just click on her link above to get that info.

Now to more interesting things!

I was extremely dismayed a couple weeks ago to be informed that Google was discontinuing the Picnik photo editing website which it acquired some months back.  Once again, Google is causing headaches out there in photoland!  I had become very comfortable with Picnik and believed it made my photos much better.  I have Photoshop Elements but for some reason I have been unable or unwilling to learn how to adequately use it.  I had been turned on to a Topaz plug-in (which is compatible with Photoshop and other programs) called Adjust, but it's certainly not for every photo.

So after looking around on line at various recommendations I have finally settled on a site called iPiccy.com.  It's the closest thing I've found to Picnik thus far.  Some additions have been made since the announcement of Picnik's upcoming demise to make it even more like Picnik.  At the present time you don't even need to register to use it and it's free, but it is a beta site and after reading the terms of use where it talks about subscription costs I am surmising that once the beta testing period is over it will probably become a subscription service like Picnik.  The price mentioned for the premium package was the same as Picnik's (annual cost of around $25).  Here are some samples of before and after photos which I edited in iPiccy.

Before

After

iPiccy offers exposure correction, hue and saturation, sharpen, et cetera, and the features I particularly like are the local contrast and the shadow enhancement.  They have a text area although the font selections are minimal.  That's okay for me but I know others like adding text to their photos.  They offer a number of special effects and a collage tool.  As yet they do not have a mechanism for implementing curves or levels.

Before

After

I was disappointed in the black and white option offered by Photoshop and was prepared to spend $50 on a Topaz product to be able to continue to process my photos in black and white.  iPiccy's black and white tool is exactly like Picnik's, allowing you to add multiple color filters to the black and white program to make your black and whites pop.

A pretty sad before picture

but now it's a stunning black and white or ....

... a vibrant colorful photo!

Jonquils

Here in East Texas as well as other areas of the South members of the narcissus family are frequently collectively referred to as jonquils.  The first on the scene are the paper whites, first appearing in December, and then other varieties poke their sweet faces sunward throughout the early spring.   They are heavily perfumed, so strong that some people can't tolerate having them indoors because of the heavy aroma.  As you drive along country roads patches of them can be found in ditches and sprinkled throughout the countryside.  Whenever you see an especially large patch, you can bet that there was once a house at that spot and a sweet farm lady, like my grandmothers, set out the bulbs.  We today reap the benefit because they multiply and naturalize and grow more numerous as the years go by.

A Day Late

I know, I know.  Valentine's Day was Tuesday.  I didn't have an appropriate picture to post so I just ignored it.  Then today I was going back through some of the pictures I took while in Arizona and I found this one which I had originally tossed due to the poor lighting conditions.  The Arizona sun at 1 p.m. is brutal!  This is a well-known and popular sculpture near the Scottsdale Civic Center.  So here's my belated Valentine's Day wish to all of you - spread the love around so it lasts longer than just a day!

The In Crowd

The latest footwear from "tweens" (and presumably that is being copied from the "teens") is as follows:  grungy tennis shoes with silver and white stripes, embossed with glittery stuff, and lavender soles, no shoelaces, orange socks with black stars, and lace-trimmed black tights.  Compliments:  the sister of one of Em's best friends, age 9 or thereabouts.

Corn Crib

Nacogdoches County, Texas

Webster's Dictionary defines barn as "a farm building for sheltering harvested crops, livestock, machines, etc."  I think this is technically a corn crib, but as such it falls within the definition of a barn.

Linking to BARN CHARM

Big Feet

Photographed at the

Phoenix Zoo

Bicyclist

A bicyclist encounters a steep climb on one of the red brick streets in downtown Nacogdoches.

An Audrey Hepburn Neck

Wildlife World Zoo

Litchfield Park, Arizona

Hectic Day

My last full day in Phoenix was a hectic one.  We started the morning off bright and early by going to minor league (that's Little League for you who thought he might be a baseball superstar at age eight), where Em was evaluated for fielding, catching, base running and batting skills.

This was  followed by a basketball game.  Here you may notice the sockless right foot which I included on yesterday's post.  Actually, that foot wasn't sockless.  He grabbed one of those anklet socks by mistake so once he got the PF Flyers laced up, it was totally hidden by the shoe.

The first game was immediately followed by another since double-headers were scheduled for that day.  Here Em shows off his dribbling skills.

Then we grabbed the light rail and headed for downtown Phoenix ....

... where we got stuffed with peanuts, burgers and fries at Five Guys.  

And then it was back to the light rail station for a trip to pick up our vehicle and get home by midafternoon.  Wow, what a jam-packed day!

When Little Boys Dress Themselves

Poolside Sculpture

February in Phoenix

Phoenix Palms

I've always loved the exotic palm trees in Phoenix.  They remind me of graceful dancers silhouetted against the sky.  I've returned from my vacation and hope to catch up on the blogs I've missed in a few days.  Thanks for your visits and comments!

Pugzie's

When I visit Phoenix, I absolutely MUST have a sandwich at Pugzie's, a Valley favorite located in the midtown area.  My favorite:  hot pastrami on marble rye!

Em's Gr8th Birthday

Em had a great eighth birthday party last Sunday at a local park.  

The weather was perfect - 78 degrees!  

That's why you plan your vacation to Arizona in January!

The boys prepped their appetite for dogs and burgers 

by playing a little football and a lot of rolling around on the grass.

His friends brought the perfect presents for an eight-year-old boy.

I think the cake was chocolate!
I'm going to predict this will be the last birthday
that he will wear his traditional birthday hat.