The sheep got sheared

When I posted my sheep photo last week someone commented that it was time for her to lose the winter coat. Today DH and I were driving to DD's softball game and passed the sheep house again. When I spotted her like this, I said, "Wait! She got a haircut! I need a picture!"
As if it's not embarrassing enough for Ms. Sheep to be outside all naked and shaved and vulnerable and having some strange lady point a camera at her when she's just trying to eat some grass in peace, said strange lady with a camera goes and steals the rest of her dignity:
If I believe what goes around comes around, does that mean someday someone will take a photo of me peeing and post it on the internet? Maybe I should just delete. Or I could photoshop it out, but that wouldn't be keeping it real, yo.

Water drops

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? I'm a HUGE fan of Pat's (PatsPix) photos, and her water drops are the coolest. Here's my attempt, rain drops on my window. I like how you can see the screen in some of the drops.

DRebel XT w/ 100mm macro lens in AV mode, CWB
Adjusted contrast, hard light layer, cropped and sharpened for web

Yellow

Technically this is on theme. There's a water drop (real rain!) on one of the petals. :-)Bird of the day, an American goldfinch:

Why composition matters

I was editing my photos from yesterday's game and came across this beauty:
Hahahaha! Cam's got four legs!

Goddard Mansion

Rather than posting yet another baseball picture of DS, which is all I shot today, I'm posting another one from last week. This is the Goddard Mansion, located in the same park as the Portland Head lighthouse. I think this would be a great location for a people shoot.I was lucky enough to find an old photo on the internet of it. What a treasure, huh? Isn't it amazing how close the composition is to my photo above?
Not really. I used this cool website: Age your photo It's in Japanese but pretty easy to figure out. Do any of you subscribe to Photojojo? That's where I got the link to the website.
And I totally stole this joke from Pioneer Woman.

Take me out to the ballgame

If DD doesn't get over her camera aversion soon, it's going to start to look like I only have one kid. Here's a pic of DS hitting a triple at his first official high school game today. At least I think it was on this pitch. If not, let's pretend it is. :-)
Bird of the day, a northern flicker:
And Pat suggested trying an antique color on the glove photo from yesterday. Here's my try at that:
Please check out my post below this one, too. I give out my version of the Pico de Gallo awards. (Sorry, Pat, I keep forgetting the real name of it and this is what I keep thinking of. :-D)

Arte y pico

Lovely Pat http://www.patspixpotd.blogspot.com so nicely gave me this award. The idea is to pass it along to five other bloggers who inspire you. Thanks so much, Pat, it's incredibly flattering to have you think of me! Check out her list at http://www.frenchfotos.blogspot.com because I'm in some great company. And here are five more bloggers who inspire me.

Angela. I love the way she looks at the world. She's my buddy:
http://mypixelatedoasis.blogspot.com/

TheValerie. She is funny, and I just get the feeling that if it weren't for pesky terms of use I could see the full extent of her humor. And I think we'd have fun watching trashy reality TV together.
http://valspictureperfectpotd.blogspot.com/

Amanda. Also funny (see a theme here?) and sweet as can be. Not to mention incredibly talented. I'm proud to be a fellow Mainer with her.
http://labellavitaphotography.typepad.com/525600_minutes/

Cari. I love her photography. Her style really appeals to me.
http://photosofmyeverydaylife.typepad.com/a_photo_a_day/

And Liz. Another one of my homegirls. We're going to hang sometime.
http://lizpicturesof.blogspot.com/

It's hard to pick only five, because all my POTD buddies inspire me!

Baseball

I'm technically on theme--this is a child's hand. A man-sized child, but still a child, my DS:The color version:
And in honor of our friend Pat, who also enjoys a good sign, a sign I saw today:

Baa

Although I live in a farm town, it's vegetable farms and dairy farms. This sheep lives in a split-level. (Well, I suppose there's some type of shed for her out back, but the family she belongs to lives in a split-level.) I drive by this house almost every day, and I finally had the perfect storm of her being in the front yard and me having the camera in the car and not being in a hurry to get somewhere.



And trying out Ren's (LadyRen on 2Peas) http://www.viberesources.com/ textures that she was kind enough to share:

One boy, one girl

Once again, I took photos today but haven't processed them (this week is kicking my butt so far!), so these are from last week. I think these were even taken in auto or P mode--I've just been trying to take more photos of my kids. I did use bounce flash, though.

I have such a "mommy crush" on DS whenever I see him in a baseball uniform, especially if he has the eye black on. And I'm thrilled that he's keeping his hair shorter now and I can always see his eyes:
And DD just melts my heart too. She's pretty camera shy lately. She thinks she looks drunk here, but she needs some equal face time:

Portland Head Light

This might be the most photographed sight in Maine, seen on many a postcard. But I've never photographed it before, so you get to look at mine instead of the postcard ones.It was almost noon when we were there, so I thought I'd make the best of it and try a sunflare shot:
Settings for both shots: Rebel XT with 24-70L lens ISO 200 F8.0 SS1/800. Messed with in PSE (don't remember what I did) and sharpened for web.

These were taken on Saturday. I did get the camera out and take pictures today but haven't loaded them yet because I'm tired from being taxi mom today.

Children week

This is my son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased...to borrow a quote from The Big Guy.Just a mommy-goggles snap of my boy Cameron, smirky half-smile and all.

The birds in yesterday's post, from top to bottom, were a chipping sparrow, two male cowbirds, a chickadee, and a purple finch. Some of you wondered how I got sharp bird photos. Like anything, the answer is practice, practice, practice and taking lots of photos. This time of year I get a really wide variety and a large number of birds because it's migrating and nesting time. I do have a lot of trees in my yard and hang a lot of feeders. I get as close as I can to one of my feeders outside. (I usually scare them all away when I appear and then after I've been standing quietly for a while they'll come back to feed again.) I use my 70-300 lens set at 300mm and at the lowest F-stop I can with it at that length (5.6--it also has image stabilization) and then I shoot a ton of photos and crop in on the sharpest of them. Some birds are not very shy, like chickadees, so you can get pretty close--they just don't stay in one place for long so you have to be quick that way. Thanks for letting me share with you!

Name those birds

Yesterday's "guess this" photo was a potholder--you're a bunch of smart peas!
We had a great spring day today and I took a ton of photos but just got home and haven't had a chance to edit any yet, so we'll play name that bird today with some photos I took this week. Remember the lady in Mary Poppins? Tuppence a bag? I'm turning into her. Love my birdies.

Ducks

I mentioned that I saw ducks yesterday and that they made me happy. Please excuse the bad exposure, focus, composition, and photoshopping of these duck photos :-D, but I still wanted to show you these. I saw this cute pair--male:and female:
Where? Not in a beautiful pond or lake but here:
In a corn field, in a puddle made by melted snow. I love that about spring! It's not Tony Soprano's pool or anything, but it still amuses me every year to see ducks in random puddles around town.

And here's my "guess this" for today. An easier one:

And because I love birdies, another bird of the day, a nuthatch:

The Secret Life of Bees

Good thing I'm not allergic to bees. There were about a hundred of them swarming around my crocuses. Don't they look like they're part of a carnival ride here? That one on the far left makes me think of the Dumbo ride at Disney for some reason.
This is my guess this for today, because I don't know what these are. Pat? I thought it was another patch of crocuses, but they look different. They're smaller and not as "cupped."
Here they are from farther away so you can see how they grow low to the ground and in a cluster. I love the way my DH randomly plants bulbs all over our yard and I get a little surprise in the spring:

And the answer to yesterday's photo was....wellie boots:As inspired by Jess, here are things that made me mad or bummed me out today:
1. I have been really good about diet and exercise and the scale JUST. WON'T. MOVE. And I'm hungry ALL.THE.TIME.
2. Ants. Every spring we get those big black ants. I hate them.
3. Laundry. Endless laundry.
4. DS's first high school baseball game was scheduled for today but got canceled. I was really looking forward to it.
4. My TiVo box keeps crapping out and having to be restarted.
5. The Sox lost last night--to the Yankees.

Things that made me happy today:
1. The weather. Sunny and 70 degrees. Feeling the sun on my back as I lay on the lawn and took photos of flowers. Not needing a jacket.
2. Seeing ducks and wild turkeys.
3. I'm having a good hair day.
4. I have lost weight since November. I feel better. I'm healthier.
5. Hearing birds sing.
6. Finding out that my dad and stepmom will be visiting us in Maine for a whole month this summer.
7. A new magazine and Netflix movie in the mail.
8. Nobody in the family has been surly today.
9. Iced coffee.
10. The List of the Day blog. Always good for a laugh.

Guess this

My "guess this'" for today. And just because it's one of my favorite sunset shots and reminds me of summer. Taken late August 2007.

How to enjoy life

First, let me address the Perfect Pushups. I had never actually used them, because they're DS's. In the interest of bringing you a personal testimonial, though, I went and tried them today. I did 1-1/2 pushups. And yup, I'm totally ripped now. You should see my guns.
Here's their website. http://www.perfectpushup.com/
And now on to today's post.
How to enjoy life, by Baxter.
Go point at something. It doesn't matter if there's nothing there, you're a sporting breed. It looks impressive. Besides, your people think it's adorable:Grab a tree by a branch and try to pull the whole thing out of the ground with your teeth. A hard-blowing wind makes it even more fun:
Run around the yard in circles and figure eights as fast as you can. Repeat multiple times:
When you get hot and tired from all that running around, go find one of the last patches of snow on the front lawn and lie down in it to get cool. Stick your tongue out, because your people think that's adorable too:
Go find your favorite boy and get some love:
Bliss!

What is it again

The bird in yesterday's post was a female brown-headed cowbird. A female cowbird doesn't make a nest of her own but instead is a brood parasite. She lays her eggs in the nests of other bird species, who then raise the young cowbirds. Not only that, but the female cowbird will often even destroy or eat the other birds' eggs.
Nature can be so harsh.

If this were a cowbird, I'd think she was saying to me, "Screw you and your judgment of me as a bad parent and a bad bird." But it's just a little junco who appears to be mooning me for my own pleasure.
And here's today's "what is it" photo. It's very exciting.
Scroll down for the answer.
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I told you it was exciting. I hope your heart stops beating fast enough to let you get some sleep. I know that between my random bird facts and photos of exercise equipment my blog can be a little overstimulating.

What is it?

Please excuse the blurry photo, but this is my "what is it" photo for today. I can't identify this bird. Anyone know what kind it is?

Edited to add: I've got it after another trip through my Audobon book. I won't tell yet in case anyone wants to play.
And some spring cattails: