Meadow Lark

Nebraska State bird is the Meadow Lark and we had a couple dozen of them in my flower beds and in front of the house one cold day last week.  They were rooting around in the flower beds close to the brick of our house where the snow had melted and must have been finding insects or seeds then they would hop out into the lawn…back and forth they went for quite sometime.  They were fascinating to watch and decided to snap photos of them from inside my house. 

I put my zoom lens (55 - 250 mm I believe) and started snapping photos in the sports auto setting.  They didn’t seem to mind me but I was real careful not to move much either.  I also took some in manual settings so don’t know which one this was and have not taken the time to look up the settings on the photo .  I am thinking manual as the grass in the snow is blurry behind the bird and I set the f-stop low so it would do that on some of my photos.  By the way I was shooting the photos through my dirty windows – that could be some of the “smudgness” too.  I didn’t do much to this photo in Photoshop Elements 11 but lighten the bird a bit as it was just a tad dark and give it a bit of sharpening.  I have to laugh as I probably took 40 photos of the birds and liked only 3 or 4 so it is good that it was not film like in the “old days”.
 
Enjoy,
Lynn

Bernina 730 Purchased

Well I took the plunge and purchased a Bernina 730 sewing machine yesterday. Since I really don't have any interest in doing embroidery on my machine I didn't get the embroidery module. So glad I made it up to Lincoln yesterday as it was the last day of the scratch off coupon and that helped reduce the price some. Am so looking forward to getting it home and playing with it now. I am selling my 150 to my sister - hate to let it go but don't need two good machines.

Don't have any quilt photos to post or any quilt thing to talk about much so posting photos I took this last weekend. This photo was taken as the sun went down. Looking east the clouds reflected the colors of the sunset. It was beautiful. Nebraska has the best sunsets!

The next day about sunset we had a quick shower then an almost full rainbow as the storm moved east so stepped outside and took this photo from my front porch. The rainbow was very bright in color and had a smaller, dimmer one on the outside of it.

This next photo was taken as we were riding the ATVs on Sunday. I was on the back of the one the John was driving so set my camera to a fast shutter speed and took photos of the scenery as we whizzed by.

These last two photos are of bird nests in our small blue spruce trees in the windbreak on the north side of our place. The two baby birds are doves and that nest is in a 4 year old tree - the nest being hidden inside the full branches about 4 feet from the ground. The second photo is of a robin's nest and it is in one of the small trees planted 2 years ago. The nest is in plain sight and is only about 2 1/2 feet off the ground. The mother birds don't like it when I have to mow around their trees but it has to be done. I probably wouldn't have spotted the nests if the mother birds would have sat tight. Want to check out the nests periodically to see how they hatch and grow.

We had company here at our house from Thursday until yesterday (Monday) morning so today it is back to usual. We had a good time with them and showing them the farm. They all live in cities (3 from the Seattle area and 2 from New Jersey) and some had never been on a farm or knew what farmers do, etc. It was enlightening to the 27 yr. old to find out the amount of technology that a farmer uses and all the equipment needed to make a living. He even enjoyed riding the horses after he got over his fear that they were going to bite him. Of course I can't talk about that as I don't ride and really don't trust the "beasts" myself but I put on a brave front for anyone learning to ride.
Lynn