Sophia Z Photo: January 2011

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Ice Fest Sculptures & More

Well it was very cold for Ice Fest and it had it's same old problem for me. Ugly back drops for all the sculptures. They are either in front of reflective store fronts or have busy background or wires or bales of straw (!!) So if you are picky about taking pictures without clutter in the background, you are out of luck. So here's a few snap shots and I put in a couple of the neat old buildings in downtown Hamilton, too.

Oh, the baseball player carving is of the late, beloved Joe Nuxhall. The bronze statue in the middle of High Street is Alexander Hamilton.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Bitter Cold, Sun, Snow, River Day

The sun was out, the sky was very blue, the snow was sparkling, so this was my mission. To go along the river to the dam in Hamilton and the overlook. I only took my 55-200mm AV lens. Unfortunately, what looked like sparkling diamonds in the snow to my eyes, got over exposed in the photographs. Still, I embattled the bitter cold of 10 degrees w added chill factor from wind. (fingers were so painful after 10 minutes, even w gloves, it was a long 5 minute walk back to the car & heat!)

Nevertheless, I caught a nice flag shot, some Canadian geese flying, log covered in snow stuck in the boil, and other random shots of snow on steps, rocks & water fountains. The church steeple you see used to be seen from my old apartment bedroom window at night. Still miss that view and the partial view of the Great Miami river. I even took a photo of some electrical wires as reminder they keep us ALL connected on our laptops, home power & such.

These are not fabulous pictures just some I wanted to share with others w/o clogging up the Twitter stream. A celebration of the beauty of sun & snow, amidst the bitter cold. Not to mention my need for an attitude adjustment to snOMG.

Above, ice frosted rocks.

Looking into the boil from above. Mixture of bubbles, ice bits & water.Below is snow and ice covered log stuck in the boil for a long time.

I'd love to have this old drinking fountain. Love the look.

When this photo was taken, looking back at my walk to the car, I honestly thought I had frostbite in my fingers, even with gloves on! Hurt, burning & getting numb.

P.S. IceFest is this weekend in Hamilton but it will be too cold for many. Shame, the ice sculptures are awesome!

Monday, January 3, 2011

Think Spring, Plan Ahead for Garden

This was our yard 4 yrs ago. Slowly over time, things went downhill for a variety of reasons. Then, last year some awful, plentiful weed had taken over our grass & garden. Some root bulb weed that can ONLY be removed with lots of digging up & our yard is big. So the plan is to get a tiller or something & remove lots of it. Replant the center plot with things raccoons & groundhogs don't like and use lots of mulch. Ground hogs will eat the Black-Eyed -Susans but thankfully, my neighbor has some to divide and share this year.

If you saw our yard last summer, it was pitiful & the high dew points kept me house bound so weeds really took over. It looked more like a cross between Sanford & Son and Green Acres, sigh. My neighbor next door (who's house you can see a bit) has FABULOUS yard & flowers. Very inspirational.

The other shocking thing is the evergreen tree on the side of the house has TRIPLED in size in four years time. What to do, or who to call, to trim it well & with affordability.. . . It's sixty feet tall.

But now is the time to put money aside & plan for the yard. I need low maintenance flowers and stuff that likes shade between the trees & the new stupid 100 foot long plastic privacy fence neighbor behind us has added to back of yards. Did I mention he's taken away our view of sunsets? The chipmunk is not amused, either.