Scanning, take two

My second attempt at scanning the garden bounty. A slight improvement over the first, but I'm still not happy. Have I mentioned I don't do flower arranging?

Here we go. A single dahlia.



Ok, I can do this. Time to add more flowers.




Oops, I left the lights on and got a "ghost scan". Maybe more appropriate for Halloween next week. Let's try again, lights off.




Ok, but my black-eyed susans didn't like sitting out for 2 hours and got wilty.

Let's cluster all the flowers I picked, really fill up the space.



Much better. This will be my 'Picture This' contest entry on Gardening Gone Wild.

Still playing around, I found some grasses. Does that help?


I'm not sure; now it looks a bit frantic on the edges. Let's try this one with the lid down, pressing flowers to the glass and using a white background.


Well, that really squished the dahlia. I don't like it. For comparison: a red background, courtesy of my placemat.


The dahlias are looking tired, but I do like the burgundy background matching the burgundy gaillardia. Maybe next time I'll try the red-on-red earlier in the process. If there is a next time. I'm not sure this scanning thing is for me, and I don't seem to have a good scanner for the job - it still blurs out anything not setting directly on the glass. Makes it tough to have a multi-dimensional image.

Harvest Time

Gardening Gone Wild challenged us to submit harvest photos for this month's Picture This contest.

Harvest photos? I don't have anything to harvest!

I am very proud of my few Sungold tomatoes - this is the most I've had ripe at one time, nearly enough for a snack for one person:


Unfortunately, my sparse tomatoes are hard to pick out in that busy background. A closer look didn't improve things much:


Next, I trotted of to the Sunday market. There's a place for harvests!

I came home with a bag full of apples, but not many pictures. I did see a warty pumpkin that made me smile:


and a basket full of hot peppers:


But I'm guessing the entries will be full of pumpkins and peppers, and my photos aren't good enough to stand out.

I had lunch at the Nature Conservancy. The park was full of winterberry holly waiting to fed the birds in the coming months. What makes foraging different from harvesting, I wondered? It didn't matter, the light wasn't right.



Home again, still with no usable photo.

Then I saw all the critters: bees, moths, and butterflies feasting on my Autumn Joy sedum. Now they were busy harvesting! But they wouldn't stay still long enough for documentation.

This bee on a purple coneflower did. I think he was having such a good time bathing in pollen he didn't care that I was so close. I hope he got some in his sacs so he could go home and share his harvest.



So this bee is my entry.

(I did have a somewhat-brilliant inspiration strike me this evening, but it was already too dark to execute. I may go out in the morning to try it anyway, just for fun.)

Spring Fling

"Spring Fling" is the theme of the May Picture This photo contest over at Gardening Gone Wild. We are to find occurrences of "whimsy" in the garden. I looked around my yard, and didn't see much frivolity. Now I know I need to work on that. Instead I'll share some photos from my annual spring trip to southeastern Wisconsin, the land of whimsy.

We passed this barn on the way to lunch one day, but my camera wasn't convenient. I made sure I had it at the ready for the drive back. When I stopped to take the picture, my hostess told me, "Oh, yeah, there are several painted like that around here." Well, this is the only one I saw, so I think its something special. And it certainly made me smile:



And check out those Wisconsin-perfect clouds!

Next we went to a farm stand, so my traveling companion could buy some morels. This farm stand sits at a crossroads, but the entrance doesn't face either of the main roads. Don't worry, they are still good at advertising their product on the road-facing side. We were searching for mushrooms. Do you think we found the right place?



I realize those aren't really garden photos. So, finally, back in town, is my GGW photo entry. After my rant on lawn ornaments, I can't believe this it what I found to submit. But I've never seen cuter pink flamingos. All decked out for the spring rains, from hats to galoshes!



I hope you enjoyed my whimsical tour of Wisconsin.

Postscript, Saturday, 29 May:

My photo won! There were two winners, one for photo quality, and one for subject matter. No surprises that I didn't win on quality, but I'm glad I made one judge smile (or wince, actually, at the sight of so many garden flamingos)! Here's my award: