Feeling ill

I've been sick for the last couple of days. I even went to see a doctor. I was told that I had a normal cold and not the swine kind that everyone's been so hype about lately. Nice to know.

Fishing

Some time ago I promised the kids I'd take them fishing. Today was the day that we went. After a few coincidences our departure was delayed quite a bit, so that we didn't have much time to spend at the lake. The girls really enjoyed every moment and we agreed to go again in the near future.

A few pictures:

And the necessary evidence photo to prove that Susanna proved her fishing abilities on her first time out:

Eleven years

Rasberries and bugs II

I had received more orders for the morning, so I went to the supermarket. After getting the shopping done, I headed out to pick rasberries. As allways, I had my camera with me. I left my backpack and camera at the edge of the rasberrybush, close enough to be grabbed on short notice if something interesting came into view. I took a few insect pictures. Here's one:
I had also promised another nature photographer a picture of my WK. This is what it looks like:
There were loads of rasberries. A couple of hours in the bush, and I had gathered just short of a bucketfull. There would have been plenty more to pick, but I ran out of time since I had to head of towards home to pick up the girls from daycare and get myself ready for nightshift at work. If there will be many more years like this one with wild berries, our family will need to invest in another freezer.

A morning in the woods

After getting up in the morning, I did as I was told and cleaned the house. After vacuuming the last dustball away, I grabbed my backpack, a bucket and berrypicker and headed to the woods. Before lunchtime I had picked a bucket of blueberries and as I walked about, I found a great spot for rasberries. I'll have to go back in the next couple of days. I kept practicing taking pictures of insects. I obviously need the practice, since most of todays pictures turned out lousy. I seemed to keep making mistakes with focusing. The problem was a gray cloudy day in rather thick terrain, I didn't have much light to work with. I was concentrating on depth and did not take note of the extending shuttertimes as I had my camera set on AV. The end result was a lot of motion blur and obviously shaken pictures.

Along the way I snapped a picture of a fairytale forrest:
Here is a example of the days bugshots:

Not exactly what I was hoping for, I like the composition, but it would be much better if the spider would be completely in focus. I was planning to go out to the swamp this evening, but the dull gray weather does not make me feel like heading out. I think I'll just wait for a day with better light.

Rasberries and bugs

My idea was to go pick blueberries. At first I had trouble getting myself started in the morning and once I got into the bush, I decided to concentrate on rasberries for a couple of hours and leave the blueberries for another day. While picking berries, I also practiced taking pictures of bugs, since I'll have to start taking closeups for my project sometime in the near future among a lot of other things.

The days pictures:

Berries

I had to drop by at work to take care of something in the morning. I got the job done and was heading back home at around 10 a.m. At 10:30 I was on my way to the wilderness. I picked a bucketfull of blueberries and half a bucket of cloudberries. For my photoproject I took a few pictures while I was picking berries:

My butterflyspot didn't let me down:
A slightly different shot of a pine cone:
This butterfly seemed to love my backpack:
The osprey came to check me as I walked towards the nesting tree:
There appeared to be some birds in the nest:
Cloudberries:

All in all, a nice day and a good trip.