Visitors to the Garden

Thank you so very much for your lovely comments, stars and hearts on my granddaughter Odette's blip yesterday! She was delighted when I read her your comments, and of course I was too. The funny thing is that I didn't think that it was a particularly flattering photo of her...but it's the one she wanted. "I want the one with my mouth straight, not crooked", she said...meaning with her head at an angle. No matter, it was delightful and we had the best time last night! 

My son dropped off my grandson this morning and we spent the day playing - the three of us. It's a funny weather day - sort of humid, very unlike Portland, and therefore feels rather oddly warm. It will be raining by 7 pm (it's now 6:15) says the forecast, and will rain about an inch in the next 36 hours. After I dropped the kids back at their home, I went out to the garden to find a blip, and fertilized the whole thing...the rain will wash that fertilizer into the garden and the plants will love it!

This tree frog is my very first merged focus photo. It's a Northern Pacific Tree Frog (Pseudacris regilla) also known as the Pacific Chorus Frog. it is native to northern California through western Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and extreme southern Alaska. When you start to hear their singing in the early evenings, you know that spring is not far off. 

It's murky out, rather dark, and this little guy was hiding on a hellebore leaf in a darkish corner of the garden. I got several photos of it, and because it was so dim I had a very shallow depth of field. The head was in focus in one shot, and the other the body was in focus. What the heck, I'll try it! And Affinity makes it oh so easy (I don't know about Photoshop). And this is the result. I'm rather pleased. You'l see the shadow of a fern that was in one shot...and if you look very, very closely you might see just a shadow of a shift in images since I wasn't using a tripod. It was a totally random chance thing that I stumbled across this frog. I've seen it in the garden before, and have heard it sing.

The extra is a bee on a salvia in the front garden. I was pleased with it as well.

I'm already at 8,000 steps and I never went for a walk today...I'm going to sleep well tonight! That's a lot of grandchildren :-) 

Happy Saturday!