1) I figured out how to
2) And... I don't know what that "something else" is.
Technically, this could be #3, as well, but it's not. It's just me, thinking we really ought to see if we can find the owner's manual for the camera. Not only do I not know what the other thing is, but I do not know how to determine which one I'm controlling (and I use the term loosely).
There's one button on the camera that does more than one thing! Shutter speed, perhaps? Or isn't that exposure? What controls action? The other one allows me to capture action as if it's posed. For example, when I told the boys to wave their hands and heads as fast as they could, they did, and I started snapping and poking buttons. This is what I got:
Looks like your typical self-posed boy portrait, doesn't it? This is them, in motion. Sort of.
Do you know what this means? NO MORE SHMU PICTURES! If I can harness this technology, we could have crystal clear photos of all our children, and not have a photo collection of one-eyed, three-nostriled furry things. This is BIG!
And a few more things... dunno what these are. As always, input (knowledge, guesses, whatever) is appreciated. Thanks.
I found these on the ground while I was trying to get a good shot of a mushroom.
And Ernie, this is for you.
Those things grow fast out here. That log fell in a storm during the fall, and already it's covered in fungi (ok, "mushrooms" - but I don't know what kind, or if they're technically mushrooms, or whatever, but there they are, and the boys have been instructed not to eat them). This is the biggest one, and I love the way it cups up and out, and how that vine has grown right through it without either one seeming to take notice of one another.
This is so much fun!
Kiss those babies!
~Dy
9 comments:
Those nuts look like hickory nuts. You can eat them, and they were used for dyeing material.
I was going to say those things were some kind of nut, but Laura got all fancy-schmancy and said *hickory* nuts.
Laura, thanks. We have several nuts along the drive, but I can't for the life of me ever figure out which ones give off which nuts. I think there may be black walnuts farther up, too - those have the tough, green outer husk, right? This really is fun. If you ever get within 50 miles of this area, you simply MUST come let me drag you around with ID tags and a Sharpie!!
Staci, ROFL!! Well, I didn't figure they were scat. (Or they wouldn't have been in my dehydrated little hands, that's for sure!) They look a little malnourished, don't they? Maybe we can figure out which tree is a hickory and see if we can nudge it along a bit, too?
OK, ok, off to bed.
Thanks, guys.
Dy
Walnuts do have a green outer husk--but that husk will rot or fall off and you can find them looking more like this pic. Walnuts are usually bigger, though, and I was gonna guess hickory nuts for the ones in the pic.
Your pictures are looking much clearer! Yeah! I still can't find the manual for my camera (other than the Spanish version) either. I keep pushing buttons and changing things and then forgetting what I did to get it that way.
I love pictures of fungus:o) And, hey! I think that's a redbud I see in the background (top left of top photo when blown up).
Great pics! Now you just have to figure out what you're doing and how to reproduce it....something I've never done.
Rebel
(Y'all are funny!)
Hickory nuts have a green outer husk, too. And they have a hickory smell. The person you need is my dad - he can even identify what kind of *pine* tree you might have.
And someday I'm going to make a trip your way and we'll chat in person while enjoying a cup of coffee and watching the kids play.
When I was a child I was told definitively that those were black walnuts. I thought they looked like little owl faces and would glue them on top of pinecones to make owls.
Hickory nuts. Hard to crack, good to eat. They used to make dye out of them and I've inadvertently dyed some clothes while picking them.
I can't tell what mushroom that is ... I haven't seen one of those shelf ones that are pure white before! Lucky you! I would have been squealing like a little girl out there in the woods to find something like that. I wouldn't eat it though. Looks like it might give you a nasty case of the sit-on-the-toilet-all-day, which is still better than the destroy-your-liver-and-kidneys-in-an-hour mushroom.
I know both hickory nuts and black walnuts very WELL! Your photo is of hickory nuts -- YUM! The nutmeat looks and tastes like a round, miniature pecan, except that hickory nuts do not have the slight bitterness that a pecan can sometimes have. Hickory nuts are very sweet and just plain heaven when baked up in a "pecan" pie recipe! Hickory nut shells (when the outer husk is removed) are smooth and will take on a light gray/off white color. The bark of a hickory tree is dark-grayish and rather smooth, but peels off in strips, curling away from the trunk a little at the top and bottom of the loose strips. Collect those strips when they fall to the ground and use them in your smoker or BBQ! (That also goes for any sycamores you may have.)
Black walnuts are about the size of a golf ball. The outer husk is even larger. The shell (once husked) is still nearly black in color, and very rough textured -- similar to the bark of their tree.
Wear gloves when shucking off the husks or your hands will be stained dark brown for weeks. My FIL built a contraption for husking the nuts with his idling car: he jacked up the drive wheel and rigged this thingy underneath it so that he could feed a nut under the (spinning) wheel and have it peel off the husk and ZING the husked nut out the back to BANG against the garage wall. My mom used to pour the nuts into our driveway and run the car back and forth over them for a couple of weeks to remove the husks. She cracked the nuts with a good, heavy hammer on a piece of iron railroad rail! (If you have a macho, city-dweller friend who cracks pecans or English walnuts with his hands, toss him a black walnut and watch the fun begin.)
Black walnuts yield rich, fat meats that have a very strong flavor -- my husband always thinks they taste like a heady liqueur because the flavor is VERY strong. Most people who were not raised eating black walnuts do not like the taste. To me, fudge just isn't fudge unless it has black walnuts in it! Yumm yumm yummmm! (I have also used black walnuts in the "pecan" pie custard -- very yummy, but cut it in small pieces-- A little dab'll do ya!)
Never park your vehicles underneath (or anywhere near) a walnut tree -- the trees drip a very acidic substance in tiny little droplets that will eat the paint right off! Even the best car wax does not help. Wind-borne dirt will also stick to this substance (one of the stickiest known to man), leaving black dots all over anything nearby.
Both hickory nuts and walnuts will keep for years in the freezer. Shell the nuts and pack the meats into jars. You can shake out enough for a recipe any time and put the rest back. Even nutmeats that have dried and shriveled a little over time are still good to use.
Hope I've helped!
Post a Comment