21 Straight Days of Sunshine and then the Rain

What an unbelievably wonderful stroke of good weather we've had. As many folks in this part of Southern Ontario are saying after the Summer we've had, we certainly deserve it. And just as things were starting to suffer, the rain has started and looks like it will continue for most of the day and perhaps some of tomorrow.

I've been deep into David Pogue's 'Digital Photography The Missing Manual' and found more bits about my camera I didn't know...such as, the exposure compensation button (no mocking laughter please). That little rectangle that is half black half white on the back of the camera - when you are on a manual mode, you can press this button and either darken or lighten the shot in third of a step units by pressing the button next to this little sign. So now, I can brighten or darken the shot, if I'm convinced the automatic reading isn't quite right. Who knew - well, probably all of you, but now I know too!

Also he spends some time telling you about all those prefixed manual settings, e.g.: "Portrait" - gives you a large aperture - so background is blurry or "Sports" - fast shutter speed. Also, under the category of you probably don't need to know, but you can screw your camera into the top of a lamp - no doubt getting a nice sharp photo of Uncle Bobby when he's wearing the lampshade. David also shows another cool tripod option that you make with a screw and a string - so you step on the bottom of the string - pull your camera up to make the string tight and presto - a cheapo, pocket ready, camera steadier.

This weekend Kevin & I managed to get over the the Royal Botanical Gardens for a lovely hike. I've managed to put these photos into Blogger backwards (apologies, I like to start with a better looking photo) and have not figured out how to move them around - so, here we go:

This is Eco-Lawn - a low maintenance, drought tolerant, shade and sun mix grass. I suppose if I had a cottage, find it's a bit scruffy for me. But a good example for people to see - it's being advertised as a lawn alternative. This is how it looks after a summer of heavy rain and no mowing.

The lovely new water feature - you can see the plants are small.

A very cool lily.

The dahlias were just at their best.

This is part of the scented garden - at one point it was sponsored by a Gas Company....

A Cornus looking handsome in the Fall.

You really can see how well everything has done with all the rain we received.

A primal scream here...yes, some of the leaves have started to change....not yet, I'm just not ready to think of Winter.

Ptilotus - probably Joey - didn't see the tag. What a great parking lot plant.

And, finally here's the walk in the woods. Here's a very handy way of dealing with fallen trees across a pathway.

What a glorious day.

More signs of Fall.

A nice big creature from the rodent family.

This fungus looked like it was grafted to this old stump - almost like those tiny cactus grafts.

And, just a couple illustrations of the exposure compensation feature - this is Agastache 'Apache Sunset' - with 1/3 step up - more light.

And this is the original that the camera produced: Note, I've got less information in the black area to the left of the frame now.

A close-up of a Ligularia - again, have stepped up the exposure to allow more light in - and I see that I'm losing a bit of focus.

Here is the original:

In this particular situation - a species clematis seedhead - I think I prefer this shot, where I added a 1/3 unit of exposure. (Blogger appears to have taken this photo and turned it on its head. Oh well.)

Here is the original:

And to end this post today - I discovered why this little clematis flowers were looking so shattered, my bees are too fat.

You just wonder how much pollen he was able to collect?