Tonight is our local fireworks display. We have yet to attend in the six years we’ve lived here. I have to say, right now, it sounds just like the thunderstorm that passed through around 4:00 a.m. this morning. The dogs don’t like it.

Thunder for the reverberation off the mountains and Highlands for where we live. (The high school band/sports teams, etc. are called the Highlanders.)

Previous to the start of the fireworks we were taking advantage of the pool. As you’ve already read here on the blog, we do it au naturel at night.

These were handheld on Program mode because I like the blur.

Maybe it’s because I am getting older and I don’t mind blurriness!

Or maybe it’s because I just like trying to be creative.

(Do you like any of these, and if so, why?)

P. S. DUH! I forgot to add that just before it got dark we were sitting in the cabana and Bella was out with us. Bella started barking and I thought at first she was barking at the dog that I thought I heard barking down the street. Then we heard it. That distinctive snort of a bear. I ran over to where Bella was and could see a bear just over the perimeter of our fence. We called Bella and got her inside so we could access the situation. For sure, a large bear, making protective noises just outside our fence. Momma again? Rick saw her pawing at the tree and when we looked up we could just make out the little Mickey Mouse ears of a cub in the crux of the tree. Probably the same bear, but we backed off and let her be. I guess she likes it around here!

How could I have forgotten about momma bear? Swimming makes me sleepy and forgetful I guess.

Or maybe it has to do with the “getting older” thing I mentioned before????

Tiki torch and cabana lights taken with HNS.

You all probably don’t want to hear this but too bad.

If you have never skinny-dipped you don’t know what you are missing.

Tonight marks the first skinny-dip of the season for me. The water temperature is still a touch chilly at 78F degrees, but the warm evening helped.

Silken water against bare skin.

Tiki torches casting a warm glow.

Three bats (Hurrah!) circling overhead, catching bugs.

Frogs singing in the background.

The occasional lost firefly. (Their season is about over.)

Laps in the pool: the ultimate sleeping aid.

Heaven! Sheer. Naked. Heaven.

Okay, we are going back to Colorado for a day. This old tree lies at the top of our 70 acres. It’s been down a long, long time. I think it was a ponderosa pine but I can’t be certain. There are other living ponderosas that dot this ridge so it would make sense.

You’ve got to admit that in its repose it has a lovely view. If you’re going to fall over you might as well do it right.

If you back up a bit from where the tree lies you would get this view. I took these shots and stitched them together into a panorama. That’s Bull Mountain in the background. The cabin lies kind of mid-photo where you can just see trees sticking up beyond the hill.

The dry climate has weathered the tree to a state of mummification. Its bark and roots have taken on a kind of patina that only years of being exposed to harsh sun and wind can accomplish.

Its mighty roots that once kept it grounded now reach for the sky instead.

Its gnarly branches reach out in supplication.

It is indeed a grand old tree. Even in death it commands respect.

Lawn shadows.

Last night as I lay in bed my head was spinning with a great idea for a blog post. I was literally writing it in my head. I should have gotten up there and then and written it all down because now I have no idea what the idea was. PooF! Dust to dust. Kind of like my brain. Maybe it will come back to me.

This morning it’s only 58 degrees with a chilly breeze and it feels like fall out there! It’s supposed to heat up mid-week (which I hope it does for the pool’s sake) but for now it’s blessedly cool. Yesterday we had a rainy start to the morning with a little over a quarter of an inch of rain and then a few little squalls in the afternoon. I didn’t even bother to close up the house it was so nice.

Back yard with a peek at the pool.

One day this week I am going to try and go to Skylands and see what’s blooming there with my camera and gear. I recently unearthed a macro lens that I didn’t know I had that must be over ten years old. It still works on my new Canon so I want to give it a whirl and see what I can do with it. (I was looking at a beautiful macro lens this weekend at Unique Photo.)

I am a macro girl at heart. I guess since I started out that way taking photos of flowers with a set of screw-on close-up lenses.

Anyway, I am rambling this morning. Sorry!

Here is our dinner on Sunday night: grilled Calamari salad.

It was fresh, bright and delicious. We fried the tentacle bits after dusting them with cornmeal, flour, a pinch of cayenne pepper and some salt. I had some marinara sauce I had made in the freezer, so we thawed that out and used it as a dip.

I can see many of you out there wrinkling up your noses at the crunchy tentacles, but hey, honestly you should give it a try. They are the best part!

I can’t wait for dinner tonight as we bought a big bag of fresh peas at the farmer’s market this weekend. Peas! A seasonal treat that I thought we had missed out on this year. We’re adding them to a lemon-sauced fettuccine.

Good grief, it’s too early to have food on the brain!

But maybe my brain needs food so it can remember what I was really going to blog about this morning!

Pool water with the sun’s reflection.

Yesterday was perfect. Truly perfection. The temperature was perfect: 81 degrees with low humidity and a gentle breeze.

We had some shopping to do early in the day such as a new umbrella since the one we’ve had for four years broke and refused to go up anymore. The new one is striped for a change.

We also had to buy another solar cover for the pool. We replaced our old worn-out cover last year but the new cover was so heavy and thick we had trouble reeling it up (and I certainly could not do it by myself), plus it did not fit on our current reel and we had to purchase a new one. It just was not working so we decided to ditch it. The new cover is much lighter and fits on our old reel, so we will try and put the other one on Craig’s List or something to try and sell it.

I got a new pair of sunglasses to replace those that were stolen off our table at the get-together at Rio’s in Ft. Collins. I hope that college kid who cleared our table is enjoying my Revo’s! I hate dishonest people.

We also dropped by the huge and great camera store in our area, Unique Photo, because they were having an Expo with lots of different camera reps and all kinds of things going on. I wanted to talk to the rep about my new Canon T4i since I was not happy with the photos it was taking in Auto Intelligent mode. The shots were always over-exposed. (Okay, I admit I set my camera to “auto” quite a bit. Bad me. But sometimes you just don’t want to mess with settings.)

I had the same difficulty with the very first Rebel I had, but my most recent Rebel (the XSi) did not have that problem. It took pretty decent photos in that mode. Now “Program” mode was another story: there the photos were always under exposed! No camera is perfect I guess.

Anyway, I talked to him and he told me to completely ditch Auto Intelligent mode! Hmmm. Makes you wonder why they even have it as a selection, doesn’t it? He suggested I use the Program mode instead since it gives you a couple of different options, such as adjusting the aperture down or up a few stops.

He also told me about a class called “Canon EOS Discovery Day” that he teaches where they go through your camera and all its features (and how to use them). It sounded like something I need, so I signed up for the next one taking place July 20th. I can’t wait!

While we were there I somehow ended up talking to the Canon rep for photo printers, which I have been telling Rick we need for quite a while, and he had a deal that we just could not refuse. Not something we had planned to buy yesterday, but there you go.

Once home the afternoon was spent installing the new solar cover and setting up all the furniture around the pool. We are getting such a late start to pool time this year! I don’t know what we did before we had the cabana.

We swam a bit and the water was delicious!

And speaking of delicious: our meal shown two different ways. (It’s’ a veal chop.)

Back to the pool to sit and enjoy (I took another dip).

I tried out a new setting on my camera Handheld Night Scene which takes 4 consecutive shots and combines them all together (like HDR). These are the cabana lights that we forgot to put up and Rick just brought them out in a pile and plugged them in. There was no other light except for them.

Cool, eh? I have a lot to learn about this new camera!