My son Nathan, next to a Cirsium altissimum (Tall Thistle) on 6-15-21. Don’t even say he looks like me.

Hello everyone! I hope this post finds you well. It has been a while since my last post because of several reasons which, in this case, are kind of just excuses. Last summer my camera would sometimes come on and show a “lens error” message then automatically shut off. I could press the button and it would come back on just fine. This spring it started doing it repeatedly then the lens would come out partway and wouldn’t go back in. I could turn the lens somewhat and it would work OK for a while then it would get weird again. I knew turning the lens was not a good idea and would probably wind up doing more harm than good which is what ultimately happened.

I read up on the issue and it could have been from dirt being in the gizmo. 🙂 I found a video on YouTube on how to replace the lens but it almost gave me a headache watching it. So many tiny screws and this and that to remove. The guy who made the video has a circle of parts all around the camera and he kept saying “make sure” to do this and that. The video was about 30 minutes long and he said “if” you get it all back together properly and it still doesn’t work, you have to start over… He said the new lens cost him $43 on Ebay or Amazon and Cannon had quoted him about $150 to fix it… I opted to buy a new camera.

Over the past couple of months, I started looking at cameras on Ebay. Lack of funds most of the time kept me from purchasing one but finally, I had enough money to bid. A guy was selling a Canon XS610 HS like my old one on Ebay without a charger which was no big deal since I already had one. He didn’t give very much information about the camera except that it had no charger so he couldn’t turn it on to see if it worked. He also said no refunds. That in itself would keep a lot of people from bidding. I senT him a message and he replied that he had bought it new for a two-week vacation then put it in a drawer. When he moved from his parent’s home he couldn’t find the charger so he decided to sell it on Ebay. He had it listed twice before but the buyers didn’t pay so he listed it again. I think they are (were) around $250 new and I bought it for $66 and it arrived on June 15.

A few people, including my son, said I needed a cell phone because they take photos just as well as a camera. Well, he is back AGAIN so I took him wildflower hunting on May 24 when my camera decided to work again. I pressed the power button on and off several times and for some reason it started working so I had to go… Anyway, it worked fine until half way back to the house then it went whacky again. When we were almost back to the house I spotted a plant I hadn’t identified. GEEZ!!! SO, I used his camera. He sent the photos to in an email… Hmmm… He had been taking photos the whole time we were out walking so there were ALOT! The problem was he only sent a few through the email and he said I had to get the rest on some other site I had to sign up for and he sent a link… I was thinking bad words and I didn’t want to do that. He said it was taking to long for him to upload them with email. Fortunately, the photos of the plant I needed were sent in the email but they were HUGE! I started thinking bad words again… I may have even said a few out loud especially when the photos weren’t that good anyway. Last time he was here I wanted him to take my photo with the Colocasia with my camera. He thought he just had to use his iPad instead of the camera. The photos made me look even weirder than I already do so I told him to use the camera. Then I showed him the difference and he didn’t have much to say about that… I was MUCH happier though… 🙂 🙂 🙂

Taking Nathan wildflower hunting was quite interesting, esecially the second time… He would take a photo with his phone then send it to everyone he could think of. Then they would message him back and he would have to reply… Sometimes I would be so far ahead of him I couldn’t even see him. I walked back to see where he was at one point and he was clear over on the other side of the pasture… He lost his signal so he had to move. 🙂 So, I walked all the way down to the “swamp”. Next thing I knew he was calling me so I walked back until I saw him. He was all the way on the other side of the fence on the neighbors property. He said he saw turkeys over there and went to investigate but they ran off…

Not having a camera that worked whenever I needed to take a photo screwed with my brain. Even if the camera came on and I was able to take a few of photos, it wouldn’t continue working. That just put me out of the mood to write a post with the photos I was able to take. So, I just continued working on making updates and writing new wildflower pages with the photos I already had. Normally, I finish with the updates over the winter but I just finished a few days ago. There were some glitches along the way, like when the USDA updated their website and even changed the URL. All the wildflower pages have links, and some maps, from the USDA Plants Database. The old link wouldn’t redirect at first, so I had to START OVER and change the URL on every wildflower page. Sometimes the new USDA website wouldn’t even work so I sent an email to the “guy in change” and he said they were having server issues and a lot of bugs to work out. After a couple of weeks it started working fine. The last time I checked to see if the old links would redirect it just went to a blank blue page. By that time I was almost finished updating AGAIN so I don’t know if they got that fixed or not.

I am not sure how many new wildflower pages I published because I didn’t count them. I don’t even know how many wildflowers are on my list and there are a few that still don’t have pages. I guess the ones without pages are mainly grasses and species I am not sure about at the moment because I need photos of their flowers. It takes A LONG TIME to write descriptions of plant parts, so the last 20 or so pages I just added the photos, wrote species information, a little about the plant and where I saw it, added the maps, and links to other websites. I will go back later and write descriptions as I have time. At least they are published. WHEW! 🙂

After the new camera arrived, I was FINALLY able to go wildflower hunting without wondering when the camera would screw up. I was very glad to find a few Triodanis perfoliata (Clasping Venus Looking Glass). Another few days and there would have been no flowers left. I identified a few more species on the farm (and trail next to the farm) on June 15 and 16. That will be for another post coming up…

I have decided to try and make the posts shorter and spread my observations out. That way I can post more often. I will try anyway.

Until next time, be safe, stay well, stay positive, give thanks, and GET DIRTY!