Halloween tricks and treat bags are ready and waiting by the front door.
It’s Halloween, the last day of the month, and my first blog post in six weeks. I have yet to post any photos here on my blog from my four-week vacation in Paris, France. Mainly because I’m in the middle of installing brand new computer equipment. It turns out that the raw photos I shot in Paris require the latest and greatest computer system to import into Photoshop. But that IS NOT the reason for the new equipment. After three years and then some, it was way past time to upgrade. Way.
Then there’s the 8.4 acres of raw undeveloped land that I just put a contract on in Saint Jo, Texas, which is located north of Dallas in what is called the North Texas Hill Country. The closing is scheduled for the end of November. I will post the photographs I took when walking the perimeter last week. Stay tuned…
I’ve leased an apartment and will be there for three and a half weeks. Because of the endless preparation for this “vacation”, I’m not feeling the excitement yet. At the moment, I’m at the airport waiting. At least the painful aspects of this journey are, for the most part, behind me. You can follow my escapades on my Instagram page. Later, when I’m back home, I’ll post the better photos here.
My original portfolio case pictured above was handmade by Two Women Boxing, and the portfolio itself was a collection of transparencies. I would also carry a portable light box with me to interviews. Transparencies were best for showing off environmental graphics.
Finally, I have a website for my business! I can’t tell you how much fun it was to design and pull this new site together. I’m not kidding. There were some long tedious moments. Some of the older logos had to be digitally redrawn, because they predated the computer, and all my print pieces needed to be photographed in a studio setting. But for the most part, the production went smoothly. And now, all that’s needed is to add the new projects as they are completed. The hard part is done! Yay!
One last word: If you’re viewing this site with an older browser, it will not play as designed.
Should you meander down my alley, this is what you would see. With just a fancy lace chain link fence dividing my back garden from the alley, there’s nothing to obstruct this view. The following photographs were taken at the beginning of July when all plants were looking their best and blooming with one exception, my Texas Lilac Vitex. It had the unfortunate luck of blooming profusely four weeks prior when we had weeks of clouds and rain. Click on the link below for more views of my back garden.
This was shot from my bathroom window while leaning way out and freaking my dogs out.
It’s a view that never fails to start my day with a smile. I’ve recently photographed my backyard gardens and will be posting those photos soon. There’s been numerous setbacks over the last few years. The summers of 2011 and 2012 were brutal to this newly planted paradise, and then there was the drip irrigation system that took a couple of years to adjust and learn what each plant required. Then there was this last winter’s extended freezes that killed my Blue mist flowers, Pink Skullcaps, and most of the Zexmenia. My entire backyard is planted with Texas hardy perennials, but not many of them can survive multiple long periods of time where the temperature never gets close to or above 32 degrees Fahrenheit. And then with an extensive cooler-than-usual spring, plants were late in growing and becoming available to buy at local nurseries. It took forever to acquire the replacements I needed.
Hopefully this view will be given a chance to survive for a few more years, because the constant heartbreak with our Texas weather extremes and the constant labor of rebuilding has worn me out. On a positive note: I have planted Texas tough plants and have installed drip irrigation, so the current water restrictions will not be a problem.
My Spring Spider Lilies and ornamental grass are blooming simultaneously.
It’s a show that can only be appreciated when viewed from my house. I can kick myself for not thinking of taking this photo and posting it here on the blog in time for the Fourth of July. Instead it occurred to me a day later. It’s been three years since the lilies were planted, and they have now become established and will be even more spectacular in the years to come.
Even though this entire blog post is about the use of color in this film, I needed an introduction image.
Hell’s Angels is a 1930 American war film and one of the first sound blockbuster action films. Directed and produced by Howard Hughes and starring Jean Harlow, Ben Lyon, and James Hall, this film had been originally conceived as a silent film. But after completing the silent version, Hughes decided to scrap the film and reshoot most of it with sound. By 1930, the production had cost $4,000,000, an unrivaled amount until 1940, when the final cost of Gone With the Wind was tallied. The plot is less than stellar, but the visuals are mesmerizing, making this film a must-see.
If I hadn’t needed to enter my garage through the greenhouse, I would have missed this one-day beauty.
The cactus collection in my greenhouse is in dire need of some TLC. But my poor greenhouse is last on my list of green thumb to-dos. Because of the loss of my neighbor’s eighty five year old oak tree, one half of my front shade garden needs to be replaced with perennials that can endure full sun, and the few shade-loving plants that did survive will need to be transplanted to a shadier section. But that’s not all.
There’s my backyard gardens that were also in desperate need of first-aid. Between the dog damage, drip irrigation problems, and several extended winter freezes, a third of my plants meet an untimely end.
I’ve had to provide local nurseries with my list and followup with a call to each of them weekly. Availability was much later than usual because of a long-lasting winter and cooler-than-normal spring. A lot of the perennials on my list were only available at a nursery located way north of where I live. And since my car isn’t large enough, numerous trips were required—each being a three hour excursion.
So far, I’ve managed to install/replace all of the damaged and/or dead plants. But the hardest job is yet to occur, and that is clearing out the English ivy in the parkway and planting, according to my landscape architect Michael Parkey‘s drawn plan, six new sun-loving varieties: 20 Sun Drops, 36 Bugleweeds, 3 Gulf Muly, 72 creeping Liriope, 15 Hard Plumbago, and 6 Giant Leopard plants. This job will be done in phases over the next two weeks.
The greenhouse and its occupants will have to wait.
The homepage for Eco Friends Pest Control with a supersized slideshow.
Eco Friends Pest Control has a new website! I designed this site a year ago, but my client needed time to work out their copy and other details. I spent the last couple of weeks implementing all the changes, and now it’s ready for public viewing. These last two weeks have not been easy. In the past year, the developer and WordPress had issued numerous upgrades that caused a lot of problems with my original design. I basically had to rework everything. Most of the drama occurred in the backend — things that the public never sees. Perhaps that’s why they use the term “backend.” I still have some bugs to work out (no pun intended), but for the most part, it’s finished, and I’m happy with how it plays.
Check the site out and seriously consider using this wonderful little company for all your pest control needs. They will only use products that are natural and completely safe for your home, garden, and business.
It might be a time waster for you but was an exercise for me. I hope you weren’t expecting something profound and beautifully designed. I had this itch to scratch, which was to film this crazy gizmo. Never mind that I have never used my Canon Rebel T2i for video before. Instead I skipped that basic step of using the usual EF-S 18-55mm IS II lens and went straight for the fancy macro lens. But dadburnit! Nature and the neighborhood were not cooperating. With a lawn mower, air conditioning unit, and snorting bulldogs as background noise, the recorded sound was not what I had envisioned for my experiment. So what you’re hearing is a scrappy soundtrack found online which replaces the original audio.
