Red Letter Day !

This is an absolutely red letter, bannered day for me. Most of these pictures are because I finally have a new camera.

A few years ago my husband told me to pick out a camera to replace my Mavica l meg. I've loved the Mavica.. So easy to use and took great pictures as long as you didn't care about enlarging them. In seeing so many amazing pictures taken by others, it was obvious I needed a more capable camera. Somewhere between moving here, a few hurricanes and evacuation, I seem to have lost the ability to make decisions. Over time I narrowed the choice down to two cameras.. each having at least one attribute that I considered vital.. but not common to both.

One night after reading others blogs I could hear my grandson's words.. JUST PICK ONE. You don't like it, get another in a couple of years. lol. At my age I didn't feel justified in getting a camera I would choose. When do we become so silly?

When we sold one of our houses, I said "All I want is another Troy Bilt Tiller"... but it never happened. When first my parents and then my husband's parents passed on, I said. .. "All I want is another Troy Bilt"... A few years ago my husbands Godmother passed on and left us some money. Again, all I wanted was another tiller - however this time it was far more tentative since the years kept passing. I'm now at the place where I don't think I could man a tiller anymore. LOL!!! I don't want to be saying for years.. all I want is a better camera.... and so I looked online and picked one out that night. I've only had it for two days and already am so excited about its possibilities. Its a Panasonic FZ18 - and also has additional wide angle and telephoto lenses to add to the already wonderful zoom. Now I'm hoping that my older brain can focus enough to understand at least one function at a time. Fortunately there are two 'modes' which are strictly automatic and the camera takes care of all focus, lighting, etc. Just right for my first day.

I think having the camera answers my question as to which came first.. the photography or the gardens. My grandmother always had so many flower beds and I know she passed on that love to me - I always had flowers here and there - but now I find that being able to capture those blooms and see the intricate parts of blooms that I'd missed in the past is a wonderful reason to cultivate a garden. My grandfather, father, daughter and one grandson all loved photography, so perhaps its still a toss up.

Here's my baby - stuck on the side porch while I took pictures out front. We took out some rails in the back and put in a ramp so he can run up and down into the back yard - but not the front.

I only planted a few zinnias, but they are such a bright spot... and the butterflies do love them.

This Gulf Fritilary looks a lot worse for wear. I think they have been overtime feeding and laying eggs these last few weeks. There were a few months when there were so many of those huge bright yellow sulphur butterflies... then hundreds of the white peacock and now many of the "Gulf Frits" I found so many chrysalis belonging to the sulphur butterflies in the fence and rails of our side porch.

Aloe Bloom - not a particularly good photo here, but it was taken from so far away, cropped and uploaded. I think when it uploads it brings it back to a manageable size. I'm going to have to learn how to make my own choices as to size, etc.