High Dynamic Range Photomatix

I'm trying out the Photomatix software to see if I like High Dynamic Range. This is where you combine different exposures of the same image so that you can see more information in both the highlights as well as shadows. The trial version does leave a watermark and this is my first photo. I'm going to play around with some more. I'm definitely having fun and intrigued by it.

Beeutiful Poppy

I went out into the garden with my camera this morning and had no idea there would be so many bees in the garden. It was loud with all the buzzing and thankfully they were all preoccupied with their pollen gathering.

Freshed Picked Strawberries

Yep, I picked more strawberries last night...and this morning! I'd better start canning soon before the day gets away from me. Some are going into the freezer and some are going to become Kiwi Strawberry Jam. I'm even thinking about Strawberry Pepper Jam with jalepeno. This is excellent with cream cheese on bagels.

Homemade Strawberry Jam

I have been in the kitchen for the last two days processing loads of strawberries into luscious sweet jam and syrup. I have twenty nine jars so far and about another two quarts of berries to process. Then it's out to the garden to pick more berries. Yippie! This is the first time I've made strawberry jam and I'm using pectin. I haven't quit mastered it yet and it looks kind of runny. The package instructions say that it can take up to two weeks for the pectin to completely set up. Does anyone have any encouraging words for me? I'm going to keep on canning it. The flavor is great and we can always use it thin as syrup or over ice cream. Super yum.

Strawberries

I can't believe I haven't posted for a month to the day. Well, this is what I've been doing lately, spending time in my garden. The poppies are blooming and the strawberries are ripening. We've been having strawberry sauce on pancakes, strawberry shortcake, strawberries dipped in sour cream and brown sugar and there are strawberries in the freezer for smoothies. Yum! Summer is almost here! We had an early warm spell and then a couple of cold rainy storms come through over a few weeks. It looks like it will be warming up again this week. Time to stake the tomato plants and replant a cantaloupe that the snails mowed down. Oops, forgot to take preventative measures with that one.