Backyard Jungle

I've been experimenting with old lenses this week - today's photo and yesterday's were taken with a lens that is about 60 or 70 years old and proudly proclaims itself as "Made in USSR". It's a Helios 58mm lens I bought in a thrift store for $10 and I'm thinking it's probably the sharpest lens I own.

Garden Fireworks

With all the action downtown and on the beaches, it's easy to forget that some pretty spectacular things are happening in the back yard, too.

Extension Tubes

We'll take a break today from parades and parties because I just received some macro extension tubes. These are neat devices that enable one to use ordinary lenses as if they were macro (magnifying) lenses. All they are is hollow tubes that fit between your camera and the lens. These enable you to focus on things from much closer so they appear larger. Above is an example.

Summer Scene

Lunch!

Here's a picture of what I'm going to be enjoying for lunch today, accompanied by some crisp lettuce, vegan mayonnaise and a vegan cheese slice on toasted whole-grain bread. This is a homegrown, organic, Beefsteak Tomato, vine-ripened in the back yard and I know just how delicious it will taste. I love summer for many reasons but one of them has got to be that the food is better than in the winter. I hope you too have a good lunch.

Lonely Tomatillo

Here's an attractive plant from our backyard garden this year. It's especially popular in Mexico and Mexican cooking and is called a Tomatillo (Physalis philadelphica). Ours grew into a large healthy plant and bloomed profusely but inside those lovely lantern-like pods there are very few fruit. Now I discover from Wikipedia that the tomatillo is very "self-incompatible", meaning that it doesn't like to pollinate itself so there should be at least two plants for it to set fruit properly.

The Garden

Fern planted a vegetable garden this year and whether it is the long hot spell we had or the generous layer of compost she used I don't know, but the tomato plants are gigantic and loaded with tomatoes so delicious that there is no comparison with the tasteless red styrofoamy things that go by the same name in the supermarkets.