Alycia, Red Dodge Dakota, Papa Dog's, Blue Harley, Flowers, Storm Clouds, Ricky Cat, UFO, Cartoon Turtle

Hi Everyone,
I've got a variety of stuff today. First off, we had a nice visit with our daughters Lourie & Sherri, grand-daughter Kalee and her new baby great-grand-daughter Alycia Saturday evening!! Besides getting to see them all, Kathy got to hold Alycia a couple different times, eh!! ;-)) They brought us a couple new pictures so of course I had to include them in my Blog, right!!! Then when we were shopping earlier Saturday morning, there parked in Tops parking lot was a really nice looking Red Dodge Dakota that both Kathy and I like the body style of, eh!! Later after shopping and heading back home we stopped at a fairly new place, Papa Dog's, which is a little 'mini-mart' that serves hot dogs too!! Kathy got just a 'regular' Papa Dog, but I like their 'Ragin Cajun' dog!! Anyway, you got to add your own condiments, so we both dressed up our 2 dogs and headed home. When we stopped at Papa Dog's there was this beautiful Candy Blue Harley parked out front so I had to take a few pictures before going in or they'd probably leave before we got our dogs, right!! If you notice one of the shots shows on the license plate frame 'Old Guys Rule' and since I'm an old fart myself I really liked that saying!! Anyway, when we went inside there was an 'old guy' ;-)) and his gal, dressed in full leathers, eating their own Papa Dog's, eh!!

Then later on that afternoon, I think I got some really great shots of rain clouds and made a couple panorama's out of the full shots. But NO rain came that night!! While I was getting these shots, our cat Ricky was laying up on the deck banister fastly asleep, with one ear listening to everything I was doing!! ;-)) All of the flower pictures are because I was testing some different settings on my camera and these came out the best, plus 3 of the same flower to show off a 'regular' and to test settings that are built-into my camera and I just never could figure out how to use them till now. And I've been checking out my 'UFO' everyday, before dusk, dusk and after dark. I still can't see a relationship to the movement of the moon. Then tonight I took a couple shots while the UFO was high up in elevation and then about an hour later and it had dropped way down on the horizon. And don't worry about the 'pdf' file, the greeting card & the cartoon, because I told you before that I'm adding everything that I would normally be sending to separate peoples, all in one file now days. So everyone can just pick and choose, eh!!

So go and enjoy when you can find the time. Click here to see ALL of the pictures. . . . . Later, 'Viper'

Flowers, Trash Cleanup, Lucy Cat, Deer, Tina's Fountain Rock,Beautifull Landscape & Chain Saw Sculptures

Hi Everyone,
I have more flowers/new growth shots, some ground cover shots of pretty flowers, some 'before' trash cleanup shots and 1 'after' shot, a couple of our cat Lucy, and 3 shots of our local deer that came by to say 'Hello!!' Then in the last update I showed some shots of the place/hole where my friend Tina is putting a water fountain, eh!! Well, I have some updates with that too. The 'Tina's Foundtain?? ;-)) Rock is 'her' rock that she'll be using. It's still at '3 Seasons' waiting for the time to truck it over to Tina's house. The 'Metal Art' is hanging on 3 Season's Patio Fence and I just forgot to name the file as all the rest, eh!! All of the '3 SeasonsPatio' shots are in/around a nice patio they built to show off what anyone can do with their sand, gravel, rock, other materials, to fix up your own lawn and/or garden area. Hope you like all the extra shots, eh!! And the 'Horny Toad' pictures are of 2 items that Barbara & Stacy sent me from Rosebud, TX. They are members of the local HOG Chapter in Temple, TX and the local Harley shop is named 'Horny Toad Harley-Davidson', so as you can see they adopted the 'Horny Toad' for their emblem on signs and banners, eh!! The double shot of our 2 year?? Red Maple and new Cherry Tree just planted a couple of weeks ago, are just to remind us how tall they are now, so that in the following years I can take shots of each about this same time and compare the height and the looks, eh!!

Now ... I've saved the best for last!! All of the 'Beautiful Landscape' shots are of a local 'old family' house of the Mallolly's. Years ago the brother moved away, the sister died and the mom was in a convalescent home. And I don't know if she's still alive or not. But the new people that bought their property stated fixing it up years ago inside and out. As you can see they have done one GREAT job as I see it. Anyway, after I took a truck load of trash to our local 'transfer' station, I made a 2nd trip back to the 'recyclers' as I normally do. That's the blue building in the background of some of these shots and that's my Red Dodge truck in the background too. What's of interest to me mostly, even tho I love the grounds and the way they have landscaped it so beautifully, is all of the 'Chain Saw' sculptures by a local artist all around the place!! You may have to look a little harder to see the ones that are small or way off in the background, but it's well worth a look!!! ;-)) You can check out ALL of the pictures here!!

Later, 'Viper'

Shots: Moon, UFO, Lucy Cat, Trees, Clouds, Ravens, Snowy Mts, Biker Stuff, Special Fountain Beginnings

Hi Everyone,

I have a lot of variety for you this time. Some pictures for us bikers scanned out of my latest American Iron magazine. Of course many more 'Moon' shots, Lucy shots, Scenery shots of our area, and some afternoon shots of some local Ravens too!! And since I'm making some headway on cleaning up all the stuff around here, a couple shots showing the efforts of my work, eh!! ;-)) The 'SnowyMts' and 'BackHillView' shots were taken at a higher elevation on our property just directly behind our house. I take a lot of shot up there for the elevation, eh!!

Tina's Fountain shots are of a friend that I worked with for over 20 years, only to find out our family's live about 5 miles apart where I grew up on Downey, CA, with them living in the Bellflower area. Anyway, she found this beautiful 'boulder' that she bought and is having trucked over to her house here in Weaverville soon. But right now she's just got the hole dug out where she's placing it and making a fountain, eh!! So I took some shots of her progress today, Wednesday 25th, and will be taking more of her 'in progress' build and then some finished shots with the water flowing, eh!! So keep checking out my updates, ok!!

The 'Oregon Street' shots are from my ride home from my weekly mail run this afternoon AND on my bike!! ;-))) It was sunny, but only in the low 60's and with a lot of cold heavy gusts of winds. A couple of times it hit me suddenly from the left side and made my bike move over about a foot, eh!! Then when I got of my bike at one place, I was standing about 3' from a drop-off down into a canyon and having a very hard time pushing against the winds and trying to take a good shot. Then all of a sudden, then winds reverse and hit me from my back and all most push me over the side!! So the next shots was from about 7' away, eh!! ;-))

Later, 'Viper'

Spring Day, NH, Lake, Granite Peaks, Dogs & Cat

Hi Everyone,
A couple of days ago, Stacey, my daughter-in-law, sent me some pretty pictures of an outing to a local lake and hiking area back in New Hampshire and I'd like to share them with everyone, eh!! Hope you enjoy viewing these shots and Stacey ... send me more anytime, ok!! ;-)) Later, 'Viper'

Sunsets, Storm Clouds, Cats-Lucy & Ricky, Flowers-NewBlooms, Tina's Tundra, Trees, Snow!!

Hi Everyone,
I have a lot of new pictures with a variety of subjects, so I'm sure all of you should be able to find one or two that you'll like viewing, eh!! ;-)) Since these shot cover a lot of days, where I would normally have uploaded them every couple of days and didn't have the time, they are all in just one file, ok!! To save me a ton of words trying to explain each shot or a group of shots, I added words to some of the pictures themselves, eh!! So check them out when you have the time and I hope you enjoy the ones you view. Later, 'Viper'

Sunsets, Storm Clouds, Cats-Lucy & Ricky, Flowers-NewBlooms, Trees, Snow!!

Hi Everyone,
I have a lot of new pictures with a variety of subjects, so I'm sure all of you should be able to find one or two that you'll like viewing, eh!! ;-)) Since these shot cover a lot of days, where I would normally have uploaded them every couple of days and didn't have the time, they are all in just one file, ok!! To save me a ton of words trying to explain each shot or a group of shots, I added words to some of the pictures themselves, eh!! So check them out when you have the time and I hope you enjoy the ones you view. Later, 'Viper'

Spring Flowers & a 'Harley' Motorcycle, eh!!

Hi All,
The first shots are of our front yard area of some old things coming back again and some new things just planted like Kathy's NEW Cherry Tree, eh!! Then while I was at the Post Office I got a few shots of the nice 'Harley' that in my opinion was spoiled big the very tall 'Ape Hanger' type handlebars, eh!! ;-)) Hope you enjoy them all!!
Later, 'Viper'

Spring Flowers, Red Maple & Cherry Trees, Clouds, Red/Black Mustang

Hi Everyone,

Just want to show you some of our Spring doing, eh!! Our Tulips, Daffodils, Kathys Red Maple & NEW Cherry tree, Rose bushes (old & new), Oak Trees, etc, are staring to bloom!! And of course I've been taking more beautiful cloud pictures because we've had plenty the past few days. And as always I keep trying to find more interesting shots and trying various things with my camera too. Be sure to check out the 2 'WhatIsIt' pictures, because you'll see something interesting that I found way across the valley using the full 10x zoom on my camera!! ;-)) Also, I don't know how I was able to keep the '3_Elevations' in focus so good, because the trees closest to me would normally be a touch out of focus. But you'll see near, far (middle area) and really far elevations, eh!!

Then in the 'REG', 'CHROME' & 'RAW' shots I was trying 3 different settings on the exact same shot and using my tripod too. You'll notice a lot of color, contrast, brightness difference in the 'REG' and 'CHROME' shots with NO editing and the 'CHROME' shot is closer to what me eye saw!! Then the 'RAW' file was converted to a HUGE 17.1 MB Tiff file, compressed down to a 58.8 KB Jpg file. And just check out how sharp it still looks, eh!!

Also, when we were shopping at Longs today, that bitchin' little Red/Black Mustang was in the parking lot and this time I took many shots walking all around the car. Just as I was taking the last shot a young kid walked up and after telling him how I much I liked his Mustang, I asked him the year as I thought it was a '65. But he said, 'No, it's a 1964 1/2 model'. ;-)) To see ALL of these pictures just CLICK HERE!! ~ Later, 'Viper'

Snowy Mts, Clouds, My Honda, Spring Flowers & Buds, LaGrange~The Town & Mine History, Humming Bird, Ricky Treed

Hi Everyone,
I have a variety of pictures today. Just check these links 20070402 and 20070404 and 20070405 to see ALL of the shots individually and/or to view my slide show album. Your choice, ok!!
I was down in the garden area just looking around after taking some pine needles down to dump them. I noticed that our Oaks trees are already blooming and it's early this year. Some of our chain link fencing that we used as the outer fencing the garden and then cattle fencing for the rest of the lower 20 acres, where dad had a really nice garden area, while we still had free flowing water from a spring from way up the hill above our property. He also had a few chickens, a couple of goats for their milk and mom had some guinea fowl.
Then I took a shot of our cat Lucy, because even tho she looks like she's sleeping, she was listening to every move of Kathy and me. She'd even crack one eyelid just a bit sometimes, but closed them as I was taking her picture, eh!!
Then a commercial came on tv and I had Kathy to pause the show, grabbed my camera and took 3-4 shots for my sister that just loves anything with butterflies. Just for you Jo!! ;-))
Then of course more cloud & snowy mts pictures because I love clouds and our snow is melting way to quickly!!
For those of you that do NOT know it, Weaverville has a very long gold mining history, so while I was out today on my bike and doing our weekly mail run, banking, prescriptions, etc, I drove over the west side of Oregon Summit and took some pictures of one of the Giant Monitors that was used to do some hydraulic mining and to open up the mountains for gold mining and building a new highway from Weaverville to Junction City and continue on to Arcata/Eureka area on the coast. I left most of the 'LaGrangeMine' pictures 'full size' so you could read all the history of the mine and town of La Grange, but I reduced them enough that that should open fairly quickly. This did make some of the smaller print harder to read, but if you read most of the words you'll get the drift, eh!!
I will mention a couple of points tho ... the old stagecoach highway from Redding, CA, thru Weaverville and over to Junction City was via Oregon Street out of Weaverville. That's the road I now live on and since my brother had built a 'custom/show' stagecoach vehicle with a hot DeTomaso mid-engine inside the body and was driven up front just as in the olden days, he had a wooden sign built that says 'Keefs Stagecoach Stop', that is placed on a knoll by our driveway!! ;-)) Plus, the NEW highway was opened to the public in 1940, the year I was born. Go figure, eh!! ;-))
So I hope you enjoy all the new pics and the history lesson too!!
When you get to the 'TrashTrip' pics, a lot of people don't understand that we live up in the mountains and nothing is flat with the exceptions of our house, deck and tiny yard area. Our 3 water tanks are on one level, our house on lower level, our 2 garages on a lower level and our rental house on a lower level and then our garden is on yet an even lower level AND we have to cross Oregon Street and go downhill a few hundred feet to the garden area roadway!! So everything we do around here involves going either UPHILL or DOWNHILL!! And since I've been cleaning up the grounds on our property, and my truck is a six-cylinder 'freeway flyer' a NOT a 4x4 with a big V-8, I can't just load it up with a ton of crap and drive it down into the dump area at the bottom of our garden!! I know, because I tried it ONE TIME and almost had to call someone to come pull me out!! But I had enough room to start sideways to the roadway to gain a little momentum and then I pushed the accelerator down to the floor and when I barely climbed over the ridge of the roadway, I looked both ways and just held the throttle wide open till I got back to my driveway!! This was after making 2 attempts that failed AND after letting about 15# of air out of the rear tires. And old trucker's trick to get out of muddy areas, eh!! ;-))
So I use a large Rubbermaid trash container with wheels to make many, many trips down and back up, over and over till the job is finally done, eh!! Like Tuesday the 3rd I made 2 trips and then today the 5th I made another 2 trips and that's about all my body can take in one day. But then I rake, pile, trim, clear, etc to make myself even more trips, eh!! I think win I win the lottery, I'll get me a 4x4 truck?? I just hope you all enjoy my pictures and think of me every so often, eh!! ;-))
Later, 'Viper'