JDW Photos and Life

I haven't sent anything out in a while so...... I was asked to make a couple of boards by a friend. They didn't offer any guidance on design - just telling me to decide. I had been wanting to make this basket weave pattern for a while but really didn't need another board in my house. This request gave me the incentive to make one. I added a very thin walnut veneer to help delineate the pattern and then used walnut for the outside edge. The blocks are cherry outlined in maple and then the thin walnut veneer. I'm happy with how it turned out. For the second board, I made a stair pattern that I had taken a class on a few weeks ago. The class focused on using a bandsaw for the majority of cuts instead of the table saw. I wanted to get more comfortable with the bandsaw and how it could be used in precision patterns. This isn't the board made in the class since my customer wanted a larger board. Besides, I was able to reinforce what I had learned in the class by building ...

The last of the hummer photos for this season. Like the bird in the last photo, I'm out of here and your inbox is now free of clutter until who knows when. Thanks, Doug White https://jdwarchive.blogspot.com/

Some of the more challenging shots of hummers center around the feeder wars. Like most wild animals, protection of food resources is part of nature. I only put out 2 feeders this season and one of them has been guarded by a single male essentially the entire time. Every once-in-a-while, a second bird may be able to feed at that location. The other feeder has birds around it all the time. Often, there is a bird at all 8 locations. There are still wars between individuals but there are also periods of "calm" resupply. The wars happen incredibly fast. A hummer may come in hovering for a second and then attack or get attacked. It is difficult to keep the camera focused on a bird with that much movement and even more difficult to capture the moment of conflict. The combination of a long zoom lens plus an open aperture results in a very narrow depth of field such that a bird just an inch out of the focal plane will be blurred. All that said, these are some of my favorite shots. Wat...

And a few more.... I remain amazed at their beauty and incredible flying skills. Thanks, Doug White https://jdwarchive.blogspot.com/

An unexpected bonus from our move to College Station 12 years ago was being in the path of hummingbird migration. We were able to enjoy them twice per year as they travelled between Mexico more northern states. The past two years have been a huge disappointment as we saw very few hummers. The past two summers were also brutal in terms of heat and drought. The summer this year has been great with very few 100+ days. We are still dry but nothing like the past two summers. The hummingbirds have also returned as we transition into the fall. I'm guessing we have about 20 birds around our house. A few years ago, we had 50+ and were making sugar solution by the gallon. I am just happy to see them return in numbers greater than 5. We are probably approaching the end of our fall visit and I realized I had not taken a single photo of them. I have 100's (probably 1000's) of hummingbird photos from previous years. Why do I need more? However, I know that most of y'all enjoy them an...

So "everybody" took photos of the Super Blue Moon on August 19. The "Super" part was due to its orbit being closer to the earth than normal. The "Blue" can have two definitions. The more common definition is the second full moon in a calendar month. Obviously this moon did not fit that description given the August 19 date (moon cycle is 29.5 days). The second definition is a fourth full moon in a seasonal quarter. I didn't know about this definition until I investigated a little. Learned something new...... A few days prior on August 17, we were taking a boat ride on Cow Bayou in Bridge City. The moon looked great so I snapped a few photos from a slow moving pontoon boat hoping for a reasonable shot. The moon phase showed 95% visible. In my opinion, I like partial moon shots better than the full moon shots. Look at the extra detail we can see on the craters when they are on the edge of illumination. The sunlight is hitting the peaks of the craters and ...