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Penny was able to come home this morning sporting a large bald patch where she had been shaved and a dressing over the newly sewn area.  Can't be seen but she also has sparkling teeth again as they were polished while she was under.



To say the least it is very painful for her this soon after her accident but she is eating a little and drinking and even managed a gentle tail wag when I put her harness on for a short walk.

Macro on Monday - Guess What

 

It's been one of those traumatic days but more of that later.

Having had a think about this year's puzzles I have decided to return to using macros so here is the first which I hope will be a gentle start to the new season. They won't be stacked macros as I think the out of focus bits will add to the puzzle element.

Guess What:


As aways - Please leave any guesses in the comments.
They will be revealed, along with the answer, next Monday.
No prizes, just for fun and maybe a virtual Midmarsh Gold or Silver Star.


This morning I had just started building up a small collection of new macro photos when Penny, who had been chasing round the garden let out a loud cry. I went rushing out to find she had caught herself on something and unzipped a few inches of her fur coat. Obviously that meant a rapid call to the vets and a flying visit. She was seen immediately by Mike and kept in for work to be done. I have just checked with them and she is doing fine, all stitched back together and teeth cleaned while she was under a general anaesthetic. She has eaten a little and will be staying the night so they can keep an eye on her as the practice has vets and nurses on duty there 24 hrs a day.

Then the company I had ordered some stuff from (mentioned on my Midmarsh Pi blog) finally got round to refunding my money as the goods have never arrived. It was all done through PayPal but the company did it the wrong way and I was charged for receiving the money. Naturally I phoned PayPal who were extremely good, worked out what had been done wrong (they had sent me money instead of reversing the original transaction) and put it all right then and there so I got all my money back.

I'm just hoping, with about 4.5 hrs left of today that things don't come in threes as I have had enough excitement for one day!

Squirrel Visitor

A couple of days ago I spotted the grey squirrel visiting all the feeders but it didn't seem to find anything it fancied eating. Photos taken through the kitchen window with the Nikon S9050. Slideshow video made with mac app 'Photo Movie + DVD Slideshow Pro' (silent):



A bit of a shock waking up this morning to -1.5C and a thick frost. Quite a change from New Year's Day when temperatures reached 13C. At least the Sun is shining giving some free heat indoors.

Yet Another Weather Station

Caught sight of a weather station on Maplin. Their Professional Solar Powered WiFi Weather Station. Looked impressive and seemed to have decent reviews so ordered one which arrived late yesterday. Quickly assembled and set it up to make sure it was working OK.  It has a temporary location above my shed until I design the fixings to mount it on the main mast.

What I like is its all-in-one design, rechargeable alkaline batteries charged with the solar panel at the front of the unit, a colour display with about 2.5GB of memory so it can display past data in graphical form.

The outdoor unit:



The display unit: (silver grey and not dirty brown)





Also the unit can send its readings to Wunderground where results are also stored and can be seen in graphical form. Finally a widgit near the top right of this blog shows the latest wind, temperature, rainfall and pressure readings. Clicking on that opens a new tab showing my weather readings in graphical form. There is a sudden jump in the pressure reading where I made an adjustment to correct the pressure. Wunderground seems to be owned by The Weather Channel.

So far I am very impressed and pleased with this set up.

Happy New Year to All

Photo Movie + DVD Slideshow Pro

Another Mac app which is, at the time of writing, free to download.



This is at version 3.1.6 though there are some aspects which need sorting out yet to make it user friendly. At the moment the only media it automatically lists are from iPhoto though any photos or videos can be dragged and dropped by the usual method. Also imported video files play the sound track and there is no way to alter or mute this. I emailed the author about these and he emailed back that they would be included in the next update.

Photos can be grouped and shown in many different ways. Single photos can be zoomed or panned if you set up the start and end zooms to the same size and put them different sides of the photo. Commentary, text / titles and music can be added. The result can be for DVD or a file for uploading.

This is just a first test to try out a few facilities. One other thing missing is the ability to fade out the final picture though it is possible to fade the sound.



Not convinced it is worth the normal asking price of £20.99 yet though a lot of work has obviously been done developing the app and it does have some nice facilities. The various transitions can look jerky within the program even with a fast processor but once saved they look very smooth. Saving is not particularly fast.

Clouds Timelapse

After a cold night and frosty start to the morning the Sun soon evaporated the clouds to give a Sunny start to the day:



Timelapse - LapseIt app on iPod5, one shot every two seconds.
Lots of black spots as various birds flew through the view from my kitchen window.