macro and goats

i got a macro lens off ebay last week. i haven't got a chance to play around with it too much but i did get a few pictures of the dog chewing a ball:

and what i'm 99% sure is the exoskeleton of a huntsman spider:

i took a couple shots of the spider (which was in a plant pot in the backyard) and sat down to have a smoothie nearby. when i got up to take more pictures it was gone. i'm pretty sure the wind blew it somewhere (i had moved the pot into the middle of the yard just before i sat down and there were gusts of wind blowing around). i couldn't find it anywhere though (i knew it wasn't the actual spider and if it was, it was definitely dead cuz i tapped it with a stick at one point and it just tipped forward in it's position).

goats seem to be following me everywhere. i went for a bike ride to the collingwood childrens' farm with a couple friends and their dog yesterday afternoon. this is robert:

i wish i'd been able to get a shot of silas (my friends' dog) meeting robert but i missed it.

a few favourites

just a few of my favourite ornaments on the tree

my canada ball from my mom:

my julian apple (from the town in cali where me and zac met/worked for 18 months-- they were known for their apple pies from the local orchards):

our alaska bear from our 2005 very quick but fun road trip from vancouver to palmer, alaska and back to visit my friend from university):

montana moose from a christmas i spent in montana so i could attend my friend's wedding just after christmas (the same friend who now lives in alaska)

forks!

last nite we had another good lightning storm (this time with lots of rain). i decided to pull out the camera again. i thought i'd just get a few shots of glowing clouds like the last time but it was even better than that.
the first photo is one of the many with no lightning (i just continually shoot for several seconds until i get a shot of lightning flashing)

i didn't even see the bit of the fork in this shot until i got it on the computer. i was just excited about the way everything was glowing blue in the yard (the lightning would flash several times really quickly so the whole yard would light up this eerie blue colour)

a fork! i got a fork!

another fork.

lightning

last nite we had some heat lightning. we didn't get more than a few drops of rain but lightning was flashing fairly regularly so i decided to get the camera out. it wasn't great lightning because it was behind clouds but i thought i'd play with the camera so next time we have a good lightning storm maybe i can get a shot of a fork if i'm lucky.

from the kitchen window- the first shot is how the sky looked without lightning (the sky was pretty glow-y) and the second is some lightning

the backyard (again the first shot is just the sky and the second has lightning):

i hit the "i'm feeling lucky" button in picasa and i like the way it changed the photo:

i wish we had better views in our yard and from our windows (most of our windows face the house next door about 3 m from ours). it makes it a bit hard for lightning photography because i'm not gonna be running across the road or down the street during a lightning storm.