New Explorations

I am very excited. My new camera, an Olymous Sp 500UZ, arrived today and I am having fun figuring out all its functionalities. I am posting my preliminary attempts with it here, mostly to show off to my dear sister who gets equally excited when she has a new camera! However, I bother the flowers which is preferable to bothering people, which is what SHE does! Of course, she reminds us that in the end, we all like the photos!



This is lamb's ear. When you feel the leaves, they feel just like the ear of a lamb, so soft. When I first moved for France, where I was to live for a year, some other American students and myself visited the botanical gardens in Tours. I remember one woman in particular who was from Georgia. She had a knack for identifying plants and was showing us different types in the garden. We stopped next to one that had leaves, just like this. I was immediately enchanted by it. It was soft with a lovely silvery green color. She told us it was lamb's ear. It also felt like the tips of my cat's ear and I missed her. So I picked a leaf and carried it my pocket for days, occasionally stroking it with my fingers and thinking of my cat as I sat in useless French classes that seemed to drone on forever.



Now I have a little botanical garden of my own. This is just one of the many flowers that I have. It is a passion flower. These are climbers that thrive on the Central Coast. I am impressed with the level of clarity and detail the new camera has up close. The colors appear richer on my own computer than they do here on the blog, something that bugs me a little. The passion flower comes with a legend. In the 1600'a Roman Catholic priest found the flower in South America and decided it was a great way to explain the crucifixion. The 5 petals and 5 sepals stood for the 10 faithful apostles and the 3 pistils represented the nails of the cross. The circle of hair-like rays stood for the crown of thorns. Personally, I think all of this is a bit of a reach. However you look at it, it is a striking flower and I like it very much. It blooms year around, although the snails love to eat it in the Spring.



This is begonia. About 3 years ago, a new neighbor moved in. His brother-in-law was staying with him until classes were over at the university and he could rejoin his wife up north. He used to work at a local nursery and left these begonia bulbs with me when he moved. I just keep watering them and every August, I am rewarded with the most lovely begonias!

I can tell that I am going to have a lot of fun with this new camera!