THE JOY OF DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

Becoming a blogger has expanded my experience and knowledge of computer and photography. This shelf of photo albums is two of five shelves filled with pictures that I rarely look into.

However, with digital photography, This box holds all of my pictures  from 2003, which includes  hefty picture-taking trips to China, Alaska, Peru, and Thailand and seven months of meandering across the United States and back last year. They give me so much pleasure. Oh, that it were easy to convert all of my older pictures to digital, I would do it in a flash. Digital photography is a marvelous technology and then…and then… my camera,  for no, discernible reason, quit taking flash pictures.
Hunting for a camera on-line is hard work. I feel fortunate that so many cameras are given very detailed revues by photography magazine editors and professional users as well as hobby photographers.  Hundreds of  models to choose from made me cross-eyed. Features continue to increase as technology advances and you know fully loaded features are just bells and whistles that you’ll never use.  Most of the day was spent on-line but I did get out early with my now limited camera in hand and caught this unusual sight.

I heard the chain saw before I got to this new neighbor’s place. Grateful that my zoom wasn’t gone, I caught this interesting photo.

What I didn’t think to focus on was the three men hanging around watching as she did the cutting.

I  couldn’t see the  tree and why it had to be felled. A dead tree behind a screen of live ones is what I expect  she was removing.  I can use a chain saw, and have, for small cuts; trimming.  But, I have  never felled a tree.  All I can say is Wow!  I must get acquainted with my new neighbor.

DEPRESSION YEARS PART 4

Friends my own age remember the depression through our parents, or aunts and uncles who told us stories of the depression days. Pam Quyle, of Murphys, learned about hard times from her mother, Joyce Miller, from South Dakota. Not only did they deal with the depression but, even worse, was the dust bowl. "My mother repeated to us about how awful it was when the locusts went through" explained Pam. "For miles you could see nothing but naked branches, not one green thing. Animals were killed because there was no feed. They ate what they could but without refrigeration, the meat was wasted. They lived on their oat crop with nothing but oats for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The whole (Miller) family moved away from there and escaped. My uncles eventually returned, but my mother never wanted to go back to South Dakota and didn't."
Kenneth Myles, 84, of Jamestown hailed from Terre Haute, IN. He remembers his father worked at anything he could find. "My mom took in laundry. She got 10 cents a piece for washing, ironing and starching a shirt. When the tomato factories were canning, she would work for three or four weeks."
Ken and his brother both dropped out of school at 14 to help put bread on the table. His brother worked the wheat fields for a $1 a day. "I carried newspapers and brought home $2.50 a week." Then they both got jobs at a bakery greasing and stacking pans. "Everybody was in the same boat and everybody worked together," said Ken. You can read about Ken in "friends and "neighbors" magazine celebrating Tuolumne Seniors.
To be continued