Pepys visits the garden: Trouts; next Tritomas (June 1, 2007 & May 22, 2007; next starts June pics)

Next up in the topsy-turvy compilation of photographs and other random things: Troutsies! Technically there was only 1 trout. And Josie caught it. But there were lots of tadpoles.

And I apparently already wrote a fly-fishing report for Facebook/Myspace.
"Fly-fishing report (June 1):
Off to a not-quite-so-early start due to requests to please turn off the alarm for 20 minutes. Lovely drive despite Gaitlinburg and such; Cherokee National Forest has some lovely winding hilly roads (for much of which Bill gallantly vacated the driver's seat for me ). Bought fishing licenses and was severely offended by the requirement to list one's race ("color") on the license. (Wrote "tan" because "white" not currently accurate.)
Drove around a good 30 minutes looking for the ideal fishing spot. Waded into the ice-cold, frigid, toe-numbing water and spent a good couple of hours whipping fishing lines around without catching anything. Bill caught a massive 5-inch trout just before we climbed back up the bank to the car.
Spent another couple of hours at the stocked fish pond watching a fisherman across the other side pulling out a fish every 15 minutes. Caught a crawfish, let it crawl back into the water. Josi caught a decent-sized trout, which we brought home.
The building maintenance man here was disgusted that we caught one fish among 3 people. Says we should use nightcrawlers next time (Bill, we should try this someday). Little piece of night crawler on a tiny hook, maybe a little weight, and invisible line. Let it float along the surface of the water. Recommends a spin rod but figures the same thing would work with a fly rod."
Why would I do something like that without properly including pictures? (probably because I hadn't uploaded them and they weren't particularly stunning. Other photos from the day are here.)

Recently I haven't been as positively impressed by my flower pictures in general. Some of the clematis pictures are marvelous and remind me of sand dollars. Overall, though, I think the garden has been at an in-between lull and I haven't had (or taken) as much time to photograph; and I haven't been pleased with the white balance and focus for a number of shots. A couple weeks ago I signed up to take a 3-week Monday night photography class so I would have an excuse to figure out how to control things like WB and depth of field and such on my camera, but when I showed up for the first class this week the security guard told me that the start date had been moved. So I can't take the class and (horror!) will have to figure out the electronic controls again if I want. It's not that hard, though.

New May Photos (May 22)
My favorites

cardinal climber -- still not satisfied with this photo, but the dead vine needs to be cut down.

pink spikes (name? it's not coming right now) -- i like the lines and patterns and lighting here.

wild honeysuckle -- this stuff was so cool. it was hard to get the light balance/focus right on these, so i had to dig through a bunch of just-out-of-focus pictures to find the good ones.