Wild Morning Glory In Bloom

Wild Morning Glory in Bloom


As I had previously posted I have been pulling out this pesky vine year after year until after I researched it and found out that it is Wild Morning Glory which is also known as Bindweed (Convolvulus sepium).

Well this year I decided to let it go and see what blooms. As you can see it gets these nice trumpet shaped white flowers.

 

  
 

I Survived!!! The Winter of 2009/2010

Get your "I Survived!!! The Winter of 2009/2010" merchandise here.

Click on button below picture.

February Snowfall Causing Problem in Pittsburgh

February is not even over and we have already had the most snow ever recorded in for the month. We are on target to possibly the most snow ever in a single month.

Here are some pictures of the ice on my house.

All of this snow is lovely to see but now everyone is having problems with water making its way into their homes and businesses and there have been some building collapse from the weight of all the snow and ice.

I received and email from the Animal Rescue League of Western Pennsylvania telling me that a flight cage that is part of their Wildlife Rehabilitation Center had collapsed from the weight of the snow. They use this to treat and rehabilitate injured peregrine falcons, herons, hawks, owls and foxes. They are in desperate need for funds to build a new one. If you would like to make a donation to help them rebuilt go to Fundraiser for: Wildlife Rehabilitation Center Fund

Pittsburgh, The Big Snow Storm of Feb 2010 - photo collage

I had taken alot of pictures of the recent snow storm, way to many to include in my prevous post. So I made this photo collage. Click on the picture for large view.

Pittsburghs 4th Largest Snowstorm

Yesterday a record setting snowstorm hit the east coast. Pennsylvania has declared a state of emergency and Allegheny county has declare a state of emergency for the entire week. Here in northern suburbs of Pittsburgh I received about two feet of snow. This is the 4th largest snowfall in a 24 hours period. The last time we had a storm this bad was in 1993. Almost nothing was open and most roads still have not been completely cleared.


Here are some pictures that I took of the snow around my house. As you can see in one of the pictures my dog Ozzy was having a hard time getting around in the snow which was up to the top of his head.

I used a back saving shovel like the one shown on the left. It has been one of the best things I ever purchased. It is so much easier to shoveling with that then a standard straight shovel.

Tiffany the Rottweiler

This is Tiffany, she is a Rottweiler who belongs to a friend of mine.

The Rottweiler originates from Germany as a herding dog. It is an intelligent breed of dogs. Rottweilers were used to pull carts to carry livestock to slaughter and other meat products to market giving them the name "Butchers Dog". The Rottweiler was by butchers until the mid-19th century when railroads replaced the dog’s role in getting livestock to market. There are still Rottweilers working live stock in other parts of the world. Although today they are often used as search and rescue dogs.

It is a medium to large size dog ranging between 22 to 27 inches tall. The Rottweiler is one of the oldest herding breeds. A multi-faceted herding and stock protection dog of exceptional ability, it is capable of working all kinds of livestock under a wide variety of conditions.

The dog gets its name from a small town in Germany called Rottweil which is where the army of the Roman Empire traveled through with their meat with the assistance of working dogs to herd the cattle.

The build up to World War I saw a great demand for police dogs, and that led to a revival of interest in the Rottweiler. During the First and Second World Wars, Rottweilers were put into service in various roles including as messenger, ambulance, and guard dogs.

The American Kennel Club describes the dogs Temperament as basically a calm, confident and courageous dog with a self-assured aloofness that does not lend itself to immediate and indiscriminate friendships. A Rottweiler is self-confident and responds quietly and with a wait-and-see attitude to influences in his environment. He has an inherent desire to protect home and family, and is an intelligent dog of extreme hardness and adaptability with a strong willingness to work, making him especially suited as a companion, guardian and general all-purpose dog.

Me, Myself and I, How to put youself multiple times in your own photos.

I came across and photography site that showed a photo of the photographer in his own pic multiple times. I thought it was cool and so I decided to try it myself with my own simply camera.

This was the end result. I wanted to be in the shot 3 times but only got my arm one that last one. You can see it in the far right of the picture.

Click pictures for large view

I used my old reliable Pentax Optio M20 7.0mp camera  that I use for most of pictures here. To the right are the individual pictures that used to create the final version.

Here are the steps that I took (or should of taken) to take the needed pictures

1. Set the camer to focus to manual.

2. Turn off all auto features (in my case I did not turn off the auto white balance which caused me more editing work)

3. Use a tripod or be carfull not to move cameria between shots.

4. Turn on the self timer function.

5. Take pictures and hurry to get in position.

Here are the steps I used to create the photo

1. Opened up the first photo in Paint

2. Open the second photo in a seperate Paint window

3. Use the select feature to draw a box around myself in the in the second photo then copied and pasted it into the first photo in the proper position.

4. Repeated steps 1-3 for the third photo.

5. This step was necessary because I did not have the auto contract turned off. I then had to edit the photo using Picasa because it has a tool that i needed to hide the lines between the pasted image and the origional.

Im sure there are better sofware packages out there to do this but it's what I have and it was free.

My Year In Review Video

This is a video I made from the pictures of my posts from this past year. This has been and interesting adventure since this was my first blog and my first year of blogging. Posts included in video are American Goldfinch, Domestic Short Hair, Carolina Chickadee, Crane Fly, White-tailed Deer, Dusky Land Slug, Earwig, Eastern Grass Tubeworm Moth, Pittsburgh's First Major Snow Storm, Flying Ant, Green and White Spider, Hickory Horned Devil Caterpillar, Jumping Spider, Katydids, Leafhopper, Millipede, More Snow In Pittsburgh, Moth Flies, Basenji Mix, Plume Moth, Red Headed Bush Cricket, Scottish Terrier, Sedum Bulbiferum Makino, Silver Maple Tree, Brown Stink Bug, Tree Fungus, Unknown Rock?, Bindweed (Convolvulus sepium)/Wild Morning Glory , Banded Woolly Bear caterpillar.

More Snow In Pittsburgh

There seems to be no end to the snow here and we are expected to get 2-4 more inches tomorrow. This usually means I get 4-6 here.



I created a photo collage of several pictures of Ozzy my Basenji mix puppy, the trees in my yard and the woods near my house using Picasa 3.

Click Picture for Large View

Pittsburgh's First Major Snow Storm

December 19th was our first major snow fall of the season. And it’s the first snow for my 8 month old Basenji mix puppy named Ozzy. Since he had never seen snow before he was at first afraid to go out into the yard. I had to go out into the yard and call his name several times before he decided to venture off the porch. Now all he wants to do is go out all day and play in it.

As you can see I have posted several pictures of him playing in the yard as well as some pictures of the big Pine Tree that I have in the back and my Azalea bush both covered in show.

Click on Pictures for Large View

We received about 7 inches of snow here locally. I live near the top of a large hill and it seems that I always get a couple of inches more up here then they do at the bottom of the hill. I remember years ago back on March 13th 1993 Pittsburgh received a record 24 inches of snow in one day. I confirmed my memory by looking at historical data at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA.GOV) web site. Not too many people made it to work that day. I was one of the unfortuneate ones to have gone in before the snow started. It took me 4 hours to get home that day. A trip which normally took 25 minutes.

Click on Pictures for Large View