Sylvia's Simple Shots

The Black Capped Chickadees were having breakfast the other morning in the small sunflowers at the park. These small sunflower seed heads are the perfect size of Chickadees.

I bet they would like to squirrel away supplies for the winter when they are so plentiful.

The squirrel tried to get to the sunflower seeds but the stalks were not strong enough to hold him up.

 

This book is the one I finished this week.   It features many lost classics as recommended by authors who share their stories about the book that got away, lost, or otherwise has not seen a lot of reads.

It's Concord Grape time!  I look forward to these showing up in the grocery stores.  It is something I usually share with my sister.  Not sure it will happen this year.  I think we had them as kids because if the price was good Mom would buy some.  

I decided to make small cloths to disinfect my camera everyday when I return from my morning walk.

The risk is small because no one touches my camera but I may touch a rail or something else that could be contaminated.

I thought Rubbing alcohol would be the most effective cleaner but it can be a bit hard on the rubber parts of the camera.   The easiest is simple soap and water on a cloth.  

I bought a microfiber cloth which I sewed the edges and cut into 16 four inch cloths.  These will be used once and then laundered just like my masks and gloves.

Bleach solution is effective as well and will likely be used for door knobs, etc.  I had been using cleaning wipes but they are not all made the same.  They need alcohol or bleach to be effective for the corona virus.  I have yet to find a bottle to store the cleaner as you need a soft plastic bottle.  I have not had any success storing bleach solution in a spray bottle cause it just corrodes the metal parts in the spray mechanism.

I made a trade with my aunt this week.  She asked did I want a denim cushion cover?  I initially said no but reconsidered.

Of course, it needed to have sunflowers.  She has an embroidery machine which does creates these beautiful designs.  The original design has quite a bit of brown but I ask that she replace it would green.

It fit the cushion on the sofa perfectly because I had measured ahead of time.

I gave a about an inch of solid card stock. She did not want brights so I gave her jeweled tones, neutrals, and a few metallic.

So happy to have some of the card stock walk away.

I created a mosaic featuring Alium seed pods with a Scarlet Flax in the center.  The third one is the seed pod of the Chinese Globe Flower. I photographed them last year but I did not have any idea what the flower was.  I paid attention this year to see what the bloom looked like!  Last year I thought it was a Hellebore.  But now that I know what it is it is still not possible to find a photo on line of the flower's seed pod.

The Flicker Macro Monday challenge this week is the Dutch Tilt but in macro form.  This is a technique where you tilt the camera to create tension when viewing  the photo because we like this to stay on the horizontal. You can check out my Flicker Photostream (smpics) to see what I submitted.

I am sharing with Angie who hosts Mosaic Monday #97 and

Mersad who hosts Through my Lens #258.