Veterans Day 2011

                   Veteran's Day Speech, 2011

   I come here today to honor all the American veterans, past and present, who served our country. My grandfather and great- grandfather fought together in the American Civil war. My grandfather was 15 years old at the time. Two of my brothers and two of my brother- in-laws fought in World War II in the Army Air Corps and the Navy. Two of my high school friends died in the "battle of the bulge"during the last months of WWII and many more were wounded at that time. My father-in-law was a Marine sent to Haiti to protect US citizens during a rebellion there in 1919. One of my son-in-laws Was A Marine that served in Vietnam while another was stationed in Germany right at the end of the "Cold War" with Russia. 

While in college in the late 1940's I went with a Wisconsin State Journal reporter to the veterans home in King, Wisconsin where I met and photographed veterans from the Spanish-American War and World War I. While there I met the last Northern veteran from the Civil War, Commander Wilcox, who had served as a young drummer boy. He was 106 years old at the time of my visit.

I graduated from high school one year after WWII so I entered college in 1946 with hundreds of returning veterans. They were proud of what they had done to save the world from the German Nazis' and the Japanese imperialist. Little did I know that four years later we would be drawn into another war in Korea. When I finished college I enlisted in the Air Force because I felt it was my duty to support my country. After basic training I was attached to the Photography School at the Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado. I was trained to be a "Still Photography Specialist" which required shooting pictures both from the ground and the air. After my discharge I returned to Wisconsin to teach biology to high school students and computer science to elementary students for fifty years.

Many of my former students fought and died in Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan.

All the veterans I have mentioned were proud to have served their country. We loved the United States Of America and were willing to join the military and fight to protect it.

During my 83 years of living in the United States I have learned that there is always someone in the world ready to destroy us and our way of life. We, as citizens, must always be ready to serve our country and protect it.

Each day I pray for our soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen who are now, or have been, in the service of the United States Of America.

                   God Bless America.

The New Oakwood Fruit Farm

  I'm quite angry at Google tonight. I spent 2 hours getting the pictures ready and writing about the Louis' families big fire last fall and how they re-built a new sales building and finished it in time for the apple season this fall. I did everything the same as I've been doing for the last 7 posts but this time it said "Error in Saving". When I tried to post what I had written, I lost everything. So all you're going to get tonight is this text and three pictures.

Welcome back to the Louis family.

Grand Opening Of The New Sales Building This Fall

The Latest In Orchard Processing Equipment

Back To The Birds

This is a professional Canon 100-400mm lens costing a fortune new! I could never afford a lens like that. Not when I'm retired and on a fixed income. Besides, in the years I was teaching we never really made much of a salary. So I gave up the idea of ever owning one. Then one day in September I ran into a former student of mine that has become a professional photographer. He was shooting with Canon Pro Body and a 300 mm F/2.8 lens that I knew cost thousands of dollars. He said it was really a fantastic lens that he bought to replace his Canon 100-400mm telephoto lens because the old lens was too heavy and not fast enough. Then he said he was going to sell that lens. My heart skipped a beat! I asked what he was going to ask for it and he gave me the price. In a state of shock I blurted out, "I want it!" So that's how I got this BIG, HEAVY beautiful lens. It sort of recked my Camera/Computer fund for the rest of the year but I now have a lens that is rated as a 600mm telephoto which I can use to photograph birds at quite a distance. I won't be going very far from my car with this monster plus a heavy tripod but I'll be able to shoot birds that I couldn't get before. 

My wife took this picture of me in the field trying to use the camera hand-held. I found out that only works if there is plenty of light because this telephoto only has an f/4-5.6 lens. Getting the lens late in the summer means I'll have to wait until the spring migration to really try it out. At this time of the year we only have a limited number of birds to shoot. Those will include the hawks, eagles, ducks, geese and woodpeckers. For the birds that come to my feeders I'll still use the lighter, smaller 70-300mm Canon Lens. (That one is not classes as a Pro lens, is not white nor dose it have a red ring around the front of the lens.That's how you can tell if it's a Canon Pro Lens.)  

Here is a Bald Eagle I shot near the Wisconsin River last winter with the 300mm telephoto. If you click on the picture you will see it isn't very sharp.

I tried to enlarge and sharpen the picture but it doesn't meet the standard that I have set for my pictures.

Guess who arrived back this week? The Slate-colored Juncos.

They fly down from up north and winter here in Southern Wisconsin.

A Little Peace, Quiet And Thanksgiving

After a hectic week of health problems we needed to drive to our little shrine called "The Lady Of The Fields" in Sauk County for an afternoon of peace, quiet and thanksgiving. We love this little old country church that is no longer used but has been turned into a shrine to the Virgin Mary and Saint Isidore, Patron Saint Of The Farmers. My cancer had not returned and we are so thankful. Now I'll have more time to photograph all the things I love.

The shrine is like a little country church we use to see near Dodgeville when we went to visit my aunt and uncle back in the 1930's. The temperature was in the low 60's and the sun was shining. It was a beautiful late fall day.

Searching For Ladies Brooches!

We spent a couple of hours at a flea market yesterday searching for ladies brooches. One of our daughters has started collecting and has asked us to go through the thousands of pins you can find at one of these things and buy what we think she will like. My wife is attracted to one type while I always search for animals or floral pins. I guess that's the biologist in me. My daughter says, so far we are doing great in our selections. 

Using Photoshop To Edit Your Pictures

I like to use Photoshop to improve my pictures. If you edit it too much, it looks phony, so I use it mainly to adjust exposure and sharpness. Below are three pictures that I "Photoshopped".

This Barred Owl was photographed at dusk. Later I darkened the picture and added the moon.

 This Prothonotary warbler was photographed on the shore of the mississippi river in Wisconsin.

All I did here was adjust the exposure and sharpness.

I have a special window I made in our family room that has an opening that allows me to stick

the lens outside to take pictures of birds in our backyard. I used a sun shade on the lens to

protect it from the sleet and snow that was falling one day last winter. The finished picture

only had a few blurred sleet lines so I used Photoshop "layers" and added a few more lines.

Next is an example of major editing.

I showed this picture on an earlier blog. Did you believe it was true picture or a manipulated one?

All the birds in the picture are real. It's just that they weren't all there at the same time. The three House Finches on the top right were on the branch. The last finch on the right was copied, flipped,

and then pasted on the top left . The Indigo Bunting was photographed on the ground. I removed the background and then copied the bird and pasted it on the branch. Before I did this I copied the branch that extends over the bird.  Once the bird was in place I pasted the branch back over the Indigo Bunting. The Goldfinch was cut out of another picture and pasted in front of the other layers.When I was teaching I use to tell  my students that you really can't trust a picture to be real  anymore,so don't believe everything you see. 

A Wide Range Of Subjects

Click on a picture to see the original size.

 We found this quiet little shrine in Southwestern Wisconsin.

 It's one of our favorite quiet areas.

I've added these three pictures to show that this site

will show photos covering a wide range of subjects