Boom Boom'sTest Drive

Saturday was a gorgeous day.  A lone warm sunny day, only the second, since the Spring Equinox.  It's been a horridly cold and dreary Spring around here. But I took advantage of the lovely sunshine before we returned to cold rain on Sunday.  A friend and I went for a long walk and when I got back I broke out my new camera (Yes, I think I may take Suldog's suggestion and name the camera Boom Boom.  Now Suldog, will you please come back to blogland?)) to start getting acquainted with it.  Here are some of the results from around my yard.

I think labeled this an azalea even though it's a rhododendron...but maybe it;s an azalea.  Listen, I have sero sill where making green things grow is concerned.  In any event there's an itty bitty bud trying to get ready to do its thing.  At least the leaves have uncurled themselves from the cigar roll formations they go into during the winter.  Spring must be on its way, right? Right??

 These are odd little berries that grow in the yard as part of some creeping wild ground cover.  I have no idea what they are but they always intrigue me.

Someone once told me the shrub that produces these flowers is called bridal wreath.  I giggle about that because they grow around Mr. Lime's Manland shack.

We have a rail fence that's about ready to fall over.  It looks so artistic instead of redneck when you take a macro shot of the decaying rails though, doesn't it? 

Like I said, Spring seems greatly delayed in these parts but hey, the snow covering the rock wall out back is melted so you can see the lichen again.

Mr. Lime has threatened to cut down the Pussy Willow several times because the base of it is split and it doesn't look like it should be healthy but it blooms every year and I like it, so it's staying.  He gets a little too crazed with his chainsaw.

This is one of my flubs.  I had it on auto focus and thought it was focus but I either jiggled the camera or I see the world blurry.  Pity because I like the colors and the composition.  Oh well, part of learning.

Did I mention Spring is late and very little is blooming yet?  Yeah, I thought so.  That being the case I had to go looking for things to shoot.  We have a bunch of stumps around.  This one had kind of a groovy eroded curved spot in it.

Well, there you have it.  A little bit of playing with my camera.  I am frustrated with a lack of Spring but I am really excited to finally have a camera again after over a year without one...and looking forward to the next chance I get to play around with it.