 I've never been good with plants. People talk about having a green thumb. Mine is black. I've killed a cactus through negligence. But man do I love a home grown tomato. And so year after year I try to grow the damn things. Mostly my efforts have been epic failures. But not this year. Look at that bowl full of tomatoes that I actually grew myself.
It makes me hungry just looking at this picture. I sense a BLT in my near future. Or maybe a salad. Or just a handful of tomatoes for snacking. Why am I still talking to you?
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 After getting the kids packed up and out the door, I couldn't help notice the beautiful morning light as the sun peaked over the top of the hills. I tried getting some shots of the playground equipment with the sun peeking through but they just didn't work. But then I noticed how beautifully the morning light played across these grape vines.
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 Molly had to go stay at a dog kennel during our recent vacation and came back more than a little grungy. That necessitated my giving her a bath, an activity that neither of us enjoys. Here you see her outside, air drying after it was all over. You might also note that she is pointedly not looking at me while I take the picture. That's not a coincidence. I had to get up and move several times to get this shot as she refused to sit anywhere near me at that point.
She'll get over it I'm sure. And at least she smells better now.
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Today's photo is a bit of a cheat. I took this several days ago while on vacation. But my little netbook just doesn't have enough muscle to stitch together a huge photo like this. So it had to wait. On the right of the photo you can see Lake Placid. To the left is McKenzie Pond. One of those big peaks (not sure which), is Whiteface, which is where a lot of events took place in the 1980 Olympics. Now, this photo didn't turn out as well as hoped. For one thing, I forgot my tripod. So this is hand held, which is not the optimal method. Worse, I shot it with a very short focal length, which created a bit of a distortion. I'll know better next time. 
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 It was a rewarding and productive vacation but it was finally time to pack up and go home.
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 I was out on my daily tour, looking for great spots to photograph. Actually, I was on my way home. After a good half hour spent tracking a duck, and feeling pretty satisfied with the results, it was time to get some dinner. And that's when I spotted the heron. Driving past a marsh at about 45 mph, the bird caught my attention out the corner of my eye. And there was nowhere to pull off. A quarter mile up the road I found a spot and started hiking back, sure the big bird would have moved on by now.
He (she?) had not. But it was a bit deeper in the marsh, making it harder to get the shot. And along the way, I got this great shot as well.
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 Once again, the weather wasn't what you would call cooperative. But it didn't rain all day, which is an improvement. And the sun did peek out now and then. For some reason, the clouds over the Adirondacks always appear to be supremely photogenic. So their presence isn't entirely unwanted. Perhaps a few less though.
Here they helped. As I was shooting this patch of lilly pads, the clouds drifted overhead, causing a nice transition line between blue sky and dark cloud. It gives this picture that extra little something that makes me happy. And that lone blossom right along that line doesn't hurt either.
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 Here we have South Creek. This location is a boat launch for people wanting to pack up their canoes and go camping on Middle Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks. The weather was pretty much terrible today, but I ignored it and went out exploring. I almost drove right past this spot but caught the view out of the corner of my eye and quickly turned around to go back. I'm glad I did.
Technically, there is nothing particularly noteworthy about this shot other than I took my time to get all the details right. Also, because it was raining, I had a towel over the camera and constantly used it to wipe the lens clean. This was about the sixth version of this shot before I got one without big obvious raindrops on the lens.
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 This is probably the hardest I've worked for a photo in this series. It involved climbing a mountain. Okay, not a big mountain. Certainly not one that required any special gear to ascend. But still, it involved a mile long hike up a mountain with little kids. But the view was certainly worth it.
I took many other shots from the top of the mountain, some of which feature better views than this one. But this was my favorite shot because it included my family sitting back and taking in the beauty of that view. That gives it a lot more emotional resonance for me. Maybe not for you, because you don't know these people, but for me it makes it a lot better. I used one of my favorite photographic techniques for this shot. I adjust the camera for the sky primarily and then used the flash to light up the people in the foreground. Usually if you adjust for the sky, anything in the foreground becomes a silhouette. But using the flash corrects for that, usually resulting in a pretty dramatic image.
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 This fun fellow is a huge fan favorite at The Wild Center in Tupper Lake, NY. Those rocks at his (her?) feet are his toys, which he will bat about like a cat chasing a bit of string. Otters are great fun to watch. They rarely sit still and when they get in the water, they are incredibly nimble and acrobatic. No exaggeration, I could watch otters play for hours on end.
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 It rained all day. And then it rained all night. But then I saw some flashes of lightning out the window so I quickly got out on the porch and set up the camera to take some long exposures, hoping to capture lightning on film (memory card?). There was no further lightning, so that was a bust. But that's not to say the results were bad. Quite the opposite really. Much to my surprise, since it looked pitch black to my eye, was this eye popping lake view. And I mean eye popping. What I've posted here has actually been tweaked on the computer to tone down the color of the grass. It was actually bordering on garish before that.
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