Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Computer Question and a Turkey Sighting


What do you use for creating your blog posts: desktop or laptop? I was wondering if you find photo editing much easier using a mouse.

I have been having a difficult time with the new blogger interface and part of it (aside from disliking the design of it) is my 10-year-old Dell computer. I've kept it this long because it's been adequate for my uses and I have an external hard drive with 500 GB of memory. However, it's looking like Windows XP may just be too much of a thing of the past. I can't upgrade to IE 9 with xp and until I can do that I can't export my blog to save it. Not sure if it's worth it to install the new hard drive I got two years ago (in case I couldn't get the computer up and running again after it crashed) and update to Windows Vista or just get a new computer. The former might result in a wasted $120 for the windows update and a lot of wasted time on my part.

I'd switch to wordpress.com but I can't even find the friggin login page on this computer.

The Bidens are finishing up now but here's a pic from when they were in their full glory. The Swamp Sunflowers come up in the bed on the right even though they've been pulled several times. They annoy me in Sept when they shoot up and I can see the bottom three feet that always get defoliated from fungus. Then when they bloom in October I'm always glad they are there. I'm not sure if these are true angustifolius; I have swamp sunflower from the Botanical Garden that has foliage that is more ribbony and narrow and never has fungus. It doesn't bloom as long though.


Azalea 'Autumn Amethyst' will be very happy about the rain we've received the last couple of days. We even have water in the ditches again!


'Bleu Celeste' is the last daylily to bloom this year. She's still
blooming now and I don't even remember her reblooming before.


Inspired by the Queen of Seaford's recent post advising Keep your eyes peeled in the garden, a brief report on the wildlife in the garden.

For 15 years I never saw any wild turkey here, and now I'm seeing them all of the time. I even got a couple of pictures of mom and the 5 babies, about 2/3rds her size now. I took these from our porch; the turkey were a few hundred feet away, near our old well.



DH also wondered if the quail were still around; they seem to wander quite far and weeks may go by without a sighting. Plus, since the males don't usually call this time of year they are more difficult to locate.

This morning I heard a female calling nearby. I thought she was probably in the neighbor's pasture, at the top of the hill. Well, she wasn't! She and one or two others were in a wax myrtle next to the drive and they exploded in flight when I walked by. I wish I'd been a little more observant so that I could have seen more than just a sillouette as the one closest to me burst out of the tree.

I need to get more familiar with the hawk moths. There's more than one species wheeling about on feather light wings in the evenings. I saw one last week that truly astounded me. I *think* it was a Five-Spotted Hawk Moth whose larvae is the tomato hornworm and which I've seen around here often before, but this particular moth was huge. Wings and all it did truly seem to be the size of a small yo-yo. Sphinx moths show no fear of humans so it's easy to get close to them. I could watch it up close as it fed on the hardy ginger. The length of its tongue was impressive too. A truly amazing creature.









19 comments:

  1. I'd treat yourself to a laptop with everything bundled in. I bet you can find a great deal out there.

    I've often thought about WordPress. The templates seem so much more professional/creative and by all accounts easier to bespoke.

    Goodluck.

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  2. I have some problems too with Blogger ... if you'll find the way to switch to wordpress, I'll be happy to do the same ...
    Beautiful autumn colours. And turkey ? Wow !!! I like your garden even more :)

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  3. Sweetbay,

    I need a mouse to edit photos for sure. Just cropping them seems impossible without a mouse. Use mac here so I'm not much help. Cool how the swamp sunflower just opened over night isn't it.

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  4. I use my desk top mostly for posting to my blog and I use Windows Live Writer to do it. My computer is a couple of years old now and I have windows 7. My old computer had Vista, wasn't crazy about that, DH hated it. I think he has Windows XP. We both liked Windows 98. It is a real shame that things become obsolete so fast. We bought the lap top this year and bought a wireless mouse to go with it, which I love. I do NOT like using my finger as a mouse with a lap top.

    We miss hearing quail. We used to hear them a lot, but that was many, many years ago.

    Those wild turkey are neat. They must feel comfortable there in your property.

    I love the top two photos. Aaaaahhhh, so beautiful, so peaceful.

    Enjoy the rest of your week ~ FlowerLady

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  5. We do battle with Windows XP on his old desktop. software like Soluto has a hissy fit there. I have Windows 7 on my laptop, and I think that has gone thru 8 to 9 in between. What problems are you having with the Blogger interface? Have you changed to the new editor? Wordpress or Blogger, they all have problems sometimes.
    http://www.blogxpertise.com/2012/08/10-reasons-blogger-better-wordpress.html

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  6. The main problem I'm having with the interface is that it's so s...l....o.....w on my computer now. I'm not sure which editor I'm using.

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  7. How interesting! There are many bird around you, sweetbay! I love the quail, I know people who had them in a farm and sell the quail eggs. Nice garden!

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  8. Aha! I have just switched my browser from IE 8 to Mozilla and now I can download my blog and work at a reasonable speed!

    Part of the problem with my computer is the new updates with Windows. I had turned off updates for a while because they often tend to stop my computer in its tracks. Now 6 of the updates cannot download. Yesterday I couldn't even download Google Chrome or Mozilla to my computer. I don't know why I can today and not yesterday.

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  9. Thanks for the shout out and I am glad that you are seeing lots of turkeys, they are so fun to see. I laugh whenever I see them running.
    Sorry you have been having such a hard time with doing your blog. My kids have Mozilla on their computers, I just downloaded Chrome. It has its own quirks. It is all in what you get used to. Since we moved here I do my blogging on the laptop while watching TV....not 100% focused sometimes. The touchpad is ok to use....I crop and adjust pictures in Picasa.

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  10. Love your turkeys:) They seem to be a species making a great big comeback after years of not being around. The interface is stupid. I have to use Google Chrome to make everything work well. I use a laptop and since doing my work with the google product Google Chrome, I've been able to blog like I usually did. But it's frustrating. Hope you get it figured out. Love your pretty forest.

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  11. In the computer world a ten year old machine is pretty old. I wonder if you might be wise to cut your losses and move on to a new PC or a Mac. I work on a Mac and love it. We even watch all our television on the Mac (Our Mac has a large screen. This is not something exclusive to Mac's. You can watch tv on a PC as well). I am wondering if part of your problem is with your internet service. We have ultra high speed. It makes a big difference in speed for most internet tasks. (we canceled the cable tv and now watch everything over the internet.) I don't generally do a lot of editing- mostly resizing- and that I do in Photoshop.
    It is Thanksgiving here this weekend. Your wild turkeys would be in hiding if they were living here! LOL The azalea and bidens are just beautiful.Hope you get things sorted soon. Good luck!

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  12. Your fall garden is looking beautiful. Love the turkey. We see quail in our pasture, but no turkey except the occasional domestic escapee from our neighbor's farm.
    Good decision to turn off the word verification.
    We had a similar 10 yr old computer with XP problem. It froze up a lot and was way too slow. We went with a new computer, figuring that just upgrading wasn't going to solve all the issues. Don't know if that was the best decision, but there you have it.

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  13. I had problems with speed too. I needed anew computer; they get full and slow. I also have issues with my internet provider as we're in the country and there's no cable ADSL, I use a satalite dish to conect to an ADSL system (I've no idea how that works). I can receommend Wordpress and they have the span sorted - it always goes into a separate file for you to check, so far in two and a half years no spam has got theough their system and people leaving comments don't have to do the word recognition thing (which is a pain). I'll come back to see more of your lovely garden. Christina

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  14. So happy for you having wild turkeys around again. I wonder what brought them back?? If I was any kind of wildlife, I'd make a beeline to your property tho!
    I haven't used any blogging site other than typepad so I'm probably no help. I do use my desk top exclusively for photo editing & blogging. Everything else I do on the laptop. My desktop is old too. Mozilla is my browser which I do like ~ glad you got it to download and were able to get your blog exported. Computer issues are such a pain....

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  15. It sounds like you need a new computer. :( I use a desktop computer for everything and I haven't had any trouble. I see wild turkeys around here sometimes, too, which is kind of amazing considering our traffic. But then again, most of the real turkeys are behind the wheel.

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    1. Switching to Mozilla has helped immensely but I agree, I will need a new computer sooner rather than later.

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  16. How cool to spot turkeys so near your house! Somewhere while on a trip this year--probably in North Carolina--I saw some wild turkeys in a wooded area. The chicks were so cute, but mama was very protective and wouldn't let us get very close.

    Lovely to see your re-blooming daylily. Other than my Stellas, I didn't have a single re-bloomer this year. I think after suffering through our horrid July, they had had enough:)

    I use a desktop computer and always have; even though I use my daughter's laptop occasionally, I'm just much more comfortable with a mouse than a touchpad. I've also found that I much prefer Mozilla to Internet Explorer. I've adjusted to the new Blogger interface and am not having the problems with it I had back in March or whenever I first tried it out. I still don't see what's so great about it, though, and why they needed to change it. If your computer has lasted 10 years, I'd say you're pretty lucky!

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  17. I always admire your wonderful setting! I would be thrilled to see wild turkeys. They once were prolific in this area, so much so that the area was known as Gobblers Knob, but since all the subdivision have been built in the last twenty years, turkey sightings are rare.

    It does sound like you would benefit from a new computer. I don't know what I would do without my Apple iMac! My blog is hosted by Squarespace, not as common as blogger or wordpress, but I have been satisfied with them.

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  18. So glad you got the bugs worked out! Mozilla/Firefox is a wonderful browser and I often use it with my mac. I use a desktop and find I need a mouse, the touch pad is hard on my wrist.

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