Miscellany Leigh on 22 Aug 2010
New Camera at Larrapin

I was thrilled to receive my birthday present a few weeks early from my sweet spouse: A New Camera!! We went camera shopping with the thought of getting a Canon Rebel. But while at the camera store, I kept thinking how incredibly nervous I’d be, toting a $600 camera down to the garden, out to the chicken coop, etc. (Please note the Rebel would have counted for this year’s birthday, 10th anniversary and Xmas present combined!)

Now let me be clear, the Rebel takes amazing photos—my friend Jen has one and her photos are WOW. You can see the whiskers on a spider with the macro lens she has and could probably blow up a print to poster sized and it stay razor sharp. But for five years I’ve been doing just fine with a Kodak Easyshare Z740 and have been delighted with the photos it takes. Mostly I take snapshots and blog. To be honest, I haven’t had a print made in years. So at the store, for less than half the price of Rebel, is the Kodak Easyshare Z981…the modern descendent of my dear old z740. So I had to try it out. If this works, I thought, heck, I may still get another present under the Christmas tree! <LOL>

And I love it. It’s tricked out with bells and whistles that take a little getting used to after the simplicity of the z740. As all the reviews say, the stubborn battery door is indeed stubborn. But the built-in 26X zoom is incredible and it also has built in wide-angle, which is nice. It’s light for a full-sized digital and feels good in the hands of someone who learned photography with an ancient Pentax K1000 that used (gulp) real film and was 100% manual everything. I’m sold. So Larrapin Garden has a new camera. The photos above are from the testing-the-camera series, a friendly little Buckeye butterfly. Below is a cute big-eyed flying friend of unknown name.

In continuing the camera test, below you’ll find the world’s tiniest persimmons we grew on a brand new persimmon tree planted last fall…


…and some of our last Arkansas Traveler tomatoes, which were amazing on a BLT today. Both are accompanied by the chicken-spokesmodels found in the kitchen window…

So the camera’s a keeper!! Thank you Mendy!!



I’ve never been much of a fall gardener, but want to turn over a new leaf, so to speak. Skippy’s garden is up in the Northeast…so I’m wondering if there are needed adjustments to make here in the northwest corner of Arkansas. Hmmm. Think I’ll send this post over to my gardening mentors Calvin and Jennifer and ask for advice. I’ll let you know what I find out. In the meantime, do you plant in the fall? What are the dates you start your favorite fall crops? Please post them in the comments if you are reading online, or reply to the email if you are getting this via email subscription! More later on this, but I feel very lucky to have gotten a new bush-bean bed planted just day before yesterday! We’ll see what happens.






