Once started who knows what will happen?

Curiosity is an odd thing, when once awakened we (or in particular I) never know where it will lead us.

Having looked this morning to see what my downloads were in Morguefile and finding 3 steam loco pix in the over 1,000 downloads I was left wondering  how my flower pix and insect pix were doing.

Buddleia with a Tortoiseshell  806

Top of the list in Flowers was this one of a Tortoiseshell butterfly sipping nectar from budhliea flowers.  

Groundsel 'clock' second with  756

This might well have been helped by the poem I had written when looking at the macro picture 

The song of the seeds.

We have gone; we have fled
out into the world we go;
we have left our home,
and we will wander
and roam, until we find
a new haven. Then we will 
in turn put forth a new generation.
People will curse us
they will say “Damned Weeds”;
but we know we are not damned
for we are the beauty
of nature and we too are
children of the Mother Goddess
as people themselves are.

                    Third place was this shot of a rose: 728 downloads

This one was an early shot of a rose that was in Lindsay's flower and veg shop on Hill Road. Again one of my early digital pictures.

As far as Insects were concerned the Tortoise and Buddleia took first place again.

                        This shot of a snail with 459 downloads was second

Taken whilst waiting for a steam loco as far as I can recall. Why did I take it? Why do people climb Mount Everest? Simply because it was there

                             Bumble Bee on a flower petal 429.

A simple shot but downloaded over 400 times by folk on Morguefile who wanted a picture. For what? I haven't the faintest idea; but they looked on the website and found one that suited them.

I hope it was useful to them. That is the main reason I put pix there. To be handy for folks who cannot supply their own shots or maybe don't even have a camera. 

My motto seems to be:---

"If I can help somebody as I go along; then I'll keep on snapping away"

Steam Trains

Looking through my steam train pix on Morguefile today I found that there are now three of them that have got to the "Over 1,000 downloads" on the www.morguefile.com website a site developed by an American family .as a memorial to their parents, who were teachers at special needs schools in the states. Pictures uploaded by members are Royalty Free for use by writers etc. for books, websites, magazines and similar but are not able to be used as "stand alone" and printed for sale. 

I have in fact had over 12 of my shots downloaded for use as book cover pictures as well as use inside books.. 

The Top rated one over 2,000 downloads.

Ex GWR Locomotive Nunney Castle heading a double header at Mud Lane Claverham. Mud Lane is a very good photographic place - not many folk go there. Be careful though not to take from the north side of the farm crossing unless you are aware of train times. You can find yourself cut off from the down line by a diesel loco hauling a train towards nailsea/Backwell. 

British Rail Loco Oliver Cromwell

Taken at Yatton Station hauling the Torbay Express down to Kingswear 1,807 downloads. Yatton is normally a good site but photographer numbers are a problem specially for an unusual loco 

Ex-GWR Loco King Edward 1048 downloads

This shot was taken by the level crossing near the Full Quart pub at Hewish, and has just crept into the 1,000 mark. This picture was one of the first taken by me with a digital camera. Unfortunate but this site is not very good now. Work done putting guard cages over the barrier machinery has spoilt it unless you are prepared to do a lot of editing of your pictures.

Saw a post about pictures

An estate agent set up a competition about pix of your home town; I thought not really my cup of tea but I wonder how many votes it will get.

Star Fish

Luckily found some pix I had taken of the Star Fish site out on Claverham Drove.

                Interior shot of the inside showing the two chambers
Must have been some of the early pictures I took when I first went digital. 
The site is now getting very downgraded. Really needs covering up with dirt again and fencing off to stop the heifers climbing up over it and knocking the dirt off.

 12 or 13 years ago it was a little bit protected by the brambles 

              Most of the interior is fairly sound but cow shit all over the place.
Pity really that the farmer doesn't cover it over again and fence it off. There can't be all that many of those places left. After all it is our local history. After it's gone folk will be saying "Oh what a shame we have nowhere left now to show how things were done during the war."
Almost 80 years ago and what is left? 
Very little.
Only wish I was a bit younger I would have a go at getting something done about it.
I doubt if there is anything surviving down at Blake's farm at the mouth of the Congresbury Yeo. 
The only thing that is not deteriorating is the concrete slabs where they used to light the decoy fires.

It seems as though Yatton is very keen on the Strawberry Line and Nature sites but doesn't worry about things like this.
Yet these places saved many folks lives during the war years.

Dare I say "Wake up Yatton and get your finger out"

One thing is certain.

‘taint goin’ to be ‘Cigeretes and Whisky and Wild Wild Women’ that drive me crazy and drive me insane. It will be the modern machinery inflicted upon us by the makers of the latter day.
My Smart car re-named by me the Smart Idiot is a nice job – provided you don’t need to work on it.
Then you need to take it up (or down) to either Cribbs Causeway or Taunton where for a maximum fee Mercedes  will solve your problem if you have enough money in your bank account.

A similar thing happened to me this morning when after making up, and printing out a crossword. I printed it out first 2 Prints on scrap paper, 3 out of 5 on foolscap sheets.
Foolscap number 4 caught because of a slight buckle in the lead in.
Result — Paper Jammed, paper number 5 jammed behind it it too.

Now I bought my Cannon printer Pixma MG5550 not new but reconditioned. I load my own ink cartridges because I print out a lot of stuff in monochrome rather than in colour.

I have had this happen before so I lifted the lid to the ink cartridge and hooked out the jammed paper from the front, then went round to the back and removed the odd bit of paper there.

Job Done? 

NO Not on your Nelly it was not.

2 hours later after many tries to get it printing again I realised the Ink Cartridge carrier was rather stroppy at moving forwards. Coaxing it I could see a little bit of paper about 2 inches wide and what turned out to be around 3 inches deep in the claws of the rollers.

Using the 12 inch forceps – that I refrained from giving away from my Pike fishing days — I could just manage to nibble away the the bits.
Result Printer working again after 3 hours of assorted swear words and newly invented swear words,

Now had I not kept the forceps and thought to look behind the ink Cartridge I would have had to have sent off the printer to the nearest Cannon mechanics site. Where? Lord alone knows.. Cost ? Lord knows how much. 

Bullace or Cottagers Plum.

Some years back now I visited the site of an old family leasehold. Known as Mary's garden from the original 99 year lease taken out around the early 1800s

Seeing some suckers of trees growing from my G.G.G. Grandmothers Bullace trees (Prunus domesticus)

growing I dug one of them up and planted it in my sisters garden in the  retirement bungalows in Churchill Avenue where it carried on growing.

When, later on she had to go into a nursing home I decided that as the tree, small though it was; would probaly be dug out and thrown away I would take it out and put it in my gravel boarder.

There after a couple of years it put forth blossom but has not shown signs of being fertile. 

The blossom always shows before the leaves which are healthy looking and give a good cover on the tree a few days after the blossom starts to show. It may be that it is too early for flying insects to fertilise the flowers. I don't know; however as the old saying goes "Hope springs eternal" and I would love to have a chance of trying a fruit before I "kick the bucket".

I am now quite a bit too old to venture up to the site of "Mary's garden" again in October or early November when the plums are ripe to try some from her own plot.

Will they be back this spring?

It was very noticeable last year - the absence of Hoverflies. Whereas I normally get a fair number visit flowers last spring and summer I had few.

                    Hoverfly Sryphini taeniata on Honeysuckle leaf

I have normally noticed quite a lot of them on the Honeysuckle and Budhlea flowers. 

             Balteatus commonly called Marmalade Hoverfly on Honeysuckle flower.

                                 Chrysotoxum festivum on Honeysuckle leaf.

Last year I saw only a couple of 'Marmalades' who didn't stop. Butterflies and bumblebees were few and far between. I did get some pix of Harlequin Ladybird larva in the changeover to flies but that was about it.

                             Harlequin ladybird Harmonia axyridis on a tree mallow leaf.

I hesitated taking pix of it because they are slaughtering our native ladybirds.

But then this is what Nature is about after all isn't it?