Goldenrod is one of my favorite wildflowers. Late summer brings fields of yellow filled with predators. Among the flowers hides small sizes with big surprises and it doesn’t take long to find one. Finding a successful hunter just takes a little more time.

It must have come as a big surprise when the spider introduced itself to the bee.

Turkey Surprise
Stalking turkeys is tough. There are far too many eyes in a flock to sneak up on them. The flock knew I was around. We had spotted each other at a long distance and they immediately started to move off.

Movement catches the eye. I would never have known the frog was there if it hadn’t moved.
Too late to hide from my camera now.

Nothing unexpected about finding mature puffballs on a log.

What happens when you poke a dried puffball filled with spores? I got lucky and got a semi-focused photo of the spores ejected. They disperse rapidly and trying to keep the camera steady in one hand while poking with the other is tough. It took a number of tries and by the time I was done there must have been millions of spores floating around.

I know there’s something else but can’t seem to put my finger on it.

Oh yea, this will be the second time I posted my spore finger.

After some rumination I’ve decided to try something new.

I have a new laptop with a screen resolution of 1366 x 768 so my old desktop wallpapers don’t quite cut it any more. Images look OK when you reduce size but they don’t scale up very well. With that in mind I’ve decided to up the size of my background images to 1920 x 1080. I can set backgrounds to ‘fit to screen’ without losing image quality while providing those with a larger screens an opportunity to use them too. An overwhelming number of visitors are also using wide screens to view my site/blog. I’ve been stuck in the past far too long and it’s time for me to upgrade more than my hardware.

I am now storing my ‘web’ photos on Picasa and will be linking the full size background images to there. The nice thing about that – one link. Once there you can browse through the Wallpaper Album and choose any you want to use and download. You might also want to rummage around in the rest of my albums to see photos you may have missed here on the blog.

Cow Huddle

Elsie, you graze long on the right. Daisy, you wander to the center while Betsy fakes a run for the barn. The rest of you stop chewing your cud and line up.

Click the link to open the full size image in a new tab in order to download it to your computer.
Cow Huddle – Desktop Wallpaper

Remember – the link goes to the Wallpaper Album where you can chose any image. From there you can also get to my ‘regular’ albums.

Heifer 2 Faces

If your wondering, these are Holsteins and the reason why their portrait is in black and white.

Heifers 3

I know these aren’t the best images I could start with, not everyone likes looking at pretty faces.

If I want to lure you into my wallpaper web I going to have to cater to different tastes. Bugs, birds, critters, flowers and fungi need to be added to the menu. I will even post photos for those looking for deer ones and if you’re searching for a turkey on the run I just may be your man.

Anyhoo,
that’s today’s photos and a whole new organization and presentation for those to come.

I hate to toot my own horn but I’m still too excited to keep quiet. It was a good week for my photos. I was asked twice for permission to print. No money involved but I do get my name in print, probably tiny and unnoticed but what the hey. I’m just tickled purple/red someone though the photos were good enough to use in a print publication.

The first request was from a biologist and researcher at the University of Oslo, Norway. He wants to use a photo of the red belt fungus – Fomitopsis pinicola in a book about the biodiversity of decaying wood. The proposed title is The Biological Diversity in Decaying Wood and should be available this autumn from Cambridge University Press. It will be going on my bookshelf.

Red belt fungus – Fomitopsis pinicola

image linked to a larger size – 1024 x 768
from the post on Nov 25, 2008 – Red Belt Fungus

The second request was from the American Nurseryman magazine, a trade publication for growers of ornamental plants, landscape professionals and independent garden centers. They are going to use my photo of Purple Flowering Raspberry – Rubus odoratus. I believe the photo will be in the next issue, doh, I forgot to ask. They are going to send me a copy though.

Purple Flowering Raspberry – Rubus odoratus

image linked to a larger size 1024 x 768
from the post on Aug 18, 2008 – Purple Flowering Raspberry

Both images are linked to a larger size (1024 x 768). They will open in a new window and you’re welcome to use them as desktop wallpaper even if they’re a bit dated by being so ‘small’.

I’ve stopped making wallpapers for a couple reasons. I don’t use them anymore since I got the prototype Google notebook (which is always in ‘Chrome’ the browser) and I’ve run out of space on my paid hosting account. (I’m using Picasa now to store images and the free gig of storage there is being eaten up faster than I imagined)

I am happy to get requests. If you see something you like I’d be more than willing to create a background image in the size you need.