Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.

My father loves pumpkin pie.  Check that. He loves his mother's recipe for pumpkin pie.  My sister used the more than 100 year old  recipe for his 90th birthday pie.

The headline of this post comes from one of my favorite birthday cards.  It's a simple, silly message but so true.

My father turned 90 yesterday.  He's had some health issues, but mostly he's a robust, mentally sharp 90-year-old who gets around like a man 20 years younger.

My mother turned to me yesterday at his party at my sister's house and said, "We've been married 60 years."   They are very lucky and blessed to have found each other.  We are lucky and blessed that they did as well.

There is great longevity on both sides of my family.   My father's brother died a few years ago at the age of 93.  My mother's parents were 95 and 97.   My daughter's great-grandmother on her father's side lived to be 97 too.

We gathered to celebrate the man whose life made our lives possible.   Birthdays really are good for you.

The buck stops here ... for a rest ... in my backyard

I told you how comfortable deer seem to be in my yard.  Case in point on this Sunday afternoon.

Deer are pretty majestic looking.  Especially the bucks.  This one just settled down in my backyard in the middle of a sunny Sunday to chill.

I opened my kitchen door to get a better shot at him.  With my camera of course.   He looked at me, but didn't budge.  I thought maybe he was hurt.  So I walked toward him and yelled "Shoo!"

He still didn't move.  So I hissed "Git!" 

"Man was in the forest.  Or backyard in suburbia.  Whatever."

He stood up and looked at me. Okay.  At least he wasn't hurt. But he wasn't too worried about me either.

We stayed like this for a moment.  Him looking at me.  Me saying dumb things like "Go will ya!"

The deer worry me.  They are so destructive but really beautiful.  I live on too busy of a street for this guy to be so comfortable out in the open in the middle of the day.

At least it was a nice photo op.

A walk in the park

Wildwood Metropark on a perfect early Sunday evening in October.

 

I think every photographer in the greater Toledo area was at Wildwood Metropark on Sunday in the late afternoon/early evening.  It was really a spectacular day but the colors aren't peak.  Yet anyway.

 

Mostly there were young women with camera gear and blankets and young families with young children.  It seemed they all  had the same idea that this was the perfect fall day to take family pictures or pictures of the kids.

 

I just went there to walk with my own kid who's all grown up now.   I just wanted to be outside.  I grabbed my camera just in case.   This picture was as we were walking to our car to go back home as the sun began its descent in the west for the day.   We ate low-carb pizza when we got home.  Perfect day really.

 

Mums' the word. And so is "yellow"

My back porch mums.

 

Yes, it's been awhile.  And while I have been taking pictures daily, either with my camera or cell phone,  none seem worthy of posting.

 

I subscribe to dPS which is Digital Photography School and it offers a weekly challenge.  This week it was simply "yellow."

 

Sometimes I need a creative spark.  Something to help my imagination.  This dPS challenge today did just that.

 

I used my 35mm f/1.8 lens which is a prime or fixed lens.   That means if I want to get a closer shot, I have to physically move closer to the subject.  Some describe it as the closest thing to the human eyeball.

 

I don't use it very often so it was fun to pull it out and focus on that one flower in the center with the reddish flower at the bottom right drawing your eye's attention too.

 

Eh, I dunno.  Still figuring all of this out.