Enhanced

I keep hoping for bears in my backyard, but there have been other great visitors to my little neck of plains meet foothills. We had a gorgeous buck in the field on the other side of our fence, but all I had with me was my phone.

We had a Cooper’s hawk on the fence just after sunset, so it was nearly dark, and I had to fully zoom my point and shoot. Both photos came out pretty grainy, so I ran them through Photoshop filters and then an AI program to better illustrate the moments. I’m pretty pleased with the results.

Last weekend I got to sit on the porch for about an hour. I don't get to do that often anymore. I used to watch the birds through my window while I worked from home until 2024. Then we had to take down the birdfeeder from April to November due to bears. Now that most of the garden is going to seed, the birds are feeding again. Watching them from the porch, without a double sheet of glass between us was thrilling.

I've been cutting down most of the wild sunflowers because I didn't want them to overgrow the garden. Now that I've been able to photograph the birds feasting on the wild sunflowers again, I'm thinking maybe I'll let the sunflowers go wild again next year. That will extend my flower season by a month or more, too!

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Wordless Wednesday

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Snowflake Nightmares

my first AI video!

Bet you never expected me to write anything like the title of this post, huh? Fear not. I have not tired of snowflakes. Don't think I ever will. But I am really growing tired of AI renditions of snowflakes.

I sometimes create AI snowflakes, such as smiling or animal crocheted snowflakes, as inspiration for upcoming patterns. MidJourney gives some acceptable results. Sometimes.

NightCafe often breaks my heart. Sometimes it feels like a waste of precious time. They recently came up with a new way to try to keep people like me (who can't consistently achieve desired results) coming back. Users earn points daily to "pay" for their creations without having to cough up coin. I've been doing that all along. I've never paid. (So why in the heck do they even care if I come back???) Now they have a new daily challenge. I earn bonus credits for doing a new image each consecutive day. I had quit using it altogether because it just wasn't helpful in generating art to illustrate my blog posts, now that I can't get out and set up actual photos for everything I write about. I thought the new challenge might be a great way to document just how poorly NightCafe performs for what I need. And boy, was I right! My daily prompt is "smiling crocheted snowflake".

Thankfully, I can set the phone down after each attempt while I wait for the program to render. I keep trying because I'm earned more than 2,000 credits now and because every once in a while, I get something I might be able to use as real crochet inspiration. I keep hoping!

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More Cards

(affiliate links to my designs)

Hard to believe none of the grands have birthdays in January or February. But that gave me some time to chill and try to think of new card ideas for the coming year. This week hit hard with the first of the birthdays, and nothing in the mail yet! Fortunately, I was able to text this older grand and let him know I was late but had not forgotten him.

All the kids got a real kick out of last year's AI birthday cards. I had created 28 cards with crocheted animals enjoying adventures my grands love. I decided to do the same thing this year. This week's birthday belongs to a computer geek and rising mini scientist. I kind of wish now I'd tried to create an AI image with an aminal running a computer! I did do one with a camera. One of the grands has taken up photography, and she says I inspired her. She shares her weekly school assignments with me. What a joy!

Some of the kids thought I'd crocheted and photographed the scenes. That made me feel really awesome; they think I have that kind of crochet talent! Some of them picked up a bit of interest in art when they learned how I'd come up with these images. I'm hoping they all feel loved, inspired and tickled when they receive their cards.

Coming up with 28 fresh ideas in just a couple of days is a challenge, but I did it! I think I might try to think of new ideas as I go this year so it won't be so deadline difficult next March!

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Wordless Wednesday

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Just Humming...

I recently dreamed I had two hummingbirds in my kitchen. I dreamed I found them because I was up in the middle of the night, which was when they'd try to sip from the kitchen sink, undiscovered. In my dream, I discreetly put out some nectar for them, which they immediately began to consume. I told Lizard I needed to go to the local grocery store to buy some flowers so they could have real food until summer. And then Lizard woke me. In real life. End of extremely pleasant dream.

Just the day before, in real life, I'd told Lizard I needed to go to the local grocery store to buy flowers for my neighbor for her birthday. She and her husband have been such angels in our lives.

I also am frequently up in the middle of the night, thanks to Parkinson's. So that part of the dream wasn't unusual at all. Oh, and that particular night, the sink was indeed full of dishes, which were full of (clean) water, from which hummingbirds would have been able to safely dine.

But where did the hummingbirds come fom??? There are no hummingbirds in Colorado right now! At least not live and flower-sipping!

I think I figured it out. My sister-in-law gifted us the cutest little beaded hummingbird for Christmas. She didn't know we no longer have a Christmas tree. Too much of a tripping hazard. Yet this little guy is so adorable, I have to keep it on display. It's currently hanging from the snowflake stocking hanger on our bookshelf. We keep our snowflake decor out all year. Proudly.

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I decided this dream would be perfect blog fodder. I enlisted AI to generate some hummers-in-the-dirty-dishes images to illustrate this post. I was pretty disappointed with most of the results. Deformed hummingbirds. Hummingbirds spewing water from their mouths over sinks with no faucets. Faucets trickling onto sinkless counters.

As a result, I took my little beaded hummer out for a tour of its new surroundings. Sometimes, real life is better than AI!

Hummer Meets Lavender

Kokopelli Hummer

Dieter and Wolfgang haven't been out of their Altoid box in years!

too cold for me

We can fly!

Oh, look! Lunch!!!

Well, hello...

Are there flowers somewhere underneath all these butterflies?

perfect size

Man, why all the snowflakes in this place?!?

Aaah, real food, at last!

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