Sometimes I feel older than I really am

You may have noticed a dearth of pictures on my blog. In fact, other than my avatar and one blog on salmon, I've been blank. This is an unfortunate result of my lack of computer savvy, actually, which I must embarrassingly admit, because I attended college right when the internet was taking off. Many folks my age are amazing online, creating entire companies, making millions of dollars over small software upgrades and improving or using multimedia to sell. Meanwhile, I was reading obscure myths, learning how to fly-fish, and taking long walks in the marsh.

Well, the barren-ness of my blog comes to and end this weekend, as I do my durndest to link to pictures. Here's a first:

These are a couple of oatmeal molasses bread loaves I baked today, a staple in our home. In fact, we've taken so completely to this (and a couple of other home-made recipes), that we no longer buy bread at the store. There might be an environmental ethics comment in there, but I'm not going to take it apart. No, I'm just going to sit here in my living room, surrounded by the aroma of cooling bread, and try to find a way to upload smells...

By the way, the recipe for this bread comes in a wonderful book, "Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread," by Crescent Dragonwagon.

Next, I'd just like to show the two best photos I've ever taken. This first I was blown away with, not because of the quality of the shot (which is not very good), but because I was lucky enough to catch the action:

As my wife and I were paddling by, he looked at us, then turned away and launched himself off the log. I snapped a few shots at once, and caught him just starting to unfurl, with his tailfeathers already deployed and his head telling you exactly where he was headed...

There are many mergansers along the amazing Wild & Scenic River through downtown Sacramento, along with dozens of other birds, and many reptiles and mammals and fish, to boot. Few places offer the amazing diversity of species, habitat protections, and accessibility right in the middle of a metropolitan area of over one million people. For more information on this great parkway, please head over to the Effie Yeaw Nature Center (I don't know how to pronounce it, either).

The next picture I often use for my avatar at other websites. You see, I am a river rat, born and raised in the middle of the Sacramento Delta, in Isleton. And, wherever we are, denizens of the Delta always seem to find each other. This fellow I found on the Cosumnes River Preserve:

And with that, thanks for letting me practice a bit with some new (to me) features. Please drop me a line if you like any of the shots, or have any tips you'd like to offer. Just remember, if you do offer tips or tricks, I post like I'm 90.