Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Buckhorn Cholla Flower Season

Not exactly an Easter Lily, but . . .

This is one of the many flowers or flower buds on the various buckhorn cholla (Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa) cacti around the yard. Some are open like this one and some are still in the bud stage waiting for their turn.

I was finishing filling the bird feeders today and stopped to snap this shot with my Samsung S23. (I know, I have better cameras, but this one turned out OK, didn’t it?) Click on the image to enlarge.

We have been a little slow on getting blogs to post, and there is a good, but, undisclosed for now, reason. We’ll try to do better over the next several weeks as the disturbances are abating somewhat.

With the season of Easter upon us, may we wish you and yours a very Happy Easter!! HE IS RISEN!!

04 Apr 2026 by Arizona Environment Flowers Home & Garden Photography Religion 0

Camera Comparison

On a whim and a notion or two, I added this Canon EOS R-10 Mirrorless Camera to my small collection of cameras, lenses and and accessories. I wanted to try it out and see if I might be able to get better pictures and performance above my Canon EOS SL3 DSLR, with which I am still very much pleased.

It’s purely a hobby thing for me, with a side interest in support of blogging and posting on social media. We also post photos taken during our vacations and other travels. We have a full complement of lenses for the DSLRs, and now, an adapter to fit the older lenses to the new camera, so there is still a lot of experimentation and futzing around to be done, so the jury is still out on making any judgement of one camera to the other.

The one most noticeable aspect is the weight of the new camera and lenses are considerably lighter than the DSLR and it’s assortment of lenses. Comparing similar capabilities, we have this:

  • Canon SL3 equipped with an EF 55-250mm – 2lb 5oz
  • Canon R-10 equipped with an RF 55-210mm – 1lb 12oz

Since birds are the most prevalent photogenic life form in the area, we will use a couple of those photos (both are candid snapshots) to show off each camera’s stuff. Click on either photo to view enlarged.

First, this is a photo of a Curve Billed Thrasher atop the big Saguaro by the garage:

I took the above photo with the SL3 during my morning walk. The bird is sort of back/side lit by the sun, but there is still enough ambient reflected light available to render the feathers, beak and eyes without any real difficulty. The cactus spines are sharp (both photographically and otherwise) and the blue sky serves as a nice backdrop to the bird.

And then there is this one I took with the R-10 this morning of a Cactus Wren perched on the tip of one of the Ocotillos out back:

I am very satisfied with this photo. It was good fortune that the bird perched on the top of one of the canes on the ocotillo. It was further good fortune that as I encountered this shot, the bird wasn’t too far away from where I was shooting. The wren is in very good focus and the background bokeh serves as a very pleasant backdrop nicely framing the main subject.

To be honest, the R-10 may have some weight and operational advantages over the SL3, but both cameras exhibit one very important set of characteristics when it comes to amateur photography: luck, providence, good fortune and subject matter. A little bit of good judgement is also rewarded.

Bottom line: I’m not going to stop using either camera as I pursue some more interesting photo topics – astro, action, macro, panoramic, and a host of others.

21 Mar 2026 by Blogosphere Cyberspace Entertainment Notions Photography Wanderlust 0

Our Oldest Store-Bought Cactus

This cactus, now in The Damsel’s Rock and Cactus Garden in Wickenburg, was originally procured from a garden shop in Torrance, our original abode prior to Arizona. We can’t recall the place where we purchased it, but it was likely at a Lowe’s or Home Depot garden shop.

Although the photo on the left has no flowers, many have come and gone and some can be seen here. It has been a prolific flower-bearer during its tenure with us.

Having developed our Arizona property, we have many cacti, some of which are natural to the area and were here (or their ancestors were) when we arrived. Our parcel is home to lots of native vegetation and some imported as well.

The only photo I could find of the cactus we bought in 2006 is one we took at night in June of 2008 when the cactus was still in a pot and had a couple of flower buds ready to open.

We loaded this cactus and several others including a golden barrel cactus aboard the trailer we used to transport yard stuff to the new house.

Click on any image (or link) to enlarge.

09 Mar 2026 by Arizona California Home & Garden

La Bella Luna

I post this photo of “The Good Moon” that I took earlier this evening as I was out with Damsel looking at all the several planets visible after sunset. This included Venus (seen for the first time this year), Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury. It was indeed a spectacle.

However, the moon led the show tonight, with Tycho crater along with the Lunar “Seas” in the image I captured while trying to “fine tune” the camera settings on my Canon SL3 to render the image above. (Click to enlarge.)

My camera settings were 1/250sec shutter, ISO 400, aperture f-13, Focal Length 250mm. I am still experimenting with the SL3 and lenses, but as of next week I will have a new mirrorless Canon R-10 to continue experimenting with my camera settings.

27 Feb 2026 by Arizona Astronomy Notions Photography

Mardi Gras 2026

Happy Fat Tuesday! Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, so “let the good times roll!” Damsel and I will not be giving anything in particular up for Lent, although our dieting lifestyle has lots of “give-ups” built in to it already.

Today, after a bunch of running around, we celebrated the day with Cajun Jambalaya for our main meal. Good stuff!

The Colors: Remember the symbolism! Purple stands for Justice, Green for Faith, and Gold for Power.

Translation: “LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!”

17 Feb 2026 by Culture Food & Dining Notions

Happy Friday the 13th

Hope everyone is having a safe and lucky Friday the 13th. We’re enjoying it and preparing for Valentine’s Day tomorrow.

I looked up Friday the 13th on Grokipedia and found this near the bottom of the article. It is a very nerdy description of how to calculate the date without looking at a calendar. Enjoy, if you’re a nerd like me.

Yearly Variations in Occurrence

In the Gregorian calendar, the number of Friday the 13ths occurring in a single year varies between one and three, with no year featuring zero or four such dates. This limitation arises from the calendar’s structure, which consists of 365 or 366 days distributed across 12 months, resulting in exactly 13 occurrences of the 13th across all months but constrained by the seven-day week cycle to produce at most three Fridays among them.[83]
Years with three Friday the 13ths typically follow specific patterns based on the starting day of the year and whether it is a common or leap year. In common years beginning on a Thursday, the dates fall in February, March, and November, as seen in 2015. Similarly, 2026, a common year starting on a Thursday, will have Friday the 13ths in February, March, and November. These configurations highlight how the alignment of the year’s first day influences the distribution, with February, March, and November forming a common triplet due to the cumulative day offsets in non-leap years.[83]
To predict the exact day of the week for any 13th, including Fridays, Zeller’s congruence provides an algorithmic method tailored to the Gregorian calendar. Devised by Christian Zeller in the 19th century, the formula calculates the weekday as follows:

Where,

  • h represents the day of the week (0 for Saturday, 1 for Sunday, …, 6 for Friday);
  • q is the day of the month (13);
  • m is the month (March = 3, April = 4, …, December = 12, with January and February treated as months 13 and 14 of the preceding year);
  • K is the year of the century (year mod 100)
  • and J is the century (|year/100|)
  • A result of h=6 (mod 7) confirms a Friday.

This congruence enables precise determination of Friday the 13ths for any year by applying it to each month’s 13th, revealing the yearly variations without manual calendar inspection.

Since we’re probably not going to post a blog tomorrow, please enjoy Valentine’s Day with your special ones.

Saturday, 02/14/26 VALENTINE’S DAY: I took this photo of a heart-shaped tree mobile this morning . . .

13 Feb 2026 by Culture Holidays Notions Technobabble

Lincoln’s Birthday 2026

Today, we celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday.

Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865.

I was going to post a photo of the now discontinued Lincoln Penny, but I remembered about a United States Note, Red Seal Lincoln five dollar bill I have in the safe. I’m saving it for posterity, I guess, because it’s only marginally worth more than $5 to collectors.

Circulated Condition: – Basic circulated bills are typically worth face value of $5 – Lightly circulated examples may fetch $5-$7 – Bills with minimal wear might retail for around $7

Pennies, however, were selling 50 cent rolls for Ten bucks according to something I saw on-line. I verified this to be true with Alexa+.

Click on the image to enlarge.

Anyway, even though the pennies are out of production, Abe is still remembered on the Fiver. Happy Heavenly birthday, Mr. President!

Blockquotes courtesy Grokipedia

12 Feb 2026 by Classics Holidays Nostalgia Notions

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