Canon Powershot
  A710-IS Retirement

After almost 18 years, I’m finally retiring my Canon Powershot A710-IS Camera. This venerable little photo workhorse has served me for all these years as a pocket-sized take-along camera as well as being available at my office desk for impromptu photo needs in the house.

The A710-IS is actually a very sophisticated little camera with features such as 6x optical zoom, image stabilization and a host of modes and other features. Frankly, it has survived other small cameras, which have come and gone, that I tried out in the past. One feature I liked is an optical viewfinder, which is largely unavailable among pocket-sized units these days.

The camera is being retired for a couple of reasons – 1) it had fallen into disuse since I carry my phone/camera most of the time and use it for those occasions where I may have used the little Canon. 2) I took it up on the hill where the birdfeeders are located and attempted to photograph a squirrel up there, but got an overexposed image.

I will miss the little camera which has already been in the Canon Museum of Retired Cameras and Accessories for a long time now. It’s now in the little box where electrical and other disposables repose until the next free dump day sponsored by the Town of Wickenburg.

Revival of the Compost Bin

In the post on Imbolc Weekend, I mentioned that our compost bin needed rejuvenation by virtue of a new bag of worms. I ordered 500 wrigglers from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm at that time; today, the worms arrived and I followed the recommended instructions to introduce them to the heap within the bin. I assume that they are happily getting busy with their program of converting our compost items into vermicast.

When we replaced our old compost bin with this one, I predicted that it, also, wouldn’t last very long in Arizona, like it’s predecessor, but it has hung in there for nearly 10 years now. Here’s a photo of the bin then and now:

As you can see, the lid is a little warped and needs to be secured with a bungee, but the ol’ bin is still doing its job of keeping the compost heap, worms, castings and soil contained within.

Imbolc Weekend

Imbolc, also called Saint Brigid’s Day, is a Gaelic traditional festival. It marks the beginning of spring, and for Christians it is the feast day of Saint Brigid. It is held in early February, which is about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox (i.e. Cross-Quarter Day). Our ancestors (both of us) are western Europeans, many of whom were Celtic, Scottish or Irish. The actual day for Imbolc will be on the 3rd of February, but we’re going to start celebrating early by enjoying a weekend full of Celtic-like feasting.

First off, on Friday 01/31 we’re having Irish Beef Stew and Soda Bread. Then, on Saturday, it will be Irish Braised Chicken and Irish Coffee. On Sunday, it will be Corned Beef and Cabbage. I will come back to this post and put in links to the dishes we are preparing.


Compost Heap

In other developments, we seem to have lost our vermicomposting worms; they were in our outdoor compost bin behind the garage doing their thing, but when checking on them (which I apparently need to do more of), it did not appear that there were any active worms. So, just a while ago, I ordered 500 composting worms from Uncle Jim. They should be here in a few days.

One theory of why the worms are gone is that during our 2024 late summer and early fall, the daytime temperatures were usually in excess of 100°F. Since worms cannot survive in soil temperatures that exceed 85°F., we think that the increased soil temperatures might have done them in.

So, when the worms show up, we will stir up the compost heap and welcome them to their new digs. More on that later.

Cardinalis Cardinalis

I took my Canon EOS Rebel SL3 camera with me on my morning walk, when this Cardinal lit atop the anti-squirrel cone on the bird feeder crook. Zoom lens set to 250mm in the camera’s “program” mode, which is the setting for automatically adjusting aperture, shutter speed and ISO speed. Clickable image.

It is a nice, sunny morning here with temperatures in the 50s F. The forecast is for possible rain over night and for the next few days. We need it.

UPDATE: [02/05/25] In the interest of being fair and balanced, I took an image of the Female of the Cardinalis species in a mesquite tree out back near the birdfeeders. Click to open the image viewer.

Arizona Sunset

We’re cozy and warm inside our little house here in wintry Arizona where the temperature actually went below 32°F last night. B-r-r-r. Tonight is forecast to be a little warmer at perhaps 39°F.

I realize that much of the country here in North America has much cooler temperatures than we do, but we’re summer fans which put us comfortable at temperatures on the order of 100°F as acceptable. So, we’re allowed to complain.

I took the photo above just after sunset this evening while walking the dogs down to the road for their final outing until late tonight, when we will again brave the cold to walk them before bedtime.

Camera phone photo — click to open the image viewer.

Note to self – Today we had the plumber over to flush out the Tankless Water Heater which seems to be an annual necessity. ~$200 expense.

New Camera Working Well

This won’t be a very long post about the new camera in use here, but I wanted to display this photo of a Gila Woodpecker that perched on a backyard Mesquite tree this morning; the new camera seems to be doing an excellent job of delivering crisp and graphic photos of our fauna and flora, as well as astronomical objects, people and so forth.

Gila Woodpecker in Mesquite tree. Click to open the Image Viewer.

There will be more images down the blog as time and energy permit.

First Cut at 2024 Income Tax

UPDATE: [02/05/25] This time it took a week for the Federal Refund deposit to the bank account. That’s not the record, but pretty quick nonetheless.


UPDATE: [01/29/25] Both State and Federal have been submitted and accepted. The clock is now ticking to see how soon the Federal Refund will be posted to the bank account. The record is three days.


ir.pngWe have had the 2024 tax program installed since last November, and have been inputting information since then, but today is the first time that we have run through all the preliminary data prior to getting the last of the IRS 1099 forms from our various Government and financial institutions.

I have put together a spreadsheet for each tax year which does many of the major calculations for the tax year with educated guesses and actual numbers. The form has several functions including a calculator for our Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from the retirement savings. That particular function, each year, establishes the RMD as soon as I input the year end savings balance and the age factors, which are used to calculate the actual RMD amount. That way, I can set up the periodic withdrawals to be made for the year which usually amount to within pennies of the required amount. We’ve already received the January withdrawal.

As I have said in earlier posts about this topic, I like to set things up such that the amount in the refund or amount owed are a small value. I don’t like loaning the government interest-free money. This year, it appears, we will be getting a refund a little further away from zero than we would prefer. We did the withholding based on the expected standard deduction and our effective tax rate from last year, but the IRS increased the standard deduction figure which displaced us a bit from the target we set. Oh well, we will do the usual and place the refund in long-term savings investment.

So, now all we have to do is wait for the last of the expected 1099s to become available on or about the 29th of this month (January), and run the missing numbers for which approximations have been used thus far. Then, we will e-file the returns at the end of January or the beginning of February.