An artsy filter treatment in Photoshop of a yellow finch - Click to see full effect
Today is Labor Day, a day to honor the ever beleaguered workers who help make this country great. Since we celebrate Labor Day by not laboring, it was a day of relaxation at the home of my oldest son and his family. All in all, quite a day; a radio-controlled airplane crashed and was destroyed, we had good grilled meat made by my son on the grill, ran from yellow jackets that were attracted to our food, and photographed some yellow finches.
The photo at the top was one of them. I decided to play around with this one in Photoshop to see what a filter might do for it. I like the effect as a nice change up from standard photos. The photo below is a shot of the same finch and its mate. They actually approached a hummingbird feeder, then flew over to the fence and stayed there for several minutes. Their color was not quite so brilliant as the yellow finches I photographed in Wisconsin last year. I don't know if they are a slightly different species, or just at a different stage of maturity. Still, they were very pretty birds.
A pair of yellow finches enjoying a Colorado Labor Day
Topping off the day, we had some ice cream. Good store-bought ice cream is hard to get around here. What we had was a disappointment. I have noticed a Russell Stover's store on Colorado Boulevard in Glendale has a Blue Bell sign in the window. Blue Bell from the little creamery in Brenham, Texas, is exactly right with their slogan, "The best ice cream in the country." I plan to make a run over to the Russell Stover's soon to check out what they have. Blue Bell doesn't distribute in Colorado, but a few restaurants (e.g. Cracker Barrel) have Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla. So I am curious to see what else I may be able to get! I'll report back on that soon.
