Dragonflies

I was outside watching this dragonfly fly around my yard. So I got my camera and tried to photograph it in flight, doesn't happen. But it did land on one of two shepherds hooks with our flower baskets. The only hook it would land on though was the one with the metal dragonfly. I did see it land one other place in the tree nearby but every time it landed after that was always on that one with the dragonfly. I wondered if by chance it knew what it was.

Updated family pictures July 2011

I had a great opportunity this summer to have all but one of my children and their families here for a few days. So we had to get updated pictures. I also added one from April when we were able to visit the son was was not able to come with his family for the summer visit.

The following four pictures are of my second son and his family.

My fourth son's family. (His daughter was not wanting to take pictures.)

My youngest daughter and her husband and son.

This is all of us except one son.

My third son.

My fourth child, first daughter and her husband.

My oldest son and his family.

Some pictures of myself and my hats

OK so maybe I was a bit bored the other night and got started photographing a hat that is about to be gone forever. I wanted to get a picture of it because, well it is somewhat of a relic. You see it is about 42 or 43 years old and has survived bales of hay smashing it onto my head, it has survived two 17 mile treks through the winds of Wyoming while other hats all landed in fire pits the last night, and it has survived being knocked off my head by low branches as I have been mowing my lawn plus a lot of other hours of working and sweating in it.

SO while I had my camera and everything set up I decided to photograph a few of my other hats including a Black Stetson that I bought at a garage sale in Colorado this year for $5. It was brand new and never been worn and fit better than any other hat I have ever found. (Now I just have to get my boots and jeans out so I can wear it.) Anyway here are a lot of pictures taken by using a timer on my camera since I was the only one home when I did this. Of course I wouldn't do this with my family watching they would have all died from shock seeing me in front of the camera so often. It doesn't happen very often.

I decided to do some at different angles as I was going through the first set so here are a bunch more. Hope you don't die from laughing at me since they are somewhat over-whelming. (And by the way getting centered in a certain area for each shot was somewhat challenging considering I was doing it in the 10 seconds between pushing the shutter release and having the picture taken.) Yes a little editing in photoshop was needed.

Another angle, sorry for the sour face but I figured it would add to the drama of a of these self portraits.

Had to try hiding my eyes as well. Iy almost worked for the most part. (Bored Yet)

Now to tell what these hats have been used for. The one above this comment was the official boy scout hat and may still be, my friend Goldie could probably tell me for sure.

This next one was used at Junior Leader Training in Boy Scouts of America, The hat brush was brought to me from England.

This is also a scouting hat used at JLT and Woodbadge (Adult Leader) training.

My brown cowboy hat. Seldom worn.

A black hat worn for a Halloween costume three years ago.

This one was given to me by my bishop after he returned from  trip to England where he bought it for me.

My Black Stetson.

This was my hat worn at Troop camps while I was Scoutmaster of Troop 66 UNPC. 

The patch was designed by one of my scouts.

This was for my Halloween costume (Stinky Pete) in 2010.

My workhorse hat 40+years old, "they just don't make 'em like they used to."

The one hat I can use when photographing since it doesn't have too big a brim that gets in the road of my camera's flash.