Scaring October off

October 31, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I’m later than normal, but it’s still the end of the month, so we can still have the end-of-month abstract. And I even have a couple of specific attempts, all from yesterday when I had a few minutes. Let’s see here, we have:

bald cypress Taxodium distichum turning bright orange in autumn, backlit overhead
I believe I mentioned, but Walkabout Estates Plus has a bunch of bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) trees, right in the back forty, and the light was good yesterday morning to fire them up as they did their autumn color change. Curiously, while none of the trees are more than a couple dozen meters apart, the color range they display is pretty much the full gamut that they can before the leaves drop off for winter – some of them are still fully green.

And then we have:

I think there’s only a very narrow window during the day when these Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) vines catch the sunlight, and I failed to be out there for it so far, so we have the color cast of open shade, yet a decent range of colors. I really do have to get this in sunlight…

And finally:

The Girlfriend and I went down to the waterfront in the morning, because it was the perfect conditions for it – well, almost. We hadn’t been down there to check on the fall colors across the sound, but the trees there had already all turned and lost their leaves. So I snagged this instead, while it was still early morning and my eyes hadn’t quite cleared their overnight gunk, and this affected the photo.

Okay, I lie, this is actually the reflection of the heron and sailboat mast in the water, and is displayed upside-down here just to be confusing. It’s a shame a turtle didn’t surface someplace in the ‘sky’ to make things really eye-bending.

I have a few more photos to feature, should be along in the next day or two. Slowly getting back into the groove here…

Just once, part 44

October 30, 2024October 28, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

This one’s kind of curious, not because of its appearance, since it only looks like this because it’s newly fledged, just out of the nest. No, it’s because I can’t imagine why the species has only been seen here once. This is a white-breasted nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis,) and as such, is common everywhere I’ve lived, and usually not too hard to spot – put up a bird feeder and they’ll be there within a day. So how is this the only photo of one that I’ve featured?

In checking (because on occasion, the species name changes and I’ve actually featured them countless times, but only once under a particular name,) I found plenty of nuthatch posts – only, for the brown-headed nuthatch. That’s a species that I only started seeing in NC, never realizing they existed for at least half of my life. As such, I consider them much rarer than the white-breasted above, though this is likely only personal experience and reflected in growing up with that species and seeing it constantly. And I’m sure I have plenty of pics of the white-breasted, but I simply never posted any. Huh. Some of the posts I was thinking about I realized were of the black-capped chickadee instead.

But since I’m here, I have to relate an anecdote from NY. One fall, I was looking out the window and seeing a white-breasted nuthatch perched on the pole supporting our bird feeder – nuthatches are even more adept than woodpeckers at clinging to vertical surfaces and will do it in any orientation, apparently possessing their own personal gravity. This one was perched sideways on the pole, and as I watched, the bird gave a short hop and reversed the direction it was facing, not even flipping its wings momentarily. A few seconds later it occurred to me that this wasn’t kosher; had the bird given a little hop like it appeared, it would have arced away from the pole and started falling to the ground, sideways from the bird’s perspective. Instead, it simply appeared like it had performed a short hop wile standing on the ground, only sideways. This required a full reversal of its feet at least, but the bird made it look perfectly normal. It’s the kind of thing that you want to look at in slow-motion replay, to see exactly how it was done.

I just checked; I even have a handful of images from my first digital camera, nearly four years before I had started the blog – I just never featured one here, except once. Oh well.

Another milestone in photography

October 29, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

Or to be more specific, another milestone to photographers, because it doesn’t really impact photography in any significant way. But today is the birthday of Patois Ferndiddler. known far and wide (for a given definition of those, anyway,) as the inventor of the neck strap.

Ferndiddler’s innovation came along in that crucial time period between photographers no longer being able to afford assistants (those damn labor laws and requirements that ‘apprentices’ actually learn something) and the creation of the camera bag. Ferndiddler, realizing that constantly carrying around a large format 8×10 view camera didn’t allow the photographer to scratch themselves or pick their nose, tried to find a decent way to support the camera in a more-or-less handy way without it being in his hands, and we’ll go into the inherent contradiction in the term ‘handy’ in some later post. He first attempted to support the camera on a wheeled stand, but after losing three cameras and causing an international incident at Machu Picchu, he realized this wasn’t going to work. He then tested out the idea of a backpack sling but correctly determined that hanging a camera from your back was the best possible way to mimic leaving it at home while still carrying the weight – sadly, this lesson was lost to time. However, while leaning over a railing to speak to a teenage girl below, one of his backpack straps broke and the heavy camera swung around in a large arc that neatly decapitated an ancient statue while nearly pulling Ferndiddler over the railing, and he had his inspiration. He quickly devised a leather belt to hold the camera around his neck and thus in front of his chest, also making it obvious that he had a camera and was thus a force to be reckoned with.

Camera manufacturers were quick to adopt his idea because he was dumb enough not to patent it, but it also increased their revenue substantially in repairs to broken lenses and dented bodies. Since it also made the camera more obvious, they began adding in such enormously useful accoutrements as chrome and leatherette accents, which helped keep the makers of cheap-ass glue from going broke (as well as the breeders of steerettes.) The most abundant addition to the idea came when Kodak accidentally invested millions in pale brown shoe polish (phone connections to your broker were abysmal in those days,) and had to find some way to make this work. They created the Ever-Ready case to completely enclose the camera in leather, with a snap to release the top portion and permit immediate control of the camera while allowing the same portion to hang clumsily and conspicuously from the bottom of the camera, creating the tourist meme that Mad Magazine was delighted to abuse for decades.

Eventually, even tourists realized that a leather strap holding something heavy around your neck was enormously uncomfortable and chafing, and manufacturers were quick (for a given definition of that, anyway) to adopt the broad and softer accessory neck strap, usually with some Native American blanket motif because… actually, we have no goddamn idea why this pattern became so prevalent; it’s not like Native Americans even used such for their quivers. What all of these were adept at producing, however, was neck sweat, leading to the ‘ring around the collar’ commercials in the 70s.

Ferndiddler himself was undone by his own invention, bending over to greet the Duchess of Esperanto and accidentally snagging his camera on the arm of her chair, sending her over backwards when he stood again and hurling her into a piranha-infested river; the firing squad was unsympathetic. Meanwhile, even though camera bags have virtually taken over in a blindingly-obvious “Duryea!” manner, camera manufacturers still include a neck strap with new purchases as if this is a bonus of some kind, always requiring the buyer the thread it themselves through the little flat loops because, in a high percentage of cases, this results in the camera slipping free and shattering on the concrete.

Today, you can still purchase camera straps (yes, even in those Native American motifs,) though the target customer now seems to be retro-hipsters with their Yashica Electro 35s. But for a glorious period (for a given definition of that, anyway,) the neck strap reigned supreme as the must-have camera accessory, and for that, we recognize Patois Ferndiddler and his contribution to the history of neck problems and dented chrome accents.

What’s the right thing?

October 24, 2024October 24, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

So it was a bit of an amphibious day yesterday, meaning that’s what I was finding around Walkabout Estates Plus. We’ll start with the greenhouse:

While, as I said before, the property is absolutely overrun with anoles, they tend to be dry and not leave any evidence of their passing, so while I have found nothing conclusive within these strange, faintly muddy markings on the sides of the new greenhouse, I’m inclined to say that they were made by a treefrog – perhaps more than one, because really, they were literally covering several of the panes, and this was on the outside, so not any that got trapped within. I checked, last night and tonight, but didn’t find any frogs around the greenhouse.

I did find one, a tiny one, on the liriope along the front walk, though.

While the green patch is bright and obvious, this is instead a Copes grey treefrog (Dryophytes chrysoscelis,) and a little one at that, probably just a few weeks out of tadpole stage – the key identifier for the grey treefrogs is the pale patch under the eye, and while there is another species with the same patch (the common grey treefrog,) they’re almost unheard of in North Carolina. The green will disappear as it gets older and begins to hide on trunks rather than leaves.

As I came out the front door yesterday, I saw a tiny black thing hopping across the bricks and quickly stooped to grab it, then sought The Girlfriend out so she could hold it for pics. She watched my cupped-hand approach with some trepidation, not knowing if I had something cute (like a frog) or creepy (like a snake,) but agreed to hold this guy once she saw it.

The thing is, I don’t know what species this is at all; it’s likely a juvenile, especially since it resembles none of the chorus frogs that might be found in the area, but the guides that I have all show adult specimens. I’m vaguely suspicious that it’s a young narrowmouth toad, from the dark skin and snout shape, but that’s the best I can offer right now.

Yesterday as we went past a patch of bare earth, I spotted something moving and realized that it was a toad trying to bury itself, but it soon ceased any movement as we drew close. I’m a guy, so I took a small handful of sandy soil and deposited it onto the back of the toad, to protect it from the hot sun, and continued on with our tree-transplanting tasks. Today, I stopped by the same spot and could still see it there, so I went to scoop it up for a closer examination, because I rarely saw toads that dark. Only, it wasn’t coming up, and appeared to be anchored by a leg (I was not tugging with any force at all – I’m circumspect.) Eventually I determined that one hind leg was wrapped tightly with something well-anchored in the soil, and with some digging I freed this, finding it to be a scrap of old nylon webbing; what I had taken the day before to be efforts to bury itself were actually efforts to free itself from this tourniquet. That meant that it had been there at least a full day, and the hind leg was angled badly and discolored. Wanting to evaluate the condition as well as get some detailed pics, I brought the toad inside and eventually set it up in a makeshift terrarium, since all of my decent options for housing are still two hours away. But you need to see these eyes at least.

This is an eastern spadefoot (Scaphiopus holbrookii,) a toad not to be found in our old area of central NC, but closer to the coast the conditions are more conducive to them since they prefer sandier soils. Spadefoots are also one of the few species of toad with vertical pupils, and the irises are not always this green; let’s have a closer look:

Those are perhaps the best-looking eyes of any species I’ve photographed, and they get even better from the front:

I wouldn’t be surprised if this is where the writers of Futurama got the inspiration for the hypnotoad, and certainly, once I saw this perspective I knew that I needed a pic. You can see the right hind leg sitting out at an awkward angle, but here’s a better view:

The dark ridge along the back edge of the foot is what gives the species its common name, and helps them dig backwards into their burrows, where they spend much of their time. But it shouldn’t be sitting out at this angle, and even after several hours of recovery time, the toad shows no signs of being able to use it, so I fear the worst. You can even make out the groove that the nylon webbing left, right where the coloration changes going up the leg.

The toad is otherwise alert and responsive, and can move around despite the hindrance of this leg, but I’m certain that it’s at a distinct disadvantage in avoiding predators, capturing meals, and even maintaining its burrow. Spadefoots spend most of their time underground, and often “forage” by simply coming to the mouth of their burrow and waiting for food (spiders, crickets, ants) to happen past. So the chances are that this guy would simply die quickly in the wild from being unable to function properly, if complications from that leg injury don’t accomplish this faster. I’m not a fan of keeping wild animals as captives, but I’m thinking this might be the best thing for this guy, provided I can give it enough of a habitat to be comfortable. Or I may contact the university the next city over (about a half-hour away) and see if their biology department wants to tackle this. Even if the leg could be ‘set,” I doubt any veterinarian in the area would know how to, saying nothing of course of what they’d charge me. Even the licensed wildlife rehabilitators within an hour of here only take small mammals.

So, I’m undecided right now, but I’ll settle on something within a day or so, and let you know where it’s going.

Just once, part 43

October 23, 2024October 22, 2024 Al DenelsbeckLeave a comment

I find it a little amusing right now that, during the house closing thing when I knew we’d be busy, I set up several posts ahead of time to prevent any noticeable lapses in my posting “schedule,” but for the past month or so have had almost nothing to continue filling in, naively (or is that naïvely?) thinking that I’d be able to fill in here and there. It is to laugh. Seriously, I’m wondering when we’ll be done with all of this moving horseshit and I’ll be able to get back into a routine.

Also, for amusement, I’ll remind you that, almost two years ago, I’d speculated that we’d reach the 3,000^th post by late September of this year; we are quite far from that mark and, unless things do a serious change for the better (which is not something to hope for when fall is settling in and the critters becoming less active,) we’re not going to hit that mark by the end of the year either. However, I might be able to squeeze out another podcast – I’ve had one stewing in my brain at least.

For now, we turn to the Just Once subject for this week, with the caveat that it might not have appeared just once anyway.

This is from four years ago, a yellow rat snake (Pantherophis obsoleta quadrivittata) – or at least, it was. Since that time, or somewhere near it anyway, biologists have changed the species – now it’s potentially considered a subspecies of the eastern rat snake, which itself has changed, and is thus Pantherophis alleghaniensis quadrivittata. Seriously, the number of times the scientific names of these related species have changed just since I started the blog is disturbing.

This session did mark the first time that I’d photographed (and handled) a yellow rat snake, however, having pulled it from a bluebird nest box at our friends’ house, where you can see that it had consumed several baby bluebirds. Our friend was not happy about this, but this is how nature works; rat snakes are really good about climbing things and detecting the scent of birds’ nests (and, naturally, of rodents as well,) and bluebirds have clutches of multiple young, sometimes twice a year. Natural selection keeps them working their own angles to survive.

A year later, we have the first (and so far only) example of the new nomenclature – maybe.

Quite a bit different in appearance, isn’t it? While I’m quite sure that it’s a variant of eastern rat snake, I’m not 100% sure that it’s the yellow subspecies, due to this coloration. The main species of eastern rat snake used to be called the black rat snake, which is more appropriate, and this is neither black nor yellow. I’ve heard that the two subspecies can cross-breed, which this might be an example of, or it might simply be a wider color variant of the yellow – snakes, many reptiles and amphibians actually, can have a lot of variation in their colors, meaning little. Since this was found on an island (albeit not a remote or significantly isolated one,) there remains a chance this is an island variant, able to be found only on Topsail Island, but I admit this is unlikely.

I have a brief video clip, too:

The scale of the first snake above is clear enough, but not this one, which was even bigger, pushing two meters in length. I had no qualms about handling it, but let it be, then regretted it when I discovered later on that I couldn’t find this color variant. I watched the same area for the next several days but saw no signs of it; I would have at least gotten a lot more detailed images of it, from all angles, underside included.

Well, I might’ve, anyway – The Girlfriend was the only other person available at that time, and she sure as hell would not have tried handling it, nor would she have gotten too close for nice detail shots either. I’ve done the one-handed thing with snakes for photos, and it’s quite challenging, to put it mildly. No, I don’t have any Xtreemkooldood head-mounted action cams or anything of that ilk, so that wasn’t an option either. But I would’ve found some way…

Just once, part 42

October 16, 2024October 15, 2024 Al Denelsbeck

It’s been a while since we’ve had a mammal, hasn’t it? That’s because I have very few candidate mammals in the Just Once list, and too few mammals overall, really. But since the posts have been lean, we’ll have a video for this one.

Those are Asian small-clawed otters (Aonyx cinereus,) and were found at the NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher, a new brood that had hatched there two years back. They also represent the only species featured so far to have “Asian” in the name – a little surprising to me, but okay.

On our visit to Goose Creek State Park last year, a ranger alerted us to the presence of otters early that morning, though we were there in late morning and saw no signs of them; these would have been North American river otters instead, and I do have a handful of frames of those, from the wild even, but am always happy to have more/closer/better because that’s what nature photographers do – I still take photos of osprey and great blue herons even though I have thousands of frames of those. When we revisited the park a couple weeks back I thought we had found otter tracks, but now comparing the sizes, I’m fairly certain we’d found something else instead. Still, if they’re there, I’ll be after them – the biggest issue is that I can’t get very early access to the park unless I camp there overnight, and I hate camping.

“But Al,” you interject snarkily, “can’t you endure a little hardship if it’s for the cause? Are you sure you’re a real nature photographer” Though I admit I don’t know the definition of a real nature photographer but I suspect it involves garnering more income than this from it, so no, I’m probably not – which gives me a handy excuse. But it’s true that, if I have enough evidence that it won’t be wasted effort, I may set up a tent overnight, knowing full well that I won’t sleep worth a shit and will be tired and stiff as hell when I’m chasing pics. And given your comment, I’m sure you’ll be buying a print or five when I do, right?

Just once, part 41

October 9, 2024October 8, 2024 Al Denelsbeck

Hmmmm, what do we have here? I was just about to do this week’s Just Once post and decided on the specimen below, in honor of Halloween (which is when it originally posted nine years ago):

… which you gotta admit is a nice, ominous image, and as I said then, I wanted to do this in the yard some Halloween, or perhaps up on the rooftop. I never did get around to it, mostly because finding the raw materials in the size I wanted to do it wasn’t happening.

Though as I got ready to do this post, I searched BugGuide.net on the name (Habronattus pyrrithrix, I think) to be sure that it hadn’t changed and it still looked like a good match, because I’m anal in that regard, dog knows why. No change and it still looks like a match, but, one of the images shown on that site looked familiar, and so I compared it to the video I’d shot a few years ago, where I’d asked if anyone recognized the species:

I had a post just about finalized thinking that I’d found a match and thus this species hadn’t been featured Just Once, but then I looked closer and realized that the cephalothorax markings seemed inverted. Other pics of the same species all show distinct black markings along the sides, while the center dorsal markings are usually less distinct if not almost missing entirely – but they all have those side markings, which my video specimen does not have in the slightest.

So I thought I’d solved a mystery by finding the species of the video spider, but now it looks like I did not, and thus Habronattus pyrrithrix comes back into the lineup as a Just Once feature, and the video spider remains unidentified. So much drama…

Cut it out, brain!

October 8, 2024 Al Denelsbeck

A bit over a week ago I guess, I woke up here at the new Walkabout Manor during the move-in process, which meant a fitful night on the air mattress while we waited for the trailer with most of our belongings to get delivered. Whether this had anything to do with it or not, I arose quite anxious, because I was acutely aware that I had to change the address on my business cards and get more ordered. This was important, or so my sleep-addled brain told me, and it forced me from a drowsy no-rush-on-anything state into full wakefulness because I had to get right on this.

Now, bear in mind that I give away one or two business cards a month at best, and haven’t even started soliciting new photo students within the area we now reside, mush less arranged for a gallery display or anything – getting new business cards is well down the list of things that Need To Be Done. I mean, can I even get Walkabout Studios set up first? But for reasons unknown, my brain chose to fixate on that with enough emphasis to force me awake and ready to jump on the computer. Granted, I have, what, eleven different card designs?, that all need to be changed, so it’s a longer task than you might have thought, but not that long, and not at all crucial.

[“Eleven? Al, what the hell?” you say, but they’re all different photo images, and I print a variety of them on each photo page and cut them apart myself, so at any given time the recipient gets a random choice.]

On the same day I ran across this post from The Bloggess, a neat coincidence. Not exactly the same thing, but likely the same effect, which is one’s brain attaching random importance and/or emotional reaction to some particular concept while we’re in that stage between sleep and awake. Most everyone is familiar with having some brilliant idea in that stage and then struggling to remember it afterward, in some cases actually writing it down only to find that it makes no sense in the light of day. Occasionally, it actually is an insight, but more often I think (at least in my experience,) it’s simply nonsense – it’s got nothing to do with the thought itself, only how the brain interprets it, which in that sleep state might be entirely random.

I sometimes wonder about the peculiar workings of the brain, especially because I’m prone to entering the free-association period as I’m falling asleep, following some particular line of thought until I suddenly realize that it makes no sense; the spacing of the lines on the roads have no relation whatsoever to donkeys, or some such rot. It’s bad enough that we can associate wildly disparate items because of some past experience, like that time we watched Krull while eating lime jello, but then our brains can make associations for no apparent reasons at times – and worse, the same brain wastes its time trying to figure out why. And now I have a memory of being anxious over the address on my business cards, when I know it’s totally inconsequential, but am I going to be able to selectively delete it and free up space for, like, the new neighbor’s names? Noooo…

Don’t move!

October 7, 2024 Al Denelsbeck

Seriously, don’t move; it’s a pain in the ass, takes forever, and results in far too many aches and pains. We’ve still got far too much to go, and Walkabout Studios is going to take a while to be in proper shape. So I haven’t much time to devote to posting, but I’ll slip in here and there as I have a few moments. And in like vein, I snag the occasional image here and there – strictly local, and more of the same ol’ stuff, but it’s not stacks of boxes, so your scenery is overall better than mine.

The new place has three elephant ear plants, but as yet I have not been able to determine the exact species (there are a lot of choices.) That, however, is not our present focus – another Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) is, as I came face-to-face with one while stooping down to photograph the bloom of the elephant ear.

There were a few days when we had rain four or five times a day, and this was early morning after one of those – the anole was a bit sluggish and didn’t seem too concerned with my presence, allowing me to stoop even further for a different perspective.

It would have been nicer had it been a brighter morning, but ya work with what ya get – and have time to pursue.

My computer at present is set up at the edge of the living room, which gives me a view through the foyer and out the front door if it’s open, and the other day I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye (how does a round thing have corners?) I looked up and watched a second deer pause directly on the front walk not ten meters away, then move on slowly. This was right at noon so a bit curious, but I called The Girlfriend over and we crept out the door to find a trio of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) – two fawns and a doe – right at the edge of the lawn, looking back at us cautiously. Two of them stayed in sight as I got the camera out.

Our experience has been that the deer are fairly spooky around here, so this was better than expected results. They were definitely wary, but we refrained from doing anything threatening. Nonetheless, the fawn gave a few warning flips of its tail as it moved forward.

The doe – I’m presuming the mama – wasn’t responding in kind so the fawn calmed down slightly, though they all decided that moving on was probably better and slowly vanished into the undergrowth. One of the fawns, however, paused to look back and I snagged a frame to show how well they disappear, even when they’re only twenty meters away.

It’s right there in the center – look for the dark triangle of the tail – but yes, they know how to use shadows to their advantage.

The property, so far anyway, does not seem to host as many green treefrogs (Dryophytes cinereus) as the old place, but it’s also late in the season so I won’t consider this definitive. We have seen three so far I think, including one not a week out of tadpole stage. A slightly larger one perched on the window this evening, and I went out to snag a few frames.

Now, in doing so, I inadvertently introduced an anole into the house, since I think it was snoozing on the edge of the door, and this required a little scrambling to get it back out before any of the cats realized it. After this was accomplished, the frog had moved from the glass onto the downspout, so a little coaxing convinced it to not face away from me and provide a brief action pose. Several minutes later though, I passed the same window and the frog had resumed its position in almost the exact same spot – the light was shining through brightly so likely the frog was waiting for insects attracted by that.

Overall length was roughly 30mm, so far from an adult, and it looked more like a leaf adhering to the glass from a short distance off. It’s still there as I type this, nearly two hours later, but it’s moved up and over a little bit, hopefully snagging some food.

More will be along as I get the time. It’s going to be a while before we’re “settled.”

Just once, part 40

October 2, 2024October 1, 2024 Al Denelsbeck

While this week’s image was taken back in 2010, it wasn’t actually used until last year for one of the Profiles of Nature posts, which was actually the weekly topic for the previous year – I was just throwing more down as I felt like it. This is a cownose ray (Rhinoptera bonasus,) photographed at the NC Aquarium in Fort Fisher I believe – probably obvious because I had no ability to do underwater photography and I likely wouldn’t have caught one this close (and in this lighting,) much less while feeding. Now, I did see and photograph cownose rays while living in Florida, but always from above the surface and some distance off, so I never bothered featuring those shots here. Had I possessed the ability to do underwater photographs while living and snorkeling there – beyond using a little Kodak disposable film camera I mean, which I did attempt a couple of times – I likely wouldn’t have gotten much anyway due to the turbidity of the water: visibility was two meters at best, and not too many critters allowed that close of an approach. I know I tried it with a mother and calf manatee, slipping into the water quietly as they moved off about six meters away, but I never caught sight of them when I attempted to catch up.

That might have been the session where I fumbled the disposable camera while removing the snorkeling gear, watching it fall into a gap between the rocks and hearing it clatter down no small distance. I was quite distraught because I was pretty sure I had some cool shots on it, and no amount of maneuvering produced a glimpse of it; these were large rocks piled together to make the causeway, and so had countless gaps between the rocks. I shifted a few here and there, still never seeing the camera, a challenge in itself because my eyes were adjusted for the bright sunlight and I simply couldn’t see into the deep shadows under the rocks. I was on the verge of giving up when I climbed much lower and pulled out another one of the smaller rocks that I could actually move, and there sat the camera on the sand floor within this little cave, within arm’s reach even. I can remember the feeling that I’d recovered some potentially great photos (as great as they might be with a cheesy little plastic camera,) but honestly don’t know which of the negative pages holds those pics, or even what pics I thought I was losing. Memory’s a funny thing.

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