August Mosaic

No, I didn't forget to do my monthly mosaic, it's just that August kind of galloped away from me, what with school starting so early this year.

My favorite images of the month are of the little boy taking pictures at the British Car Show in Dayton (click on mosaic once or twice to enlarge). He was so passionate! He'd take a picture, look at the image he'd captured, say, "Yes!" to himself, and find another shot to take. It killed him that he couldn't see inside the Rolls, but his dad helped him out with that one. I wanted to ask him what he would do with or make with his pictures. I imagine him at home at the computer sorting them, organizing them, writing about them, maybe making a mosaic with them!

The view outside my classroom window is going to be interesting this year. I'm near the southeast corner of the building, and we're getting several new classrooms and teaching spaces added to the northeast corner. First, they built a road on the green space outside the window leading to the staging area for their materials (and the storage place for the topsoil they scoured to build the road). Luckily, they left our two sweet gum trees. At the end of last week, they poured the cement foundations. It's just a little disruptive to have the arm of the backhoe swinging around outside your window when you're trying to teach...

No, that's not our new puppy. Perhaps in a year we will have a pup from that breeding pair. (It's an English Shepherd -- a herding dog that looks a lot like a robust Border Collie, but with a calmer disposition and an upright herding style.) In the meantime, we help out the breeder by doing temperament testing to help her place the pups in the right homes. Here's a video I made of two of last year's pups tussling.

This was a good month for photographing insects! For one thing, I got a new camera that allows me to get lots closer (and do fun stuff like miniaturizing and fisheye-ing.) But the camera's nothing if the subject's not there! The cicada was on the school building, the butterfly was on my car, and the katydid was on our porch wall. How about those red eyes?!?!