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Louis' Pictures from 05-31-2003

We now have a lot of plants out in the back yard -- roses, flowers, vegetables, herbs, a lawn -- and they all want water. This hot Houston weather dries them out quickly! The front has the same problem. Michelle decided we should install a drip irrigation system, so that everything would get watered even when we are out of town. It turned out to be a bigger undertaking than she expected.

Michelle planned out four watering zones, but they don't make a four way programmable valve that goes on the end of a hose. We decided we'd have to make one ourselves. Here it is, laid out and ready to be put together.
Here I am with my contribution to the watering project.
Michelle is ready to set up more drip hose out front.
You can see the hose she has already laid out snaking through the ground cover in the foreground. Oh yeah - look! We now have a mailbox!
To install an emitter, first you poke a hole in the hose.
Next, you squash the emitter into the hole. Michelle can attest that this is hard on the fingers!
Another view of Michelle at work. By the way, in the background you can see the flagstones that will go around the neighbors' pool. Further back, you can see that they are already framing in the house next door.
Here I am, outside, gluing together the valve manifold. That PVC solvent is smelly stuff.
Peppers! Sweet banana peppers, I think.
The bell peppers are doing well.
Here is our eggplant and its drip emitter.
Pretty flowers!
The onions will be watered.
Our herb garden, with green and purple basil.
One of the roses currently in bloom.
The other rose.
Another rose picture.
The valve manifold is wired and ready to go. But wait! The downstream connectors have the wrong thread pitch! Arg, back to the hardware store. We visited five different hardware stores today.
Here I am, getting ready to make a custom garden hose. For some reason, Home Depot doesn't sell three foot garden hoses with female connectors on both ends.
Here is the valve manifold all hooked up and working!
Another picture of our potted garden being watered.

After all that, Michelle and I finally got a chance to clean up. We walked down the street and got bubble tea, and brought it home to enjoy while sitting on the third floor balcony. I noticed I could just see one really bright star (probably a planet) through the peak in the roof, and I was curious if I could get a picture of it. So much for relaxing, I grabbed the camera and started taking night shots.

Here is Michelle, sitting on the balcony surfing the web on her laptop. This picture was taken with auto-exposure and flash turned off.

Next I turned on long exposure and set it my camera to a three second exposure. It worked great, so I grabbed my tripod and took the rest of these picures.

Here is the same picture of Michelle, but this time with a long exposure. Much better!
Here is the picutre that got me started - a planet just visible under the roof, with the oak tree below. I think it would have been better with a wider angle.
This is the view though the oak tree.
This is our view of downtown Houston at night. It's pretty.
Next I decided it would be cool to capture a full night time panarama. This is a 360° panarama, and it's very big!! I set the camera on the tripod right at the outside corner post of the balcony. I used the post as the seam, and it's almost due north. I put the compass directions along the bottom of the picture so you can tell what direction you are facing. The best way to view this is not zoomed out and all at once, but zoomed in with a small window so that you can scroll side to side like you are panning around in a circle.
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Louis K. Thomas <louiNØSP@Msth@hotmÑOSP@Mail.coNÕSP@Mm> Fight Spam! Auth 2002-04-26 (2324 days ago)