Tag Archives: outdoors

Wildlife Photography

Fauna in the U.S.A.

My “serious” photography adventures have me lugging a couple of cameras and a few lenses into the wild outdoors.

A long lens lets me capture four footed or slow moving animals in the field easily if I remember to be patient.

I’ve found that capturing flying birds with a camera are one of the most challenging endeavors. Fast moving birds are difficult to track with a long lens and using a shorter lens produces smaller subjects in the image.

I’ve thrown away countless images of wildlife that were blurry, poorly exposed, badly composed, etc. Below are a few that I’ve kept over the years.

Backyard Ice Rink

A Fun Outdoor Activity

This year winter came a little late to Michigan. The cold weather seemed to wait until mid-January to swoop down upon us. Then suddenly we got a bunch of snow and the temperature dropped.

With the Covid pandemic keeping us close to home, we were looking for an activity that would be fun but safe. My wife came up with the idea to build a small backyard ice rink so that the grandkids could have some outdoor exercise.

After a little thought we decided upon a 20′ x 40′ rink. We made a couple of visits to a nearby hardware store to buy 140 feet of 4″ PVC tubing, a bunch of connectors to keep them attached and a bunch of 2″ x 4″s as a support frame. The hardest part was the hours it took to locate a large plastic sheet (30′ x 50′) to hold the water. After buying all of the supplies we were ready to start.

First we had to clear the snow from the area where we want to build the rink.



Next we carefully laid the plastic sheet down over the PVC frame and then filled it with water.



Hurry up and wait. We had to wait for two days for the temperature to do its trick. That’s how long it took for the water to turn to ice thick enough for us to use.



However before skating we have to smooth the surface using our home-made “zamboni”.



Finally a look at the rink after we smoothed out the ice.



I took the liberty of pretending to practice hockey as I did 50 years ago on a local lake.



The weather has remained cold for February and so the grandkids have been able to use the rink since.

Everyone was definitely tired of being in lockdown. It’s been a boon to getting the grandkids out and about. The skating and hockey has been a very welcome addition to their activities.