I tracked the storm closely; it looked big and dangerous. It started to pour buckets around five o’clock, and lightning and thunder were booming and cracking.

But only for about 20 minutes. The storm turned docile, and I watched on my tracking app as it veered to the north of us – it looked big and mean- and I was cooking dinner a few minutes later.

It is still raining heavily, though and the wind is still howling a bit outside my window. Maria and I had a beautiful time sitting together and talking and watching the storm flash and bang.

Zinnia sat next to us on the front porch, snoring all through the noise. She is at home anywhere.

As the storm cleared, I went out in the driveway to see if I could take one of those blurry action photos if I opened the shutter speed wide and lowered the aperture.

It worked, sort of. The light was tricky, it wasn’t quite dark, and it wasn’t relatively light.  About 20 vehicles rushed by. But it’s a start.

I liked the shot above, it has some feeling,  but I have more work to do.

The map above shows the skies clearing up and one more storm sliding towards us from the West. After that, it looks all clear.  Lots of big whooping over nothing, although I hear the storm hit wicked hard up North a bit. We were lucky. We are the tiny blue dot to the right of Saratoga Springs. I love to track storms on my weather app.

(Note: We’re redesigning the blog; colors and icons will pop up as we experiment. Nothing is final; no significant changes in content.  I’m just trying to bring more color to the blog and shine it up a bit. Bear with us. FYI, we haven’t done a podcast in some time. There are no new ones in the works despite all the graphics right now. We are up to our neck in position.)

(Flo snapped out of her coma a bit today, maybe it was the wind and the storm. She looked more like herself, imperious and fearless.)

Good news on the Leica 2 front/color version. I’m getting it.

A lovely person and a perfect photographer have agreed to sell me his Leica2, which it says is new for all intents and purposes.

We negotiated by e-mail back and forth through lunchtime and then went to the phones. It was all very cordial; he was tough, and so was I. He is no slouch when it comes to negotiating.

I was helped because he spent some time on my blog looking at my photos, then and now. He said he saw my improvements, and he said I was taking some great pictures. He is buying a Leica M Rangefinder, which costs about $9,000.

He told me he wanted to know that the camera would go to somebody who would use it and appreciate it.

I do appreciate it, and I appreciate him. He could have blown me off a dozen times. but he hung in there with me.

He wanted this to happen too, he didn’t want to just sell it to a stranger. Leica people are like that with their cameras, they are like family to them.

He said he would be proud of his camera going to me. I am worn out from all the back and forth but happy. I never expected to have one Leica camera, let alone two.

I will make good use of it.

(Maria picked these Lilac blossoms for me today, and I was writing and didn’t notice that they were right under my nose until she came into my office and told me to look.

They are beautiful, and the smell is sweet. When I am working, I don’t see much of anything.)

The Leica owner could afford to bargain and did. He asked me not to use his name; he says many of his friends would be angry to learn he sold his camera to a stranger for less than the retail value.

I have plenty of time to pay off this camera in small amounts each month with no interest. I’m spending more than I wanted and less than I expected, so all in all, a great deal for me.

I liked this man quite a bit; he was easy to talk to, empathetic and honest.

The negotiations were intense, but never uncomfortable. We both laughed a lot.

We both enjoyed talking to each other and planned to stay in touch. He had some great comments about my work and how I could improve it. He was helpful, never harmful or patronizing.

He also got what I was trying to do. He helped me understand how to use the new camera, which he is overnighting to me, it’s supposed to arrive tomorrow. I gave him some pointers about Lightroom, which he is just beginning to use.

He gave me some valuable pointers in return. He’s had three art gallery shows of his photography in a nearby town.

The camera is ready to use, and he is sending all its accessories, no charge. There is still time on the warranty.

He’s moving up, he’s getting a great camera, and he’s happy with where his Q2 is going, even though he didn’t use it as much as he wanted.

I’m very excited about this; I am fortunate to get a camera like this at such a low price and with so much time to pay it off. It feels like a miracle to me.

This is another big step for me, I love the Monochrome, and I’m anxious to see what this Leica glass will do with color photography.

As always, all of my photos will be free for anyone to use in any way they wish. I don’t bookmark or copyright my images; they are my very modest thank you to the many good people who read my blog and follow my life.