My new lens came today, and I hoped it would be everything. I will need some instruction on how to use it best. My Leica Akademie friends are waiting for me. I took the lens out for a test drive today. Here are the first photos that I took with it. I have work to do to figure out how to use it properly.

Just as I like to capture the souls of flowers, I’d love to capture the souls of birds. A few sparrows came to the window, and the Leica 100-400 kens did well with them. I have to aim the center focus in the right place. I want to capture the feelings of birds, the sense of them, not just a pretty headshot.

In the meantime, we’re trying to solve the. Kitchen crisis: We must remove our faithful stove due to rat and mouse urine. We can’t turn the stove on.

We’re checking out some new ones on whirlpool.com. Looks like eight or nine hundred dollars.  I feel like the forces of nature are testing us and our house with water, rats, and wind damage.

We’re up to it. Maria and I will pick out a new stove tonight, and we have a terrific appliance person from nearby Schuylerville to take it from there.

He’ll deliver it and remove this stove. The smell is beautiful. Curse the rat.

The sparrows seemed to move slower than some of the other birds. This will be a touch of my patience, which is not great in the best of circumstances.

I’m beginning to have an idea of how I want my bird photos to look and feel. That will take a while.

I found the sparrows to shore more emotion than I thought, just like flowers.

But has a photogenic face and a wonderful baleful wise man look.

The lens caught the menacing stare of Zip; I would hate to be a mouse looking up at those eyes.

The lens picked up the red flower in the sun.

Maria moved our little Mexican metal donkey to the front winter and in the light. It stood out. The lens has excellent depth and detail.