A First Shot -- This Is Only a Test

This is one of the first five shots that I took with the new Canon S5 IS. It shows three varieties of clematis that I have growing on a "clematis tower." This tower is about 12 feet high and 18 inches in diameter, and it consists of a cylinder of 2x4 wire fencing, inside of which, for the first six or seven feet, is a stout locust post.

I overlooked cutting back the vines last fall, and now one of them is growing up into the limbs of a nearby oak. I think that's cool, though I'm told the vines will produce many more flowers if I prune them. But there are three different ways that clematis is pruned, depending on the species, and of course I also neglected to make note of that little detail during the moment of planting. So the only time I attended to that business, I snipped off all of them, down to a height of about three feet. That was several years ago.

So far I've only taken those five shots. I like the little camera a lot, though so far I've barely touched it. Inevitably the fingers that are put to use on such wonders of minute precision must be cruder than the fingers that put them together. I wonder if that's a recognized and common syndrome, and if so, whether it has a name.

Though it is supposed to be a jpg, this picture takes up 2.4 megs of memory. That's way more than I'm used to transmitting online, and one of the reasons I've posted so few pictures online is that I didn't want the memory they require to bog down the loading time of this weblog. Fifty K would be much more like it. I now have to find out if 's possible to cut the pics down that much.