Hasty workouts

The wet weather forecast got me in gear for a week's good work!

My 2023 health issues have been documented in this blog (see the health tag). The result has been plenty of downtime and deferred projects.

When the forecast turned damp for the last week of September I finally got busy, or at least gave my best effort with my low stamina.

First up: the woodpile!

I had plenty of brush from last winter, but also several thick lengths of wood from the previous winter. I hacked the logs into wood stove lengths, then split them with the long axe and stuffed them under cover while the weather was good. 

Evenings were spent relaxing on a heating pad.

Thankfully, a few more dry days were left to me, allowing for another speed task: knocking last year's moss growth off the roof.

Part two: roof prep 

The temperature was dropping fast and shade had taken over much of the yard and house, so these last two days began in fleece and long pants. I brought up a rough brush and the cordless leaf blower and got to work. The roof will need replacing next year so a gentle scrub wasn't important this time. I got about 2/3 finished the first day before again relaxing with the heating pad.

Day two found me blasting out one set of gutters with the leaf blower and a fresh battery before attacking the greener north facing roof. By late afternoon I was done up top, but plenty of moss tribbles were strewn across the north-side deck and south-side driveway. I was able to clean up the deck before dark, leaving a few dry hours on day three to blow the driveway from massive clutter to two thick clumps of green. 

One more task remained for the last dry day, so I opened the large lawn-nourishment bag I had hoped to use six months ago and spread it across as much lawn as it could reasonably cover. It had clumped and congealed a bit but not too badly.

With firewood and roof ready for the wet season, I considered things to be as good as could be managed. The storms were less soaking than was expected, so I soaked the lawn where trees had blocked the rainfall.

Now to await the coming dry spell late this week, to see how the grass and weeds respond to water and chemistry!

nice

 This is a fine summer, indeed.

One can get things done in weather like this - assuming one isn't suffering from Covid, or an extended edition thereof. Sadly we're in that second position as of mid month. The sticker bushes continue to flourish while we labor with our minimal energy to keep the interior of the house clean. With better health, a few days should be found to hammer down the blackberries before they claim a second acre of our property.. of which we have but two!

Monday might even be a bit damp! Many plants would sigh audibly at such an event, I'd expect.

light rinse, then repeat

 

So we had 1/2 inch on July 5-6, then a mere trace for sixty-plus days - then just under 1/2" the 28-29th of September. On to October.. hm, this looks familiar. A week of dry days, and now 85° would be almost twenty degrees above normal! This won't last long; it's October after all. I always think a typical October starts around 80°, then a small storm and 70 is a challenge, then another storm, and 65° is a memory. By Halloween even sixty is in the past (except for the infamous tropic/pineapple storms of winter) and it's either raining or foggy with mist. Cue the leaf drop!

I mad-rushed our deck to completion this past week, and O I Hurt. A couple days of pressure washing, then a day's rental of a heavy-duty sander with a weight collar, then a fast day of staining before those two wet days could soak the vulnerable wood. Timing was excellent, but my aches are numerous. Clearly the next project needs to be the pump on our empty hot tub..

We picked up a new 60-volt electric lawn mower, which didn't quite get the time to finish the yard due to the deck becoming a weather priority. Looks like next week will get that finished.. followed by renting a brush cutter to reclaim a goodly chunck of property from the wild and crazy blackberry vines. Several of those are attempting to close our (and our neighbor's!) driveway, so the rental beast will make quick work of it. Bummer that I'll be doing it in shorts and a tank top though: those stickers will hurt!! :^o

 

Update - forecast temps have dropped a bit, so overalls will be available in the Sticker War! 😬

Update II - still nice, possibly a few 80° temps again?

HOWEVER:

Note that by the 21st, autumn arrives wearing its grey costume. Cliff Mass at u.Wash expects the End to come that day as well via the ECMWF ensembles - as it generally does at some point after the 15th.

https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2022/10/northwest-winter-starts-on-october-21.html

Update fini - forecast is still holding true. We didn't reach 80°, but we did hit 77° on the 15th!

our first goose-egg

 August will end with no measurable precipitation. Zero!

That's only slightly less than a couple of Julys here, with 0.05 and 0.03"  - but it's our first fully dry calendar month since we moved here. Both July and August average less than an inch, so it's somewhat surprising that we've gone eight summers without a zero.

Our water-bucket that fills from a hole in our gutter is essentially empty. Since most of our live plants are up on the deck, it's a handy water diversion project when it works. With no rain since July 6th, it's time to get out the hose and fill the bucket - that should do until the rains resume!

Swainson's Thrush 2022

 The first spiral trill of the Swainson's thrush was heard this evening. Hooray! My wife is thrilled.

They arrived early despite our delayed spring; the Salmon-berries are still small and green. Hopefully that means they will stay around a while. The 18th of May ('eruption day' in the Pacific NW) is commonly when their one-note calls are heard first, but the 14th was when I first heard their 'whipp' and 'breeek!' monotones. This evening I hear the more settled 'whip/brrrr' call a few times, then the call came at last. Nesting season at last?

This is one of my favorite "SURPRISE!" images. I took this photo featuring the towhee and cropped the image tightly, only later aware that he was being shadowed by a Swainson's in the uncropped image! I've recropped (shown here) to show the elusive thrush in its favorite place - under cover. :^) Too bad about the nail and pitched pole, not quite a pastoral scene.. also too bad I didn't have a longer telephoto lens, as the image did not crop without artifacts.

a new number one

 January sixth turned in a very surprising 4.82 inches of rain which takes over at my lifetime #1 spot - though just barely. It's odd that 0.06 inches separates it from #2, then another inch below to #s three and four, and then another one-inch gap. Curious. 

And one more curiosity: the top three contains two January sixths!

The forecast was for about three inches for the two days of 1/5 and 6; the 5th was spot on at 1.34 but clearly the following day overperformed. Big time! The new 2-day record was set, but the 3-day record still belongs to October 2017.

So as of the 6th our January total was already above average! As of today we're 2½" above. A stretch of fairly dry weather is coming for the next week. I cannot bring myself to complain.

Yard work today consisted of removing limbs from the two major tree events that the snowstorms of '21 brought down. Others came down elsewhere on our property but landed in areas that really aren't accessible - so they can behave as nature intended and r.i.p. = rot in place. One truck-load was added to the debris pile, and the large maple limb will probably be hauled slightly up the hill and act as a lawn definition enhancement and slope break.

Plenty more debris can be had at the bottom of our driveway, where the entire tree fell slowly on to our truck. What a fine mess that was - yet only the front windshield shows any mark. It definitely needs replacing.

farewell October

 And so October 21 exits, with a few sunny days! That ends tonight (yes true, that happens every night) as November storms are lined up to get us through the wettest month of the year.

Interesting to see that three of our last four Octobers have been very similar in total rainfall. Note that November has generally been below the 30-year average (purple column at left) so calling it our wettest month has an asterisk. In fact January has been consistently above average over the last six years, so its average observed of 10.2" is our wettest month, with February close behind; Novembers have been the driest of the Oct-Feb period! Note that 20" October in 2017 though - the wettest of Any month here on the hill-top!

This should be sorted out soon, perhaps. The new 30-year averages will be out, and we'll see how adding 2010-20 (and dropping 1981-90) skews the averages. Sounds like I'll need to make a new tab in my Excel sheet!

The new PRISM data should be available in the next few months.

Our new 'lawn' has been challenged by the late-month deluge. We received over five inches of rain from the 20th through the 29th, and of course the sun angle has lessened substantially. Guess I need some gro-lights (or SAD lights?) for that dark corner of our yard! It is a sun-and-shade seed mix, but a pinch of daylight has become precious. Hopefully it will hang out and spring will rekindle its enthusiasm!

never before, never again?

8AM sunday, lowest central pressure

 No storm has been recorded on this side of the pacific ocean with such low pressure. Whether it's a complete one-off event, time will tell - but we already had one of those this year, with the July superheatwave! How many firsts can we manage?

Models are still struggling with such power to determine where the flow will take it. Generally they swerve more to the north before reaching the coast as they fill and weaken, but ensemble variations are high with this much energy seeking a path. Models are doing amazing work already, forecasting both this storm and the previous 953hPa low earlier in the week. Hard to complain, but residents would like as much warning before their trees and roofs take flight. 

estimated position Monday morning

Yikes!

Not actually as bad as that, since it's heading a bit north and weakening - but still a potent threat especially with this being one of many possible results.

Leaves are leaping from our maples under the hard rain and blustery weather from the passing fronts. Our hill protects us from S/SE storm winds if they do occur - at least until the trees atop the hill wear out from the pounding..

And by the way - forecast for the upcoming seven days is still at 3" or more, so the damp days we've just passed are being replaced by equally-damp ones at the end of October. No surprise, and it means that once again our monthly rainfall will be above average. Every single October of our seven years on the hill-top has been above average (though we'll admit one was by 0.01") so the streak continues. We're still almost two inches short as of the 23rd - but feeling pretty confident it will happen.

Update 10/27 - we reached 100% of the 30-yr average this evening!

late October, no surprise

 It's time for the Pacific to discard its name and start flinging moisture at us. The NWS is in full agreement, looking at the upcoming seven days. This includes two dry days!

The map also looks nice for the Sierra Nevada, which is entering another moisture-unfavorable La Nina season; a good early start would be most helpful. Can't say it does much for the lower Colorado basin.

Our little patch of new grass is sprouting decently, but it's a good thing the mix is for shade and sun; the low sun angle is only catching a small bit of the area, and only in the mornings. A decent outflow channel has developed near our steps leading into the area, so I had better add an improved drainage option before the first inch or two of this pattern finds us - otherwise a decent amount of that grass will be growing at the lowest part of our property, where only the frogs will see it!

Update - well, the dry days have passed and a few new wet ones have entered the end of the period in their place. Big numbers abound.

storm number one

 The first storm of the new season arrives in two days, and it will impress.

The latest numbers are lower than previous forecasts, yet still massive in many places. The weekend total was closer to three inches at Kelso, now 1.24" is shown. Friday night's official forecast is for 1-2 inches on the hill-top, so this evening was spent scraping off the rooftop moss from last year's fine crop. I'll blow out the gutters tomorrow since they captured most of it.

I also swept the woodstove chimney. It shouldn't be needed as this moist storm will keep temperatures in the mid-fifties Friday night when the greatest moisture dumps upon us. Thunderstorms are reasonable on Saturday.

This deep moisture means it's time to get the grass seed in place soon. No time to get it in place before the storm, and one this powerful would just was the seed into puddles - so gentler storms or strategic sprinklering is planned for next week. 

update/reality: at 10pm Friday we had 0.02" of light rain. An hour later we had 1/3", and nine hours later we had 1¼". Now for the thunder and random heavy showers, which are expected through Sunday.

to record highs, and beyond!

 Dry season is one thing, but heat season is another beast entirely. And fear fire foes, it is upon us - several weeks sooner than usual!

As stated succinctly at Cliff Mass' blogsite, the forecast is consistently forecasting that high-temp records will break throughout the region. Even more bizarre, the expected changes that weather models make when a big event is closer to starting - well, the models have become even more certain of major heat! Usually when 110° shows up on the west side of the Cascades, a subsequent model shift removes it - but this event could be the exception.

Only the immediate coast is safe, as the thermal trough will sit atop the Willamette valley and allow the coast to remain at a mere 80° plus or minus. The valley itself will bake, and the Cowlitz and Puget areas are in on it as well. Monday was supposed to bring a reprieve, but models are even relenting on much of it; a low will dent the high but not remove it entirely. 

Portland's 107° and Kelso's 108° all-time records are at risk (see bottom of post), while June records could be set wherever airports actually keep records from Tacoma to Medford - and east side as well! Late June records in Portland are barely over 100° so the perfect (heat)storm has hit at a good time to leave its mark in the record books.

Thursday's WUnderground forecast for the hill-top. WU forecasts are often near the extremes - but it could happen this time!

So - this year's plan for planting a spring lawn is officially over. The one spot that I had plowed did not sprout (old grass seed) and the rain disappeared before the new seed was spread. Dry weather March-May, a week of drenching rain and now parching heat means it's going to be an autumn effort this year. Ah well.. the last big storm did allow for (exactly!) 100% of average rainfall for June. On to July!

In other news, that drenching rain filled a few containers outside that were not intended as such.  I was set to overturn one to keep the mosquito larvae from hatching out.. but the wriggling forms did not act in the appropriate way for proto-skeeters. 

That's because they are Tadpoles! 

Now to watch their new 'pond' and keep them cool through the hot spell.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Update - Thursday evening forecast is a pinch cooler each day. Many new records will still be in the making at the lower temps, so trifling differences overall.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Friday AM update: cooler end of period - but a bit warmer on Monday!

Also, an updated post at Cliff Mass' site.

Truth: Portland broke its all-time high record three times with 108, 112 then 116° Sat-Mon. Ugh! Kelso and Longview set new records at 109°, and also had three-day streaks of 100 or more (as did Seattle!). 

Here on the hill-top we hit 99.5 102.4 and finally 105.6° by 3PM Monday - then the west winds took over and we dropped to 61° at midnight. That evening low erased the morning minimum temp of 78.6 on Monday morning. When I was a child a low of 60 was awful. We hit mid-60s lows soon before leaving Portland. Now this one. 

Dreadful.

into the dry season

After a few last showers early this week, dry and warmer is the forecast, with a touch of cooling after Monday. Those last showers took us to 2.55", which is exactly the average for June! Last weekend was quite wet with a one-inch Saturday, so on to July and its mere 0.92-inch average.

The Swainson's Thrush really began to sing as the rain came back - we hadn't made that association before, but the song was really sparse in the previous few weeks. Now they are singing in many locations, and my wife's favorite tune can be heard on many local stations. I'm also now acquainted with the Towhee's fast call so I can better notice their prevalence; the black-headed Grosbeak I already knew and that also is common.

Phase one of the re-lawning did not go well due to very old grass seed. We now have fresh seed, so I'll return the soil in that plot and expand it a bit before seeding and watering. It would have been best in the showery days before this, but it was worth trying the old seed which we had in abundance. Ah well, we do as we must.

spiral songs at last!

The Swainson's Thrush arrived at their usual time, May 18-19. Alert hweep!s and relaxed hwips were abundant the past ten days - but no attract-a-mate up-spiraling calls? Those usually begin within a few days, but perhaps the females arrived a bit later this year. No point in showing off one's best singing with no attractive audience to hear it!

I should probably stop hwip∙ping at them when they announce their presence; I might be canceling an appropriate alert before it's prudent, or telling them 'this spot is taken' and driving them away from us to sing up a new family!

pay no attention to the towhee at left, but instead his sneaky Swainson's shadow on the right!

Lórien is feeling quite cheerful now that her favorite bird call is in the neighborhood. Cheerful is good.

from allaboutbirds.org - Swainson's Thrush

a dry spring

 Three dry months have taken their toll. We've received just over 50% of our typical moisture for March-May, a heat spell removed most of Oregon's snowpack, and 2/3" today is helping but will only do so much. More dry weather is forecast for the upcoming week. This is our wettest day since 3/24, so not many noteworthy storms have rolled through this spring. Aside from being wet, today's winds were pretty strong too - but only the highest trees, as the SW winds could not find us on the north side of the hill-top.

My dad's old roto-tiller actually started last weekend, which I found quite surprising; it's probably been a decade since it started last! I managed to plow under a segment of our yard and toss down some old lawn seed, then sprinkled it yesterday before rainfall took over. Hopefully in the next week we'll see some sprouting, if not then another bag of fresh seed is in order. The yard is substantially dandelion with a smattering of daisies and moss, so even bad grass seed will be a better look overall.

It is also Portland's driest March-May on record, by a comfortable margin. Assuming they don't get 1.8" tomorrow..

snowpack and yardwork

 A dry April and a warm spell has brought snow totals down in a hurry, most notably in the southern parts of our region. We expect totals to be falling by May 1st, but the rate can be quick in the spring - like this year.

NW Washington has been cool enough to retain its high values, so the variation in the PNW is pretty impressive. The Sierra had a miserable year and fire season looks ominous for California; my Wyoming granite range is just a bit below normal so my dreams will turn east not south for 2021. I don't expect any multi-day trips to materialize in fact, so dreams will have to do.

I've done some ache-inducing yard work, moving a few blueberry shrubs from the precipice of a steep hill and a tangle of wild vines. The blueberries should be happier and easier to manage along the side of our garage. I thought to add our raspberry twig there as well, but came home with a grape vine instead - once it's established a few feet above the ground a few lower berries can join it to shade the soil and make the wall a tasty place to hang out in the summer! We have a couple of apple trees as well, but they are on the opposite end of the property; can't make things too easy, I suppose..

April showers?

 It's been a strange April. A dry week, three damp days then over 10 days of warmth and hardly a cloud. Typical April weather returns late this week, and an inch of rain should soak in this weekend. It's been hard on new plants as I was late breaking out the hose.. at least I knew where to look for it! 

The dry times did allow me to refine the stone pathway, do some weeding and remove most of the fallen tree from the neighbor's yard. Once the weed monster is fully assembled, the blackberry vines will find themselves confined to a smaller area. They definitely ambushed me a few times during the tree removal but the scars have mostly healed.

April ended at about 30% of normal, and driest on record in Portland.

winter fades, spring leaps forward

We're seeing slushy rain this morning, just as forecast. Too warm to accumulate, and sunshine punctures the clouds at times - still, it's a cool day and frost is shown for tonight. This appears to be the last gasp of wintry weather though, with 70° expected in lower valleys and mid-60s here on the hill-top.

We assembled a standalone porch swing and gave it a test yesterday, as the clouds thickened and the cooler air began to pour in. Just a few days early, but it's ready for the fine weather!

I've also been reassembling the green-stone walkway that meanders past the flowers and up to the deck. Still working on that, but it's looking nice with its fresh mounds and solar lamps.

That would be something!

Here is a graphic of snowfall thruogh Sunday from today's GFS ensemble. This looks like the major snow event for 2020/21 winter!

That's a foot of snow for Portland and Kelso - and Centralia, south Olympia, Hillsboro and St. Helens! The San Juan islands freeze with outflow from the Fraser River but are protected from precipitation by the Olympic Mts; from Rainier south the Cascades get a major dose of whiteout. It would indeed be something to experience if this plays out! Other models are still doing other things with the cold air and the storm-track, so this composite of a single model is not the absolute word on what's coming.

Lowland snow near the Pacific is always a juggling act; a few days ago the temperatures were a few degrees lower, which added several inches to the snow totals. A degree or two here and there in the atmosphere is only critical in the dark of winter, when a warm layer can melt flakes and drop ice or bitter rain upon us. This region will always do best with a storm dropping south along the coast for some snow - but that cold source can't hold much moisture. To get the big numbers we need a storm to track from the SW with its larger content of moisture. That gets tricky because if it hits the coast too far south we don't get the moisture (Mt. Baker vs Mt. Hood in the graphic), and too far north means the warmer air will disrupt the cold air and disappoint the snowghouls (just south of Portland, where the Columbia Gorge outlet cannot quite reach this time).

Whew. so much for all that! Hoping for about a foot on the hill-top, so at least one saucer can play in the driveway. Bummer that our funding for a rope tow hasn't been addressed yet..

THIS JUST IN - Winter Storm watch issued for 1-5" of snow plus possible ice glaze overnight Thurs-Fri. Should be interesting to see if 800 feet of elevation makes a difference!

curse the fuzzy earwigs!

To the creatures of the outdoors I've always been a fairly reasonable guy, for the most part. I've fed the birds for several years, and added corn cobs for the squirrels to keep them from raiding the seeds. Everybody's happy right? 

Well I'm sure not!!

A few weeks ago I noticed that the majority of our string of Christmas lights had gone out. Soon thereafter we had quite a windstorm blow through, and I noticed that a piece of the strand was lying broken on the deck. I figured that a part of our fence had fallen off the deck and the string was stretched to its breaking point. Then I remembered that part of the fence was already down so it wasn't the cause. Curious!

Then a day or two later, I saw a squirrel sitting atop a post on the deck. He was holding a rather large globe in his hands - a blue one. Yes, he had nibbled the strands off the perceived nut and was claiming it! I stode out furiously but he made off with it - perhaps I'll find it at the base of a tree soon? Part of me wishes the lights ran at a higher voltage so other squirrels would see the stunned or dead one and decide those nuts are poisonous..

I promptly stripped the remaining fragments of light from the deck, to prevent loss and to stop wasting the squirrels' valuable time eating wire and hoarding light bulbs. Damn idiot vermin.

I missed the lights though, so I moved a set of very not-bulbous LED lights to the fence. Your basic small and pointy white lights.

Yep, they're being stolen now too. Off they came!

I've re-ordered a new set of pointy white LED lights, and they will remain hooked on nails just beneath the gutter-line where the beasts cannot reach from above or below. Nice, but less personal.

And the corn-cobs are all distributed. Will I buy some more and encourage the beasts? 

Don't bet on it.

comet photos, and Issues therewith

After two nights going to bed after midnight, getting up 3h later to look at clouds and returning to bed, I finally did it the third time only to see no clouds! Yes, the comet was visible - and with no practice in about ten years, it was time to take pictures with unfamiliar gear at a well-sloped location (our yard). Would I be alone? Well it seemed that way on my first attempt, but it would be visible for quite some time..

So.. 

I wandered outside with the Oly ePL8 on a seldom-used tripod, with the massive 4Thirds digital Zuiko 70-300mm. It's a fine lens made before Micro was appended to the 4:3 sensor system, so it was made to fit the throat of a DSLR-size body. The bargain adapter to make it Micro only makes it larger - and my tripod can handle it but it feels a bit stressed about it. The ePL8 has several nice features including sensor stabilization, tilting rear screen and the valuable LiveTime setting to make long exposure almost easy!

Around my neck was the Nikon D600 and Tamron's 2nd-generation 70-300mm with Vibration Correction. Similarly massive and with stabilized optics, it could use a tripod too, but the other one is buried in the garage somewhere. 

Next comet I'll definitely know where that tripod is - absolutely for sure!

Camera III, the Lumix GX7, stayed indoors with a 45-150mm lens and a Sigma 60/2.8; their turn would come soon enough. I tried for a second time to awaken my bride, she murmured politely and resumed her sleep - drat.

So out I stumbled into a last-quarter moonlit corner of our yard, ready for action. I pretended to level the tripod, turned on the camera and began to shoot. Issue #1: strong blue power-on LED atop the ePL8 is extremely non-astronomer friendly, and will be covered up for the next comet. Issue #2 is the bulky 70-300mm lens, which is just too nose-heavy for the tripod mount to be used vertically. Shots are fine horizontally though so I let it slide. Really though, given the bulk of that lens I need to devise a tripod collar that holds the lens not the camera body.

Using LiveTime on Olympus bodies is really cool, as it allows the image to build up on the LED screen as photons accumulate. After a few seconds though my shots stop doing that, revealing Issue #3. Next time, use a longer refresh time on the LiveTime update so it doesn't use all the updates so quickly. Shots looked good and I dared to zoom in quite a bit for more detailed images. That's Issue #4: wear your best glasses to check on the 3-inch screen, images may in fact not be very well focused. Issue 4a would be to ensure that focus peaking is in fact activated so you rest assured that your focus is on the stars not the foreground branches. And Issue 5 is to remember that more telephoto = more apparent star motion, so that even two seconds of shooting will lead to blurry stars and cometary nuclei, and even blurrier blurry tails.

Man I really should have practiced..

On to the Nikon, which I tried using hand-held at iso1600. Whoa, closed way to fast, revealing Issue -hm, #6 I think: set camera to manual and boost the ISO before stepping outside. I really liked that I could turn the power-on collar to light the top data screen though.  After a couple more shots I took the ePL8 off the tripod and set it in the grass (Issue x+1: have a dry landing place for a non-weather-sealed camera next time!) and leaned the D600 on the tripod for a few shots. 

The sky was quite a bit brighter now, so I decided to swap for the GX7 and give my wife another chance to see the comet. Another failure. I decided more light beat more reach and attached the 60mm f/2.8 lens, then stepped out again. I snapped the Venus/Aldebaran conjunction and felt that took too long to snap - so back to the Issue #whatever with ISO settings and shutter speeds. I then shot the comet again, without tripod assistance (since the attachment piece was still on the ePL8 - sounds like an issue) and for good documentation shot the moon/Mars near-conjunction too. Note the GX7 has a stabilized sensor; note also it was the first Lumix body to have any, so it was admittedly rudimentary compared to Olympus (and the ePL8 is a few years newer at it too).

And so it ended, for a while. I went in and had a cocoa/mocha to warm up, looked on the 3-inch screens at my efforts, and felt really good about things.

Much later in the day I used the fancy WiFi features on the ePL8 to transfer a couple images to my  smartphone, picked my fave and sent it out to the world. Very handy - but Issue XLII (check images on a screen over 5 inches before deciding what a 'good' image looks like) definitely caught me out here. In fact nearly every shot 100mm or longer looked.. not its best. Especially if a tripod wasn't used - and for the GX7 even the 60/2.8 was being a bit ambitious.

Next time, for sure!