So my old scanner is unusable because our last Windows XP laptop bit the dust and you can't get drives for this circa Y2K scanner for Windows 7. But I scored a cast-off scanner at work that will run with 7, but spent all morning trying to clean the platen glass (every household spray, mineral spirits, acetone, plutonium) and the glass is still streaky. Oh well. Don't have $2,500 for the scanner I want. Too cheap to spend $60 for something that would work OK. Guess I'll have to start doing more camera work. Despite all that, this one didn't turn out too bad: A selection of spring ephemerals that I'd have gotten really muddy trying to shoot in situ: And some fuzzy hellebores, which are much more attractive in person.

Yes. I know it's March already. (Though you wouldn't know it by looking outside.) I had these scans ready to go a couple days after bloom day, but never found time to get them online until now. Maybe a change in the weather will bring on some ephemerals for March bloom day. But I'm not holding my breath.

I was surprised to find a huge tuber buried in the pot of the florist's cyclamen I bought last winter from Hortus Forum, our undergrad horticulture club at Cornell University. These plants -- like forced bulbs -- are usually considered disposable after they flower. But I'm glad I saved this one to give some angels to dance on the kitchen window sill. Landscape: Portrait 4-square Kaleidoscope Mosaic: Detail

Been too busy lately to do any scans. But I did grab some grass pix over the weekend and went through the usual manipulations with one that I usually do with scans. The original image: 4-pane: Kaleidoscope: Mosaic: Mosaic detail: