As yesterday's fading afternoon light cast long shadows through my front yard, my tulips slowly began to close. Though they weren't open this morning when I checked, the tulips were covered with drops of rain. The tiny, clear drops reminded me of transparent pearls coating the outer petals. Some drops were attached to petals that were nearly perpendicular to the ground and appeared to be too heavy to remain in place. I can only wonder about the forces that kept the drops attached.

Whatever magic was at work, the combination of pearls and petals presented an opportunity to photograph another side of my tulips.

Looking at the world through a camera lens is one of my favorite things to do. Sometimes the lens is a fence and sometimes it's a door.

It's easy to get so caught up with making photographs that I lose sight of what is happening on the other side of my lens. It's not easy to participate when your face is hidden behind plastic and glass. In effect, the camera's lens acts like a fence separating me from the rest of the world. This isn't good or bad. It's just the price paid occasionally when I play photographer.

Sometimes the camera can have the completely opposite effect. Sometimes, instead of acting like a fence between me and the world around me, the camera acts like a door (or a rabbit's hole), an opening into a world full of beauty that is easy to miss. For a little while the camera's door opened this afternoon.

The tulips pictured grow outside my front door. I have seen them bloom and fade every year for the last ten years. Today I saw two of the tulips for the first time. Why today? I don't know. I've never noticed the waves and subtle ripples of the red tulip's inner petals. I've never noticed pollen splashed around the sides of the tulip's bowls. I've never noticed the starburst pattern of yellow and black against a bright, red field. Until today when I walked through the door!

As a photographer, I am always on the lookout for an unusual angle or perspective from which to take a photograph. A slight change to the tilt of the camera or you or both can make the difference between just another snap shot and an outstanding photograph.

The stairs to the second floor of Rex gave me an opportunity to look at Petaluma from an angle I'd never viewed it before. Now there is a roof on the building and paneling on the walls. I don't expect to see the world from this perspective again!

What moon is it? That's a silly question to ask a person of the 21^st century. However, to early people, the answer to that question might mean it was time to plant potatoes.

Before there were calendars, people used the moon to determine when things would happen (floods and tides) or when to do things like plant crops. Ancient people associated the moon with some of life's most important, perpetual cycles. The moon dies, comes back to life, grows and then dies again. Early people saw their own cycle of birth and death mirrored in the moon's monthly cycles. The amount of time between the death of the moon (the new moon) and its reappearance in the eastern sky is about the same as the time from Jesus' death to His Resurrection.

Early people also associated the moon with plants and fertility so the first full moon after the spring equinox (the one used to determine the date of Easter) would have had particular meaning for people happy to have made it through another winter.

Planting by the moon -- There are still people who use the phases of the moon as a planting guide. The most basic rule is to plant crops that grow above ground during the increasing light of the moon and crops that grow below ground in the decreasing light of the moon.

A poem to help you remember -- "Go plant the bean when the moon is light, and you will find that this is right; plant the potatoes when the moon is dark, and to this line you always hark, but if you vary form this rule, you will find you are a fool, if you always follow this rule to the end, you will always have money to spend."

The Harvest Moon is the full moon nearest to the autumnal equinox, which occurs (in the northern hemisphere) on or about September 22rd, and in the southern hemisphere on or about March 21st. Its rising time and path across the sky are similar to those of the Hunter's moon.

Here is a link to a Web site that lets you enter a month between January 3999 BC and December 3999 AD and then shows you the phases of the moon for the month you choose.

http://paulcarlisle.net/mooncalendar/

So why is the Jewish calendar based on the phases of the moon?

My guess is that the Jewish calendar is based upon earlier calendars which were based on the phases of moon.

In a round about way, that explains why Easter is so early this year.

Bulbs may be the easiest and most rewarding flowers you can plant. Bulbs need almost no attention from you. They multiply from year to year and produce some of the prettiest flowers I know of.

I searched the Web on the phrase planting bulbs. The two sites listed below are very informative on many topics about the planting and care of bulbs.

http://www.plantingflowerbulbs.com/

http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/bulbs/planting.html