Dear fellow bloggers. It is with great relief that I acknowledge that this recent snow has smitten me - once again. I've been proclaiming my alienation to winter and deep regret that I would return home to snow and cold. Funny what a little crystalline magic can wrought on a winter-weary heart. The garden angel isn't as thrilled as I as she pulls her ermine cape about her shoulders. The hat is rather smart too - don't you agree?
I didn’t send Christmas cards this year. Time just got away. Unworthily I savored the greeting of those who managed the season with more alacrity than I. Snowy scenes, puffy birds, pop-up Christmas trees, wreath and bows and drifting flakes, beautiful families and their children smiling out a me – they rested in my grateful hands before I propped them against candles, balanced them in garland or coaxed them to stand on their own on the breakfast nook table. Then – the problem. It’s time to move on. But how? How do you toss a message of peace, love or even the milder Season’s Greeting into the same receptacle as the detritus from two week’s worth of mail or the mess you cleaned off the pantry floor? Tough, tough, tough. Guess you’ve just got to move on. I used to save the cards that had a special appeal. Do you know what that habit produces after 40 years?
Time to move ahead – in so many way. The days are lengthening and with the promise of Spring perhaps those greeting card embers that pushed back at the solstice gloom – perhaps it’s a little easier to release them as the year moves ahead. The trick is not to look after them as you drop them into the waste basket – just keep looking up – moving on.
OK. Poor me. But maybe when you hit 60 you'll be a little more sympathetic. The picture from the Outback webcam in Loudonville sort of drained me of any enthusiasm for heading home. Gray and cold - and apparently now 'bitterly' cold. Hope sunshine comes with the frigid air. Oh please, oh please, oh please.
This is the same Reddish Egret as the one I posted last week. A cold front went through this morning. It was cold and rainy. He wasn't enjoying the chilly wind. The temperature will go to 45' tonight.
Nah. Just kidding. Roseate Spoonbills aren't aggressive with Double-crested Cormorants. I thought this juxtaposition was funny. Initially I thought this was a 'beauty & the beast" tableau, but as I look at the Spoonbill's - well, uh . . spoonbill, it really can't be called 'beautiful'. Why is the Cormorant any less aesthetically pleasing? What is beauty? Why do we care? Why do we try to record it - capture it? I don't suppose there are any answers. Just more questions. No matter, we are compelled - we persist.
Sometimes you just start to feel bad for these birds. I find myself moving away quickly after taking a couple pictures. The photographers with the BIG lenses and tripods move in closely for the perfect photos that are so satisfying and I don't blame them - but . . . I really start fret about these birds that are trying to eat - to survive. While we're stalking them for the beauty of their image we may be deterring their ability to go about their routines unencumbered. Ah well - it hasn't stopped me and doubt that it will. I tell myself that really - they don't seem all that troubled. Here's hoping. This bird is an immature Night Heron ( I think Yellow-Crowned )
Laura from 'Somewhere in NJ' was wondering if birds actually appreciate their own reflections. It's not difficult to imagine that this Reddish Egret must have some self-awareness. His pirouettes, grand jettes and fan dance seem very indicative of a healthy confidence born of a bit of preening in a watery mirror.
OK. So it took a gazillion to the nth power shots to get this picture. Got it. This poor bird. It sounded like a press conference whenever it blinked. I'd say there were - oh . . . twenty photographers going for 'the shot'. Between shutter releases the 'ping' of the auto-focuses ricocheted off the bird's beak. Still - who could resist? And just maybe the bird enjoys the admiration. Yeah, that's it. (For the non-birders among ye - it's a Reddish Egret)
Guess who left her computer/drug luggage (all prescription) sitting in the Hertz parking garage. Guess who thought her husband was loading it into the back while she juggled other paraphernalia in the front of the van. Guess who can't believe her good fortune in having put her cell phone number on the tag. Guess who can't believe they didn't blow it up or back a tank over it. Guess who on their way back to the airport spent an hour on the Sanibel causeway while they cleared a fender bender. Guess who kept herself entertained by photographing a Coke craving fish crow on the Sanibel Sierras. The causeway is under construction. The pile of sand was entertaining.
Our internet connection collapsed, the squirrel limb was felled (by the neighbors) and the first winter weather lurked on the western horizon. Each of us had just battled personal assaults on our aging bodies. What to do? Other than illegal drugs, a bit of sunshine sounded good. It was nip and tuck - would our creaky groaning selves permit the transit into light? Better to languish in Florida than sleety Ohio. I crawled out of bed this morning and saw this apparition of moon, ocean and palm trees. A bit later, the sun glinting on the water. Don't pinch me. Let me dream.
OK. Everybody. Anybody. What is that around my husband's feet and why is it there?
The neighbors are going to cut this limb off our tree. It hangs over their grass. You can see where they've already pruned a section of it while I was away (middle picture -I'm pretty sure they checked with my husband). Legally they're entitled to cut down anything that crosses the property line. I suspect this is about grass and the desire for vigorous luxuriant grass. Our trees are on the north side of their lawn and are not the cause of the wimpy green.
The past few days passed from dark gray to light gray and back to dark gray. Rain pattered on the porch's skylights. This morning the sun broke through the clouds. I like the sunburst effect the rising sun made in this photo as its fire was obscured behind a laser-etched disc. The disc throws bright rainbow prisms across the room in the spring and fall when the angle of the sun is optimal. Today I'll settle for this amber glow.
Sitting around the tube . . . er - flat screen which loomed brighter and brighter as the sun went down, I asked my son where I might find a place on the internet to help determine the rate at which the days are lengthening. It is with much pleasure that I offer you this link -a Sunrise Sunset Graph - wherein you can enter your place on this lovely planet and survey the curve that clearly proves that the days are getting longer. Yea! (That is - if you're north of the equator)
Who among you, who have blinked back tears as you stood in the driveway or at the airport curb waving goodbye to a child, needs any explanation of these pictures -beyond the caption: "What I'll Miss"? Nuf said. Well that - and the fact that he's been home for two weeks - enough time to make it seem just natural to hear him coming down the stairs in the morning.
That's my kid-brother holding the ladder. It's the day after Christmas - 2004. That's snow. That's winter. That's lovely - and (lordy, I'm showing my age with this admission) - I don't miss it. I keep thinking I've got to reflect a little more on the poetry inspired by snow - the romance of it - the quiet still sparkling wonder of it.
Hmmm. Practically everyone I know is pushing back at the blues. Well, not everyone, but I think my random sampling across the table during get-togethers with friends and in phone calls with an assortment of friends, relatives and others reveals a definte down-turn in moods. It's just got to be the lack of light. How in heaven's name do people in really northern latitudes manage this time of year? What would we do without laptops/computers? What would we do without the DVD player attatched to the TV? Yes! Yes! I admit it! I spend far too much time in front of the monolith, that is - the altar, er - I mean big flat panel TV.
In the fecund (got this word from Annie Dillard) ,verdant months, this patch of moss would not have drawn my eye. But in the bare, stark landscape of winter it glowed with a reminder of life as it waits in the wings or in this case atop the concrete abutment of a bridge. Admirable tenacity - happy promise.
These balloonists didn't crash land, but we held our breath as they struggled to stay aloft just off my kid-sis's deck in Colorado Springs. Amateurs I guessed , but they managed to gain altitude and floated gracefully away.
