The 30th of September of the year of Emergence

When Ambien fails!

You know when it happens.  Those nights, when all the TV and/or reading just doesn't work.  The drugs of choice for we insomniacs won't touch it.  What is it with our internal clocks.  Or maybe, like myself, our small brains just try to work overtime and sleep comes only when there is an hour or two of night left.  Figures!  Murphy was truly an optimist.

I have found that often my memory (long term because short term is shot) can carry me back to things I find soothing.  Well if not soothing, then something that can help me gain the unconsciousness I look for.  For me that memory flash often revolves around photography, places I have been, or things I enjoy doing.  Generally all of the above!  Or in my case, it most likely was a past fishing trip.  Such a catharsis often starts on the big lake in New Hampshire.

A number of times, when we put the lake to bed, there is no breeze blowing and a colorful sunset.  Such conditions portend a upcoming morning ideal for small craft and the pursuit of such finny creatures that swim.

On nights like these the pines will hardly whisper and the hoots of the owls in the deep woods with reverberate with unerring pleads for a mate or at least a friend.  The loons will bounce their haunting calls over flats expanses of water as if in an echo chamber.  The Lord promises that the next morning will be like that of the first day he created.  

However, a night wind whispering or roaring through  the pines, will portend more of the same the next morning.  Which in the spring means an extra cup of Pikes Place Roast (bless you Starbucks), extra layers of long underwear, sweaters, and gloves plus hats to cover the more delicate tools of the angler's trade.

We always leave the dock and head around the "Summer house" or the gazebo on the small point of land upon which the cabin complex is found.  This is the eastern shore of the lake and as such will not show the light until the sun is at least an hour over the horizon.

  The water is black along the shore, even though at noon we can see bottom ten feet down. At this time of day all is dark with a shoreline that offers mystery, hope, anticipation, and the feeling of being isolated with nature.  The water brightens as we slip quietly offshore.  Colors move from the black of night to a silver blue cast of a rising sun without the contaminants of pollution that create a bight and colorful sunrise.   A hard blue, crystal clear sky promises a slight breeze and chop on the water in an hour or two.  Until them we contend with a gentle start to the dahy and a flat lake that gives up her secrets with every ripple.

Oh my gosh!  I think I am falling asleep!

The 29th day of the nineth month of Emergence

Lonesome

The 28th of the ninth

Just a teaser

THE 23RD DAY OF THE NINTH MONTH OF THE YEAR OF EMERGENCE

"SEAGULL"

Since it has been raining here for the last day or so and has been cloudy for the better part of a week, I thought a beach scene would be appropriate.

This is truly the calm before the storm.  Not a breath of air blowing across the ocean and still non threatening enough for people to still be on the beach.  Or in my case in the water taking photographs.  As soon as the first lightening showed up, it was time to get to more a protected place.  But prior to that it is nice to just enjoy the almost electric calm of the air and watch the argument develop amongst the clouds.  Double click for full screen.

The 21st day of the 9th month of the year of Emergence

A hidden window in a hidden garden.

We go to the top of the mountain just to see what is on the other side.  Same here?

The 20th day of the ninth month of the year of Emergence

Maybe it's just me, but these guys are just as beautiful as the tigers I have photographed.  Maybe it's the color orange or the brown.  This guy is a yearling at the Riverbanks Zoo.

If you can only imagine the work it takes to get that face onto the ground to pull up a plant by the roots.  They have to spread their front legs as wide as they can just to get their face in the dirt. 

THE 19TH OF THE NINE

Storm clouds seem to be all the rage now.  I took this one in Maryland a year ago at my son's place in Warwick, MD.  We were standing in his drive with the grandkids watching this thing approach.  I remember his comment well.  "Maybe we should head for the basement Dad!"  Man it was tough leaving that thing to head for saftey.  We had no problems, but I can now identify with those folks in tornado alley!  Once again, I should have been a storm chaser!  Next life!

Remember to double click for full screen.

The 17th of the 9th of the year of Emergence

A lovely spot, too much glare, and a little photoshopping of the bright spots.

I just listed this great wall accent on FAA, see the link to the upper left of this page and remember to double click for full screen.

I found this little pond at the Riverbanks Zoo gardens the other day.  It's hidden in a new area they are developing for kids.  Only place that I have been able to find a common frog at the zoo.  But, I thought the water lily had charm particularly with the background darkened to offer a metallic impression.  The frog will have to wait for his ten seconds of fame.

The sixteenth day of the ninth month of the year of Emergence

Sixty four degrees this morning for the first time since early spring.  A chance to turn the AC off and open the windows.  A nice breeze blowing in some rain a little later.  Almost wants me to go out and split some wood and kindling for the winter.  Almost!  That was a different time, but it would be nice to spend a morning outdoors.

September always reminds me that fall is coming.  The faint blush of color in the woods not unlike these trees at Valley Forge. 

It used to be the first day of school.  Always used to seem that Sept. 1 instantly got cooler.  The first chilly morning like this morning.  It was always still too warm to wear gloves to school, but one had to put one's hands in pockets while riding the bike.  Just enough chill to make a young teenager too cold too early.  Look Ma no hands! 

The realization that the Ospreys have flown south, always on the fifteenth, like clockwork.

 We'll be back to ninety degrees later next week, but this morning is pure nostalgia.

  I expect to hear a flock of geese fly over or a frost warning from the weather channel.  Of course they might not be able to find time to actually give the weather, but that is another of my pet peeves.

  Perhaps tomorrow morning there will be some rhime ice around the big lake in New Hampshire, but probably too early even there.  God, I remember the other end of winter up there when we went fishing for the landlocks.  Some mornings so cold that we had to knock the frost off the seats of the boat and the guides on the fishing rods froze with water from the lines.  But that too is another story.  For today, I will just enjoy an atmospheric change that makes the mind drift.

The 15th day of the 9th month of the year of Emergence

I remember well, a hundred years ago, that this day marked the second week of the new school year.  Woke up to 68 degrees this morning for the first time since the spring and was well aware that the seasons are a changin. 

Yesterday, instead of school and I really do wish I were that age again but knowing what I know now, I spent two hours at the Riverbank Zoo and Gardens.  Specifically the garden.  This time of year also brings about migrating butterflies and of course some resident stuff.  It was kinda cool.  No one was there and I had the place almost to my own self, as they say.  The zoo is nationally renowned and the gardens are outstanding.  Surpassed only by the Victorian gardens at the Hereford Inlet lighthouse in Anglesea, New Jersey.  Remember to double click for full screen.

I loved the way the light played through the elephant ear!

A pair of Kimodo Dragons (actually a couple of lizards) running around an oriental display.

The water feature runs the length of the gardens.

A pair of grasshoppers.

A hidden window.

A place to rest.

And I found a swallow tail.  Who knew, this was the reason to go in the first place!

The 14th day of the 9th month of the year of Emergence

Talk about small business being vulnerable!

This man is a Chesapeake Bay Waterman, or commercial fisherman.  Seen here he is readying crab pots for distribution  in the bay.  The boat in the foreground is actually a Tangier Island boat from Virginia while the background is Smith Island in Maryland.  Both islands are accessible only by boat from the mainland.

While the rest of we small business must worry about product, creativity, employees, taxes, and government intrusion  (control) these people must also worry about the acts of God things called Nature.  They are constantly battling weather, long hours, and a production that is limited by not only their own energy but natural propagation of the species for which they fish.  Throw on top of that about $100,000 worth of equipment and a gas cost that would choke a sheik----so it's no wonder crab prices at retail could reach $200 a bushel.   So a tough job.

The 13th day of the 9th month of the year of Emergernce

Fall is coming, the sunsets are becoming more like October and November than July and August.

Sixty six degrees this morning and crystal clear meaning the humidity is actually decent.  A nice day till it reaches ninety again.

The 12th day of the 9th month of the year of Emergence

Someone, before this day is out, is bound to ask me what I did on September 12 ten years ago.

Such a landmark day when everything in this country had changed.  As I recall, I did not physically do anything.  Mentally, well that may be another story.  One I am not so sure I know how to put to paper, or on the computer now that paper writing is relegated to but a few who really know what they are doing.  Today I try to arrange some thoughts regarding my own last ten years, how I view things through my meager words, and one of my photos.  My remembrance of the 12th ten years ago was that my world was stormy with a weird light.

I was working (part time)  at a menial job for a builder who was unable to trust anyone despite how hard they worked or how honest they were.  I was one of the first unpublished antique pickers, auction sellers, and buyers at a local auction which is a book all of it's own.  I was watching two wonderful kids build their families and was probably not as much a part of that as I should have been.  I was making pictures that would occasionally sell at art shows, fairs, to publishers and kidding myself that I was not retired and doing all of this for profit and not just for fun.  I never have been able to do things the easy way.

 I had just spent an entire day in front of the television watching a few blocks of a city come apart at the seams.  Wondering if any colleagues I knew had died.  Knowing some had.  I worked for 25 years within a block or two of that insane apocalypse.  What could I do two hundred miles away other than to grow angry at those who caused what now is called simply nine eleven? 

So I have learned to yell at the television news everyday.  Learned to distrust, more and more, the politicians that the people of my country elect and send to Washington every year.  They (the people)  keep doing the same thing,  getting the same results, but expecting more.  I have stocked up on dried food in case of emergency, boxes of ammunition, and cases of bottled water.  Most probably I will die of a stroke before I need any of that stuff. 

But life is good!

In reality, we live in a country that offers individuals every chance to succeed.  Well, if not succeed at least to live a decent life.  We get the chance to screw up our own lives all by ourselves without outside influence.  And some of us do a pretty good job of it.  We are not Europe or Asia.  We are the US and as such are the most blessed people on the planet. If only by birth.  We are part of a system that actually works.  The system needs to be tweaked a little bit every hundred years or so, but it is the best and most proven, productive system in the universe.  In the long run everything is going to be just fine.  I am only angry now that I am so dam old that I could not be part of a proactive defense of our system.  I am sure I would have made a great James Bond, but now am only an aging Winston Churchill.  Will someone please pass the cigars!

TEN YEARS LATER

To those who gave their ultimate and their families..........We love you and pray for you!

We will never forget!

To those who continue to serve and protect....We thank you!

And to those who continue to wish us harm.  It won't work....We got you, or if you persist will get you.

The 8th day of the 9th month of the year of Emergence

I am in the mood for some steamed Chesapeake Bay blued crabs.

Course I would want them steamed to a nice red color, in a big pile on brown paper so they could be picked with a knife.  And the mess just cleaned up by rolling up the trash in the paper.  Followed by a shower cause I make a mess with a mess of crabs.

The 7th of the 9th

Beach day for the Laborers!

We spent Monday, Labor Day, at Edisto Beach in South Carolina with about 150 of our newest and closest (?) friends of the moment. 

Of course it rained, but that's OK.

While this is not part of Hurricane Irene, that storm did leave piles of sea shells all over the beach.  Most of them were broken, but there were some serious "Shellers" there.  We spent a lot of time digging through that which was left against this groin which goes out into the ocean in an attempt at maintaining the sand on the beach.  One couple had a real operation going with shovels, screens, tables, and kept going rain or shine.  I didn't stop to ask why the elaborate setup, but remember seeing people like them on Sanibel Island in Florida years ago.  Serious collectors or commercial shell "Pickers".  Have no idea which.  Yes, we got rained upon and no Missy did not like the surf.  Her first outing in the ocean and she was not impressed.  As part border collie, she barked and talked to people who had the audacity to take their children into the surf.  Certainly an unsafe undertaking in her mind.  And what no proper parent should do.

She did get wet from the surf and also did not like the taste of the salt water.  Remember to double click for full screen. 

It was interesting to watch how people handled the rain.  Some had elaborate beach umbrellas.  Others like ourselves headed for the cars to wait out the heaviest of the rain.  Others hung out at the park offices (State Park).  And others just sat at their picnic tables and continued to eat soggy burgers and dogs.  All in all a pretty good day.  Love a rainy day at the beach, but then I've been called a masochist before.

The sixth day of the ninth month of the year of Emergence

Well, there is this problem with birds.  Particluarly those kept in captivity as pets.  And particularly our bird, "Deuce".  Because he's the second one, he gets that name.

But what about the third one?  Tripp? Tre? Tray? Trey? Three? Tres?  Thrip?

No of course not....."Hooty" because he looks like an owl and not a cockateal.  Go figure!

Duece had be sent into exile at the bird store because of his constant screaming, so he had a two week vacation.  Absolute bliss!  Well, like in all May to September relationships he found a friend....Hooty.  We got Deuce home and he seemed to be miserable, so back to the indideous bird store to get his friend and now we have two birds that frankly now can't stand one another. 

 Go figure!  It must be September...Duh!

The fifth day of the ninth month

Well, I have been delinquent.  MIA.  Writer's block.  Lazy.  Haven't written in a few days which has been duly noted by some of my more astute readers.

On Saturday past, day before yesterday, two days ago, we visited the local zoo for a feeding.  No not us, but the baby Toucans born July 16th.  These are the "Fruit Loop" birds.  They have bills almost as big as their bodies.

Of course when one photographs through screening a coupled of things happen, both of which make the photograph almost worthless.  But we keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different outcome.  Yeah, I know what that means.  Remember this is not my first attempt at being cute.  As you can see when compared to the adult bird, the "Little" guys do not have the coloration of the adult and therefore do not qualify for the cover of a cereal box.

Different screen, same outcome!  Mom  or Pop.  I don't know where to look on a toucan to tell the difference.

My labor day weekend on the blog is building and there will be more silliness to come tomorrow, but I leave you with an image of one of my favorite critters at the zoo.

Remember to double click on the image for full screen which actually does work a whole lot better on the elephant image because there is no screen.