Thanksgiving Day, the 24th day of the 11th month of Emergence

Happy Thanksgiving to all you gobblers out there!

The day before Thanksgiving in the year of Emergence

It snowed in New Hampshire over night.  This is a capture from a webcam in Wolfeboro an hour ago.

The coffee pot, set to automatic, is my alarm clock and this morning the "Pikes place roast" is calling unusually loud only becuase it is so quiet in the cabin.  No red squirrels scampering over the roof.  No great horned owls hooting the woods away.  And certainly not wild cries of the loons penetrating the silence of the lake.  Just the drip, drip of the coffee perking. 

It is one of those mornings that one can simply lay awake and listen to the silence.

I throw on a set of long underwear, woolrich shirt, jeans and boots.  A pine knot or two under a couple of red oak logs will restart last night's fire.  Camera over one shoulder and the old Ithaca double bore  over the other.  I am more likely to shot something with the camera than the gun, but who knows a ruff grouse or even a turkey might present itself in a suicide run. 

And there is an old pine tree that probably predates the native americans that might offer a good image.  Not that I really need to expand my library of 50,000 or so images but my training tells me never, never to go out without the camera. 

I pass the little metal boat called "Putt", upside down on the beach and awaiting the spring fishing crowd.  Sneak through the parking lot with the sign stating that this is where the anglers park.  And on up the hill of the road.  Some one else has cross country skied before me.

Thats ok, the silence is still deafening.  I think that the silence of a new snowfall is the thing that amazes me the most.  It's as if the world has been insulated.  On mornings like this....no wind and the storm clinging to every exposed surface that can catch a snowflake.

The stream that feeds into the lake still runs clear and clean.  One could almost drink the water running over a stream bed created thousands of years ago.  Just incredible when one thinks about it.  A flowing stream is always alive.  The water that is.  Sure there are all kinds of little critters living in the water, but the water itself is never still.  Always moving.  What was, is.  What is, will be.

Eventually, the last sip of coffee is cold.  The morning light is too late for that tree.  No grouse or turkey, which is probably a good thing because I did'nt have to interrupts God's stillness.  No bear or moose for that "Will you look at that moment".  Just a pleasant moment in a lifetime of sometime pleasant moments.  Just the kind of moment to wish my family and friends a happy and wonerful family Thanksgiving.

The 21st day of the eleventh month of Emergence

On a clear day, you can see forever!

My gratitude to Dr. Bristow, another of Dr. Smith's fantastic posse.

You guys are keeping me alive with duck tape and bailing wire, and I appreciate it.  My little procedure went well and I have written proof from my proctologist that they in fact did not find my head.

The 20th day of the 11th month of Emergence

Life is just an adventure.

And I guess that's how you got to look at it.  Today's blog will fall into the TMI category but as I have said in the past it's my blog, so suffer!  A few days ago my idol was decimated by scandal and now he has lung cancer. So when it rains it pours.  I looked at the Drudge report a day or so ago and was sure the world was coming to an end within the hour.  It started out at 34 degrees yesterday morning but got up to 80 by three o'clock.  What did the guy say....if they give you lemons make lemonade?  Or maybe whiskey sours!  God.....the glass has to be half full and not empty.  So for all you guys living in your mother's basement or garage, go back on your little puter and be positive.

This morning after building my cup of Pikes Place Roast (bless you Starbucks) without cream, it was then my chore to mix the Dy-NO-Mite cocktail in preparation for tomorrow's colonoscopy (hence forth the "C" word).  See, life truly is  an adventure.

Now why in the world would we as rational human beings pay $7.00 to put themselves through the anticipated agony that even an afternoon of professional football won't cure.  We all know that the results of this stuff will be challenging, but another adventure.

I got a call from the nurses yesterday to A.) check if I was all ready and remind me that I have to be there at a certain time and to call if I was going to be out of the country.  And 2.) to assure me that they were all ready.

Well, that was encouraging.  I just wonder what possesses a man, or woman for that matter to become a proctologist.  "Hi what's your Major............Oh thank you for asking it's proctology".  God I pass enough of those on the streets everyday, why do all that studying just to see another one?  And up close and personal at that.  God Bless em!

I think there's a reason why the sign at the right says "No trespassing"

  Furthermore, if that Rib eye in the fridge winks at me again I will grill the SOB up just for practice.

The 17th day of the eleventh month of the year of Emergence

I just posted the banner for this blog on FAA

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/lookin-in-skip-willits.html

Here are a couple more images of  "Looking In"

I will probably post him to FAA shortly.

Maybe her too.

Then there's the laughing pony.

The 15th day of the 11th month of Emergence

Two new listings of FAA!

Both of these images may be purchased as note or Christmas cards on Fine Art America along with tons of the same type of cards from thousands of artists.

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/farmers-christmas-skip-willits.html

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/a-christmas-gaggle-skip-willits.html

There will be more to come in the next few days.  Who would of thought of it, getting ready for Christmas even before Thanksgiving.  It's as bad as the politicos running for office a year and a half ahead of time.  Eighty degrees here today....Happy Fall!

The 14th day of the 11th month of Emergence

Minding the roots at Tavern Creek-12

I suppose the weather in the Mid-Atlantic is becoming a little more like winter, but if my memory serves the real winter won't show up till Jan and Feb.  One of the nice (?) things about winter on the bay is the congregation of Canvasback ducks. Called "The king of ducks" because of their superb flavor.  Me, I just like to watch and photograph them.  Remember to double click the photograph for a better resolution.

These are diving ducks and that means only one thing.  They need water to live.  Open water!  And when their home body of water freezes over, they congregate wherever they can find it.  Ice is not their friend.  Often hundreds, if not thousands, can be found in flocks around the bay and the area around the Tavern and Swan Creeks is a perfect place.

This is the western edge of Swan Creek at it's mouth.  The Tavern lies just beyond that cedar tree in the middle of the scene.  Out of frame to the right and up against the shore there is a deep hole that holds all kinds of fish during the summer months.  This is a spot not known by many but I have been seen catching my fill of white perch there for over fifty years. 

It can be seen that the bay is pretty much frozen over.  Not too many years in history has it been completely frozen, although some of the old timers (Who am I kidding?) will tell of the time that they drove their tin lizzies across to Baltimore.   (If you don't know what a tin lizzie is, you're way to young so Google it).  Now fishing tales and the reminiscences of old men alike should be questioned for their veracity, but that's the story and I for one will stick to it.

The little channel to Tavern starts at the left of this image and runs roughly to just off the point of land to the right.  Not a big channels as waterways go.  I can remember many times running the little fourteen footer aground either to the left or right as I moved across the big creek.  The open water to the top and off the point is for the most part two to three feet deep depending upon the tide.  Once the point is reached, a hard right turn takes one into the Tavern.  Swan Point is just beyond the Tavern to the right.  Actually, the whole area is known as Swan Point as a general term of location.  Not that many are familiar with the Tavern.

  This is basically the view I had to live with throughout my teenage and early adult life.  It is absolutely amazing the things one can see if they take the time.  From this location I have seen container ships headed to or from  the port of Baltimore along side of a hundred year old sailing vessel known as a Skipjack.  The beginning and end of wonderful summer thunder storms.  Flat bottom waterman's boats rigged for clamming, oystering, drift netting, and or crabbing.  Just about every size sailboat made.  People with clothes and without.  Muscle boats that one can hear from miles away, even before they come into sight.  Each of the latter it seems complete with the required and factory equipped pretty girl (for the politically incorrect insert dumb blond joke here). 

But when I sit back and really look, some of the most amazing things I have seen have always been associated with mother nature.  Her beauty and power.

Probably could have done worse! 

The 12th day of the eleventh month of Emergence

Today is not going to be an easy day!

Not only am I into the fourth day of my semi annual six month head cold, but the Doc. has me drugged up to the point that I am likely to say stupid things.............Again.

There will be no nice photographs here today, just pontificating on my part.  For you see I must watch my Alma Mater play a football game.  It will be difficult.  Some 46 years ago, I saw Joe Paterno take over the coaching role from Rip Engle at Penn State.  No, I was there and watched.  That will give you some idea of how old I am.  Of course I have weathered much better than Joe and and am much more handsome at this point.

However!

No longer will I have the opportunity to say to my Grandson...."Ben, now that is a man you can model yourself after".  My idol, my icon, had feet of clay.  Or at least is being given feet of clay by the media.  Either way it does not matter a whit.  I am devastated by the very thought of all those little boys, my grandson's age, who had to endure what turned out to be the attentions of a monster.  I am devastated that my idol, my icon did not take more appropriate steps when first informed.  But we may not know all the details yet and we all know the devil is in the details.

For the monster, you face a sure and probably painful death.  Prisoners in "The System" do not look fondly at child molesters and you are likely to become someones bitch only till he gets close enough to put a knife in you.  For my idol, my icon..........I only wish you could have left with some dignity.  You earned that right, but alas squandered it.

This game today with Nebraska will get played.  I implore the students and other fans to act like the adults you are.

 Players, well you have taken some four plus years to get to this point.  Some of you have aspirations for the pros.  Others will take their educations elsewhere.  You don't deserve all this mess and had nothing to do with it, but you do deserve to play this game with the same skill and verve as if nothing else had happened.  I wish you all the luck in the world and will be cheering for you individually.

 Students, be rabid for your team but be sensible.  By the way is the "Skeller" still there?  Rioting has no place at my Alma Mater because,

 "We Are"!

11-11-11 the year of Emergence

Minding the roots at Tavern Creek-11

The strange thing about this post is that.... I found this one to be the eleventh.  Wow, a coincidence?
Maybe I should wait till eleven after eleven this morning to post it.  Nah, not that interested in the numerology thing.

To reach Tavern Creek directly we had to make an overland trip by car from central New Jersey to the Eastern shore of MD on the Chesapeake.  The destination, if you have been following, was a little place called Gratitude which is in a little place called Rock Hall.  Rock Hall in the mid fifties consisted of  maybe about 2,000 souls and what appeared to be six hundred black, brown, or Chesapeake bay Labrador retriever dogs of questionable family lineages.  And, most of whom slept on the broken white lines of the three main roads in the town.  Yep it was that slow.  But when one passed another car or truck coming towards you, you needed to wave cause the other person was going to.  We started in a little summer home on Lawton Ave right across the street from Swan creek, which was adjacent to Tavern Creek, which was adjacent to the bay itself.  Being in my teens, I probably didn't pay much attention to the adults living out there.  But there were some with "Character".

Dorsey Loan, (sp) live next door to the third house we owned out there.  I think that he was a retired machinist of some kind.  Could have been one of the local town drunks but I'm not sure.  That revered position was taken over some years later by one of my childhood friends, Sonny of aka Festus.  I think that Dorsey had a crush on my mother, but then again he probably had a crush on most any woman who crossed his path.  He rented boat slips and sold some gas from the little dock he had on his property. Was in a constant state of pontification because he was educated and wanted everyone to know it.

I did not know too much about Jack Smollins (sp) other than he lived there on the point and carved wood for a living.  Well, I guess it was a living.  At that time all I remember was walking into his house one Saturday night and thinking the house was on fire.  But all I could find was the smoke and it made you feel funny.  I guess, and this would have been in the late fifties or early sixties and Jack was evidently kinda living a little of the flower child life.  However, his enduring legacy is the carving of the waterman that one finds as one enters Rock Hall.

Then there were the Walberts who lived a couple of houses down.  They had three kids and he did construction.  He helped my father rebuild most of the houses we bought there.   I kept in touch with their middle son, Donny, for almost forty years.

Bill and Annette Woolford ran the little fishing dock and four booth restaurant across the street from us.  Bill was a painter by trade and Annette ran the place.  I remember during Hurricane Hazel, she stood in water up to her knees making us kids hamburgers on the gas stove because we helped to secure the boats.  I mean this was in the storm, not before or afterward............but IN.  Walking out the dock in three feet of water and holding onto ropes so we weren't swept out to sea.  Talk about true grit.  Annette was the mother we didn't have when we were away from our own houses.  Down to earth and in full command of the street language that scared the pants off we kids.  You could always get a good lunch,  rent a boat, buy bait and use their dock for whatever it is kids wanted to do when they thought they were unsupervised.  We were always supervised!

There are many others but time has done this thing to my memory.  Rock Hall was always a cool place to go with my father on Saturday morning to a little market right on Main Street.  Dad was gregarious and had to talk to everybody.  I wish I could remember the names of the people who ran all the little shops.  All I can remember is that one of them, it might have been Emil, was "Dating" Ms. Durding who ran the drugstore on the corner.  Course we kids didn't know anything about all that.  Mr. Stenger ran the hardware store that generally was out of what you were looking for.  And I forget the man that ran the 5 & 10 cent store, but the place always remined me of a ladies ware store.

Durdings, the building on the left in this 1990's image, was the "Hangout" for us kids.  Olde tyme soda fountain, penny candy, the whole nine yards.  Ms. Durding would put up with us kids only so long and kick us either out of the store or off the front steps.  If I recall she was armed with a broom.  Years, later when I was running a one hour film lab in Chestertown, MD, she came in to have some film developed.

  I will always remember saying "Helen Durding?....You probably don't remember me but you kicked me out of your store more times than I care to remember.  Helen, get outa my store!"  She of course knew who I was and expected some smart comment from me.  We laughed about all that for years.  She really was a fine lady, constantly interested in how we were doing.

Little towns generally don't' change much too quickly.  This view of Rock Hall is on a postcard probably printed in the 1930's.  The streets had not been paved then.  The one below in the 50's.  It is amazing the amount of visual is found on the old postcards.

The above view is from the other direction, looking south.  So Durdings would be at the end of the street on the right.  This is an old linen postcard from the fifties and the grain of the paper pattern is visible in the photo.  The relative prosperity of the town can be noted by the number of vehicles which were probably late forties vintage.  Things were kept neat, but there was not a lot of extra money around to buy fancy cars.  Most extra dollars went to boats and farm equipment which provided the local folks with their primary source of income.  Farming and the water were the income sources back then and the sailing tourist boom was still thirty years away.

Out of frame and to the right (behind the perspective) was an old bowling alley which was also a popular hangout but is now gone.  That was another place for a kid from out of town....either you had to fight good or be with someone who could (always my choice)........or you could run like hell!  I must admit at that age I was pretty fast.  A waterman friend told me one day while describing the Rock Hall boys.  "If Joe Frazier was coming to town, the boys would fight each other all day long to see who got to fight him that night.  All the time knowing they was going to get their butts kicked."  Small towns.  Gotta love em.

The ninth day of the eleventh month of Emergence

Just another tease!

The eighth day in the next to last

Fall is hitting the south.

Two images made along the Saluda River just north and west of downtown Columbia, SC.  I think we made it to eighty degrees yesterday.  Maybe seventy today, so fall may just be defined a little differently down here as opposed to above the Mason Dixon Line.  At any rate, I'll take it.  Had a nice walk to the

  

The 7th day of the 11th month of Emergence

Misadventures of Deuce and the Hootster

As some of the more astute amongst you know, I live in a kennel!  Well, not really but two dogs and two cockatiel birds come close enough for me.  All we need is a cat to complete the food chain.

To bring you all up to speed, Deuce is the second (Duh) bird to come our way.  The first one flew out the back door by mistake because his feathers had not been clipped in a timely fashion.

Cockatiels are flock birds that need company.  We humans are supposed to be their flock in lieu of a mess of the real things.  This guy is about as paranoid as you can get.  He is the early warning system in our house, screaming when anything even passes one of the windows.  This immediately is the signal for the little dog to start barking and the big dog to bark back-up.  The real big dog then starts screaming at the whole bunch to be quiet.  Must sound good in the spring and fall when all the windows are open.

Thinking that Deuce really needed companionship, and the real thing at that, we allowed the crafty bird saleslady to talk us into giving a home to Hooty (because he looks like and owl?). 

If you want to really be scared, double click on the images for full screen.  Because they are flock birds, they are all supposed to look pretty much the same because there is safety in numbers.  Somewhere along the line, this guy got a pair of jeans messed up.  His coloration just is not right and hence he is treated as an outcast. 

I am sure that Deuce thinks that the Hootster is just plain weird.  Hooty also has a much sharper beak (hole punch if you will) and is not afraid to use it.  One is primarily but is not aggressive to the other bird, but people are a whole nuther question.  Go figure, but he can bite and he can draw blood.  So much for devotion and gratitude to tender loving care.

This weekend past, we allowed them both out of the cage to sit on the kitchen window and talk to the real wild birds on the feeder.  They seemed to enjoy it no end.  Neither bird talks, like in human baby talk for instance, but Deuce does do a wolf whistle.  The chickadees and cardinals have no idea what that's all about, but Deuce apparently feels that they should.  I don't know, it never worked for me either!

 I guess from the wild bird's point of view these two just did not make the cut, and hence the communication was pretty much one sided.  But they did have fun, I took a mess of photos and they got their dose of vitamin D from all that sunshine. 

The sixth day of the 11th month of Emergence

Riverbanks Zoo last week

You can tell it's the south!

The fruit loop

I know the Meercat thing is over, but they still have character.

This is just a great piece of art

A really clean fountain

The fourth of November in the year of Emergence

A TRIBUTE TO A SPECIAL YOUNG LADY

Eighteen years ago. a special young lady was born in Philadelphia to my daughter and her husband.  She was special in many ways, being the first grand child not withstanding.  Elizabeth is the type of person who make grandparents just sit back and glow.  I, for one,  could not be more proud of what she has accomplished in her young life.  This is a gal who is doing it right in a world that has it all wrong!  And that's not easy.  Good grades, a solid moral compass, stunning looks, a sense of family, community and captain of cross country. 

I simply wish you a happy birthday "E". 

Know that I love you and am incredibly curious to see what the next 18 years bring for you.  You of course will have more than that, but the formative years are still happening.  There will be some in the future who will want to try to bend your values and goals to their own agenda, but stay the course and be your own person.  Your foundation has been fantastic and you should be congratulated for all you've done to date.  Course your grand parents had a lot to do with all that and your parents as well.

  You will note that I have not used the old soccer image that I made of you a hundred years ago, and for that I know you're grateful.  Love you and have a wonderful day.

Grand Dad 

The second day of the eleventh month

A NICE GROUPING

All three images may be purchased separately in the sizes you would like at my FAA site.

http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/skip-willits.html?tab=artworkgalleries&artworkgalleryid=117800

The first day of the eleventh month of the year of Emergence

CAN YOU IMAGINE?

Shortly after 1529, you are tasked with exploring what is now western North Carolina in search for that elusive route to the treasure of the far east.  You probably had only a canoe and your feet for transportation and that was complicated by a native people who thought you looked pretty strange and were hence assumed to be hostile.

Furthermore, you were faced with this as your GPS!

In winter this job became not only cold but downright slippery.

Spotty rime ice covered sections of the mountains you had to claw over.  Snow, wind, fog and rain were commonplace depending upon the time of the year.  Just the thought of getting from point A in a vista to point B had to be daunting.  Furthermore, those folks did not have the clothing we modern hikers enjoy.  And who knew? Were those incredibly bright red Mountain Ash berries edible, even with the available refrigeration?

Or if you were lucky enough to have bartered a canoe, what were the perils of the unknown mountain rivers and streams. 

Portages into the unknown could be undertaken easily, but not at ease because the next turn may have held utter disaster

All of a sudden you could find yourself in the shoot at Linville Falls.

In a flash, in a canoe, the result would not have been pretty.  You have to look closely, but those are people on the rocks under the upper pool and below the two smaller falls.

What a chore being an explorer was way back when!  I fear, left up to our current devices, that today it never would have happened.  Couch potatoes, video games and an overweight population would have made it difficult to get much further west of Pamlico Sound.  But then the beach is nice too.