The 8th day of the 11th month of the year of the Camellia

Of course the Frog will be there!

Accompanied this year for the first time, the "Elegant Helper"



An old favorite returns after a long hiatus......."Figure Eight"

Finally, for today there will be the "Snow Tree" shown for the first time ever in sepia and in a signed and dated , walnut frame.

See you all there on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at the Talbot County Historical Society Building in Easton, Maryland.  We will be celebrating the shows 40th and my 21st.

 The Easton Waterfowl Festival

The 7th day of the 11th month of the year of the Camellia

Off to the Easton Waterfowl Festival on Wednesday

http://www.waterfowlfestival.org/

The 40th year for the show and my 21st.

Or you can go to their Facebook page at
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Waterfowl-Festival/109349433038

Remember to click on the photo below for the full screen presentation of

this, one of the images, I will have there for display and sale.

The east branch of the Pemigewasset River, New Hampshire

If you come back to visit in the next two days, I will be posting some additional of the images I will be presenting.

The fourth day of the eleventh month of the year of the Camellia

Happy Birthday.......EEEEEEEeeeeeeee!

The 2nd of the 11th month of the year of the Camellia

VOTE!

Because I give a Hoot!



The first day of the 11th month (whew!) of the year of the Camellia

JUST VOTE!

I don't want to hurt ya!

The 29th day of the tenth month of the year of the Camellia

ON THE HUNT!

I had the wonderful pleasure of going " On the

hunt" for the first time in a lot of years.  Hunt with that camera that is.  The weather finally got so that there was actually sunshine this morning at 7:30.

I knew that if the otter was going to show, I could make some decent images and the sunrise caught me at the top end of the RiverWalk in West Columbia.  It was chilly and what minimal lingering mist over the water burnt off very quickly.  I arrived at my destination with just enough light to chronicle the starting point of my search. 

I think that I am going to have to rename the area "Moby Rock"!  You can see the large bolder straight ahead that someone painted an indentation which could represent the whale's eye.

I wasn't aware that whales had green eyes, but it did make me look at that rock in a different way than I had in the past.

While standing there and scanning the water, the otter swam onto shore to my left from the upriver side.  About six feet away and caught me by surprise.   I had assumed he started his morning by swimming up stream.  So much for my intuitiveness.  Or knowledge of wildlife for that matter.  He does fish by going up stream because most fish (his prey) will lie facing the flow of water waiting for something to be washed down to them.  Hence, he can sneak up on them from the rear.  After getting around me, he calmed down and started his day.

For a while he remained back lit and hence all of the detail of his face and body were in silhouette.

The light slowly got a bit better and I was able to get a bit more definition.  The golden hour had not started in this location yet, but I could not resist him taking a brief rest.  These guys are perpetual motion most of the time.

This is a nice little scenic of him and of course with much better light.  I spent two hours trying to keep ahead of him as he worked his way down stream.  Trying to keep the light to my back as much as possible and him as close to shore as possible.  Reminded me of my days in the north woods of Pennsylvania and New Jersey in pursuit of white tail deer. 

The 27th day of the tenth month of the year of the Camellia

Trains of Thought!

Yesterday was foggy and got into the high eighties.  Was on the River Walk early but again with terrible lighting.  My new friend the otter never showed. 

It was sorta like being stood up on a date.....little disappointed, but then it's in somebody else's hands.

  I think that I was only stood up for a date once in my life.  Somewhere back in college when either I was too stupid or conceited to be offended.  Lord, there was a reason back then, when I just wished that I would live to be the ripe old age of forty.  Just don't know how I did it.  Fraternity parties, unknown liaisons, and all that sort of good stuff.  Yeah, I flunked out after sophomore year.  Sold sewing machines and vacume cleaners door to door for the Singer company for a year until I could convince the college to mend their ways and let me back in.

Then there was the story that I destroyed about $4000 worth of carpeting because the demo vacume cleaner belt burnt stripes into the nice new white carpet. 

Believe me kids, you don't want to take that kind of route.

You ever get the feeling that you got through life with smoke and mirrors?  I think I was trained for that in the fraternity. 

 Pledging and all that good stuff....Hell Week! 

Ever play ice hockey in your skivvies?  Different kind of hockey.  You rode a block of ice all around the game room until it melted.  Yup, in your shorts.  Then we had to clean it up.  Couldn't date for two weeks. 

The the "House" bought a pet.  A great dane as I recall.  We pledges had to follow the mutt around with a shovel.  Heck if we had bought a poodle, we could've used a spoon!

I will say that it took me eight years to get two degrees, so maybe I done somethin gud.