Readers of this blog with good memories know that I love pelicans. At the beach this weekend (San Clemente, CA – can’t you tell from the photo?) I managed to snap a fast-moving squadron as they passed overhead.
Pelicans flying fast.
This week’s Photo Challenge wants to see one image shot two ways. I often take two photos, one landscape (wider than tall) and one portrait (opposite). After years of doing this, it was only when assembling images for this post that I discovered that I always prefer the portrait result. The scene feels closer and more immediate. Nonetheless I expect to continue to take photos from both perspectives.
Moonset at sunrise, landscape mode
Moonset at sunrise, portrait mode
What do you think? Are there shots here where you prefer the landscape?
Dead tree, portrait mode
Dead tree, landscape mode
Trail, portrait mode
Trail, landscape mode
For many years I feared spiders but once I became a gardener I became quite fond of them – provided they do not get toooo close.
My garden is filled with a really interesting spider and I ‘d like to get your help to identify it. Here is one away from its plants.
Looking online once, I found a Green Lynx spider that sounded similar to this fellow but I am just not sure.
Is this a Green Lynx spider?
You can’t see it in this picture but it has what looks like a large, powerful jaw. I would have to get really close to take that picture. I won’t be taking that picture.
In late summer, these spiders spend al their time next to egg sacs (I probably have the terminology wrong) that look like fuzzy white balls, about 1/2 inch (1 cm) diameter. When the fall winds arrive, the sacs blow apart and tiny spiders are blown all over the neighborhood.
This is where somebody tells me that these are deadly poisonous and it is a miracle that anyone in the neighborhood still survives, right?
I love watching pelicans. Their wave-skimming flight, their tight formations with many birds veering as one, their precision dives – they always get their fish! Watching pelicans reminds me of Gary Larsen’s Far Side frame with the buzzards wearing shades and the caption “birds of prey know they’re cool”.
Every once in a while, I catch some pelicanness on camera.
Pelican at sunrise, East River, NYC.
Pelicans at sunrise, Carlsbad Beach, San Diego County, CA
They’re up there. Really.
Wildfires can be so destructive and at one time I hated to look at a recently burned hillside. However, I have come to realize that a burned slope has a unique, stark beauty.
The Station fire was a large wildfire in the San Gabriel Mountains (near my southern CA home) in 2009.
The fire burned hot and fast and the slopes looked like this afterward.
But, a few months later, each of those moonscape skeletons already showed regrowth.
Within a couple years, the hills were back to looking like this.
Of course, part of my appreciation may come from knowing that around here, the hill likely holds native chaparral plants which are adapted to wildfire and usually bounce back, no matter how dead they initially seem.
Everywhere in Florida there are Beware of Alligators warning signs but after several trips to Florida with no ‘gator sightings, I was despondent. So the family took us to a long walkway inserted into the Everglades, and I saw this alligator – dive below the surface. See him? Right where those rings are.
Alligator evidence.
Note to other travelers: we visited the Everglades in late summer. Mosquito season. Not recommended. (With three applications of bug spray, wearing long sleeves and pants, we got away easy with only a few thousand bites. Each.)
(Posted as part of the Weekly Photo Challenge.)
True story from some friends…
Peaches was a rescue dog who liked being the only dog. A big, arthritic German Shepherd, she had the air of a retired police dog (though she wasn’t one). On walks, she avoided other dogs, and when house guests visited they had to leave their dogs at home.
One night on a walk, she suddenly dragged her people across a street toward another dog. They feared her attitude had worsened and that she was about to pick her first fight. Instead, she stopped next to a morose stray and sat down. Never had a dog looked as unhappy with freedom as this stray did.
The stray was short and funny-looking, with a barrel chest and a long pointy snout. The people named her Edna and – with Peaches’ clear permission – they brought Edna home. No one ever answered the Lost Dog signs they plastered around the neighborhood and so Edna joined the family. Peaches continued to tolerate her until Peaches succumbed to various old-dog ailments several months later.
Edna lived for many more years, delighting all who met her with her goofy, gregarious, and loving ways.
Edna looked like a cousin of Frankenweenie.
(Written for today’s Daily Prompt.)
(Today’s Daily Prompt says: write a letter to your least favorite trait.)
Dear Anticipatory Hysteria,
We’ve been together so many years and we will both have to adjust to life apart. But there is no question – it is time for you to go. I remember when you first came around. I was a teenager and noticed that nothing I ever thought would happen, did happen. So I began to imagine terrible things, because if I thought of them then they wouldn’t happen – a mental talisman. But the strategy never really helped. The terrible imaginings didn’t prepare me for other bad things that happened instead. Rather, they cost me so much time, energy and peace of mind — and kept me absorbed in misery that never materialized.
My new strategy is to note that I will have plenty of time to feel bad about something after it actually happens, and in the meantime I will do my best to keep my thoughts in the present tense, and to focus on all the positives, including the fragrance of the jasmine and the sounds of birds greeting the morning, as I write this on my front patio.
From now on I will save my apocalyptic imagination for my novels. There it serves me very well and has proved invaluable as I write my fantasy detective series.
P.S. Wherever you go next, please make room for your parents, Worry and Anxiety. Their eviction is in the works now.
I have spent my adult life deeply agnostic and religion-avoidant, with two exceptions.
My first summer in college, I went through dark times, and at some point decided it would help if I had faith. I would intermittently pray, along the lines of God if you’re there I know I’m supposed to take you on faith but I can’t so if you could please just give me a sign, I will take it from there. One day, a few minutes after I finished such a prayer, the doorbell rang.
Required Writing 