an "on going" experiment

post #328
        3/19: There's no better time for trying something new than when there's no time to do what is usually done! Today I am leaving on a trip, and I haven't finished packing. Instead I just took some photos of my teenage neighbor Natalie with her goats for my photo class project. In the cold! This was the only time our schedules could work it out. 
       So, for the first time, I am going to use this one post to do a travel log for the week. I'm really excited to try this. I will eventually be in a different time zone; that means I will post when I can, and we will see what develops. I thank all the folks who visit this blog, and I will be back, right here, soon.  Bon voyage! 

       3/20: Greetings from ..... England!  Since this is where my stepmother lives, I've posted from here before over these last 6 blogging years. This time the visit is in March -- early spring here --  and my daughter and granddaughter came, too! 

....keeping the luggage "attended" while her mom parks the car, before we checked in at the Lexington airport. Doesn't the headline on the newspaper tell where we are??!!  in basketball land??!!

We're up and away! Our seats are in FRONT of the wings, so the air is clear. Lexington spreads out below. The plane is FULL .... meaning we are packed like sardines in a can.

I've always been fascinated by this water display in the Detroit Airport -- where we had two hours to run around and explore. Just your normal Sunday afternoon.....

        After our 7 hour flight to London, where we had plenty of room since the plane was half empty, we had a long line going through passport control. Then there's our two hour drive before finally arriving in Chipping Campden, in the Cotswolds. When we arrived, the day had barely started for everyone else! Kind of rainy today, gray skies, but signs of spring are in the hedges and daffodils are everywhere. Not to be forgotten -- all the lambs in the fields.

       Next: three views from the windows of the Airbnb where my daugher and granddaughter are staying since my stepmother lives in a small apartment. This place is beautiful, both the location (nearby Hidcote Boyce) and the accomodations!

This shows the road through this hamlet.

 The last three photos are along the street in Chipping Campden where the apartment is:

TO BE CONTINUED.
 .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
AND SO IT IS!  3/22

Around town on Tuesday (5), out in the rain and visiting Snowshill Manor today (5), all while  having some interesting times!  Tomorrow will be R's time to take a turn at this posting thing.

a hedgehog on exhibit at the local library

next door to the library

newest shop, nearby

dedicated driver, back on Sheep Street

The English put flowers anywhere and everywhere. So amazing. So lovely.

  
Then today we went to the nearby hamlet of Snowshill, where a gentleman named Charles Wade found a home to hold his unusual personal collection of well made items, each with a story to go with them. Too hard to describe in a few words, but lots of fascinating and fun objects to see on a rainy day. 

photo by Rebecca Wright

 
 More tomorrow!
   
Greetings! My mother invited me (her daughter Rebecca) to share a few photos on her day-to-day blog this week. We are spending the week together visiting my grandmother (4 generations of women in the same place! Watch out world!) It's a joy to be here, surrounded by rolling green hills, the baa's of baby lambs, changing skies, and incredible flora. 

cruising  down a country road

listening to the bleats of babies and mamas

in the living room of a friend's house - so many fascinating objects!

at the public playground - a wild tunnel, with a wild child

Thanks, Rebecca, for sharing this blog with me today, 3/23/17! I am honored, or, as they spell in England, honoured!

.    .     .     .     .     .     .

        Saturday, March 25, 2017 -- last part of this post! I am going to have to make these posts count for both this past week and this coming week since we will be traveling tomorrow. Thanks for coming along on this trip!  
         Today is finally fully sun and almost warm.  Yesterday we went to the famed Hidcote Gardens, very nearby. I'm sorry not to have had time to take many photos there and/or post them here. My suggestion to anyone is to visit this remarkable garden if ever there's a chance to do so.

   Two giant magnolias were stealing the show:

the first one we saw

the second one

Thea was our map keeper -- 30 sections to discover!

 

the view from the "bottom" of Hidcote Garden, following a lone walker across the fields

Stopping on a country road, looking at the manor house, then the view of the road one way and then the other:

 

oh those freestanding trees

and those freestanding sweetie pies, in front of tempting cakes

Looking forward to being back on this post April 2, no fooling....

more waterfall photos, due to my amazement at being there two days in a row

post #327
       Daylight savings last night, blizzard warnings in the northeast for early this week, wild fires, floods, polar bears without enough snow and ice.... and we are not willing to take responsibility for our part in anything to do with the weather? It shocks me every day that it seems too many Republicans have to deny even the possibility that we are contributing to the warming of the earth. It's like a club membership requirement? Check brain at the door? Science works only when it fits what we'd want to hear? Clean water happens without effort to ensure such a thing?  Our newest cabinet secretary, Scott Pruitt, says, (out loud!), that there is considerable disagreement among scientists...." And I ask since when has 2% meant "considerable!" And what about common sense.
       Well, actually, we do know for sure that daylight savings has nothing to do with climate change, at least not in clearly measurable ways. (Do we use less electricity over the summer than we would if we didn't put the clocks ahead an hour? or are we using more? Thank goodness there's "spring forward" and "fall backwards", or I'd have to figure out twice a year which way the clocks should go. That is a joke, BTW, but only sort of....) 
        In the meantime, I continue to be completely thrilled that I had two such good days down at our waterfalls with my camera, and I'm happy there are still these additional photos to share. Next weekend I will be traveling, so there will be some very different photos soon.

to the left of the big waterfall -- candles on a cupcake?

It's harder to get a good photo of this place than it would seem.  Sometimes in February there's a huge icicle hanging from above, and a huge pile of ice at the bottom, reaching for each other. Only once have I seen the up and the down touching each other in the middle.

to the right of the big waterfall

Here I was trying to see what the waterfall sees. This attempt on my part didn't produce a great photo, which is why I'm sharing what my thinking was at the time. Pure curiosity.

Photographer friend Lucy says this is a rock covered with club moss. It's located near the base of the big waterfall. Thanks, Lucy, for refreshing my memory for its name.

near the second waterfall

local color -- in late February!

This photo is one I have always imagined doing better than I did years ago with a slide. I am standing somewhat precariously at the top of the second waterfall. Rebecca is nearby keeping an eye on me. I am thrilled to have captured what I feel is part of the uniqueness of this time and this treasured place.

Winter waterfall photos, as promised

post #326
       It may be winter on the calendar, but it is daffodil time in eastern Kentucky!  Today my niece is 40, and my friend, Molly, is 66 like the temperature outside at 2 pm. This weather is totally disorienting. Besides the daily dose of uncertainty from the White Lies House that I wrote about last week, our big unknown here is whether we will experience some real snow  -- the piled up kind -- before the end of March. Since the daffodils can take it, so can we.
       
       These photos from our waterfalls a week ago were made mostly using my tripod. The cloud cover along with the warm weather helped, too. No frozen fingers. No stressed batteries. No fear of rain. And no wind. Altogether perfect conditions. I lucked out, because last week the photo class assignment was to make photos of one's emotional connection to some kind of land -- to be printed as well by us students, 6 photos each, and shared in class this Tuesday during what's called a critique. In some ways I know less than most of the students, and in too many ways it's harder for me because of all the reliance that I'm not used to on the computer, but so be it. I am learning, albeit lurch by lurch, and that's what it's all about. The photos for today's post are just what I took in the field, however, thanks to my having those good conditions.
       Today, for this post, I'm sharing some of my favorites. It was so much fun for me to be down there two days in a row.  And I thank my daughter for bringing down my tripod both days and leaving me there for a couple of hours. Gifts.

creek flowing from the first waterfall toward the second

a trunk like an elephant, but not the elephant's trunk....

Even empty branches can be part of beauty in the woods.

The first waterfall, looking sparse, with no icicles!

   This next photo is looking back, before arriving at the second waterfall, with a view of the empty branch over the creek that plays a big role in the following photo, my favorite last week. I'm thankful to have made it, even if it took a class assignment to get me down there, when everything came together, even the weird warm weather.

:

 

 Question: Can you see this over-the-creek branch in the previous photo???

    I was so moved by making the last photo (sitting on a rock in the creek, knees as tripod) that I flopped back on the ground nearby and looked up -- and there was a whole other world. Such tall hemlocks, currently disappearing in general partly because of, yes, climate change. There they are for now, quietly part of the woods. How can I be silent when human beings put greed and shortsightedness ahead of the world we're thoughtlessly using up while walking around not paying attention.

using my nose as a tripod

       I hope that such treasures in this waterfalls area will survive the next four years, to say nothing of the next hundred. Today I've been sharing with you my dreams and hopes and what anchors those dreams and hopes.

over the second waterfall, headed toward the "big waterfall"