post #474, during the 8th year of Sideway Views posts, and THE SUN IS OUT THIS AFTERNOON.
I realized since last week that I can't post just one tree every week. I love trees, and I have many, many tree photos to share. So my way of branching out.... will be to show a random selection of these photos every few weeks. Please join me in celebrating our hard working trees. Every one is essential.
redwoods in California
rain on the windshield near my mailbox
view from the side, after the rain
squirrel in motion
nearest neighbor
beech trees in the forest
drinks for trees and wildlife
Grayson Lake, eastern Kentucky
view from below in the forest
Yahoo!!
stopping,feeling surrounded by care and magic
working hard to clean the air
I'm counting on trees to be there for me and you and for the planet.
post #473 I am not following the president impeachment happenings each day, though I do try to stay informed since I am, in general, a bit of a politics junkie. However I'm finding the toxicity spills over everywhere, with much that stuns and dismays. Cruelty tears me up. (Kids in Cages??!) Not facing the changing climate, in particular, makes no possible sense at all to me. (Fossil fuels forever? I don't see how or why.) I don't want to take time tonight to make any kind of long list. Where my house is located, we don't talk politics a lot and when we do It doesn't feel unfriendly. My Kentucky county has, until Trump, always voted for the Democrat for president. My monthly writers group of over 20 years enjoys giving a joint donation every year instead of gifts to each other at Christmas. This year we decided to find some way to express support for actual ongoing projects that are trying to do something on the ground, so to speak, directly related to the climate. Here are two articles we use to research our decision. I don't include either one in its entirety, so I hope it doesn't end up being too confusing to be helpful.
article #1: How to Stop Freaking Out and Tackle Climate Change
Here’s a five-step plan to deal with the stress and become part of the solution.
By Emma Marris
Ms. Marris is the author of “Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World.”
You are scrolling through the news and see yet another story about climate change.
Australia is on fire. Indonesia is drowning. At the same time, Donald Trump is trying to make it easier to build new fossil-fuel projects.
As
you read, your chest tightens and a sense of dread washes over you,
radiating out from your heart. You feel anxious, afraid and intensely
guilty. Just this morning, you drove a gasoline-powered car to work. You
ate beef for lunch. You booked a flight, turned on the heat, forgot
your reusable grocery bags at home. This is your fault.
As
an environmental writer, I’m often asked for guidance on coping with
climate change. I have thoughts. Even better, I have a five-point plan
to manage the psychological toll of living with climate change and to become part of the solution.
Step 1: Ditch the shame.
The
first step is the key to all the rest. Yes, our daily lives are
undoubtedly contributing to climate change. But that’s because the rich
and powerful have constructed systems that make it nearly impossible to
live lightly on the earth. Our economic systems require most adults to
work, and many of us must commute to work in or to cities intentionally
designed to favor the automobile. Unsustainable food, clothes and other
goods remain cheaper than sustainable alternatives.
There's much more to the article, but I want to include here an earlier article that was helpful for us, from VOX, December 18, 2018, by Sigel Samuel: article#2: Want to fight climate change effectively? Here's where to donate your money.
The article features 5 options, and we are going for the first one, called COALITION FOR RAINFOREST NATIONS. If anyone wants help locating the article, please let me know and I can dig around and send a link. Note: Since I do believe that trees are essential for life on earth and irreplaceable, and since I will probably end up writing other posts on this topic, I am also going to feature a tree each time. I revere trees. Here is one of many photos with trees that I've made. The photo was made in England; it's an oak, in January. Thank you, tree. We need everyone of you.
Stay warm, keep your cool, be bold, encourage bravery, appreciate a tree.
post #472 Today, in one of my other projects besides this blog, I found a thumb drive with photos from 2010 and 2011. I was curious to see them again, since I have always had a bad sense of time passing so it could be interesting. The first photos were of my granddaughter T., newly born! One day soon I will get to show them to her myself. Then I decided I should take some of the other photos and post them on today's blog. I'd say I was really into mist on the mountains back then, or else the weather has changed so that it no longer happens as often. So, please enjoy.
a favorite photo, titled "Black and White in Color"
another favorite -- I made this in a Farmers Market on Martha's Vineyard while I was there for a week's photo workshop.
a neighbor's front yard. I had forgotten I made this photo, glad to see it again.
a wet summer so lots of very green fields right after mowing
daisies are always so cheering
This antique horse drawn hay rake was more picturesque than helpful. We didn't keep it in the end but it always hurts to not provide a rest home for such helpers after their years of hard work.
from the bridge, looking over Laurel Gorge, in Elliott County, Kentucky
across the road and nearby to where I lived
two views on this wet day from the same spot on Jean's farm, and I like them both
post #471 With all the turmoil on our national stage, I decided to give a showing tonight of some photos I missed including on this blog during this past fall. There's time enough for the new photos in the future. We need to honor the life we have apart from the chaos that our supposed leadership seems determined to foist upon us whether we like it or not. This doesn't mean I plan to be silent about the dangerous state of the world, but for tonight I am choosing to focus in a small way on photography -- which has grounded me for the past 25 years. I hope you, my guest / viewer, can find it within yourself to enjoy this offering, and I hope you also have dreams and beauty that sustain you.
This is today's transition photo, carrying my concerns, my voice on my car, and my small bid for sanity when I am out and about.
A rose is a rose is a rose
and a weed is a weed is a weed.
An eight year old is an eight year old even when she looks like a pretzel!
Here's another eight year old -- not quite sure what his grandmother is up to.
This woman graciously let me make her photo while we were both at Jenn's for a hair fix. She then told me she was 90 -- I appreciate her spunk and her getting a kick out of some stranger asking to take her photo.
Recently I was making a record of one corner of my in-home gallery, which I still use, even though I'm too far out from town to have many "customers". It's more like my work area in the main room, on the first floor.
My friend Sandy had this Gerber Daisy with all sorts of blooms this fall, whereas mine (which appeared outside my door from a mystery source in early May) didn't bloom very much at all. But now I've brought in a potted plant or two for the winter, and mine has decided to bloom, bloom, bloom.
I saw this as puppy snow sculpture in November, in Colorado. By mistake I left it out of my blog post from there.
As for this photo, I made it years ago, but now I can't get it to leave its place in my photo library on this laptop!! It is always at the end, often with some 40,000 photos ahead of it. Weird. I call it "frost fence." But I do like the photo. Thank goodness.
I've had fun, once again, putting this together, but I do apologize for the late posting today. I am grateful I have had a self-imposed deadline all these seven years (Sundays) or it would be even later. Stay safe, speak up when you can, and be good to yourself. All best wishes for a good new year. Who knows, even the most dense among us might figure out this year that we are having a global climate emergency and need to act NOW -- Ann
squirrel in motion
