Summer love (Cousin Camp, 2020)

post #499 

            By some unearned miracle, this week we are managing to have our annual cousin camp here in the homestead in Eastern Kentucky.  I am not doing much of the work -- such as a lot of food planning and prepping -- but I sure am loving this once a year together time!  (Actually, I am doing very little work AND getting dinners by J almost every night!)

          The big hits this year so far are the chickens and the four roosters.....  I'm going to share just a few photos, several taken while the wrong lens was on my camera. When candids are required, there's often no  time to be fully prepared. There are only three kids at the moment, which is plenty after so many months of my being sheltered alone most of the time.

NOTE: at first I said I'm going to try to do better than last week about adding the photos. It seems Blogger has decided to revamp itself.  While there are bound to be glitches for awhile, especially since my learning curve is never what I'd like it to be, the difficulty of the new system is unbelievable.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason for some of the changes, and there is no way to seek clarification.  I was gratified that so many others are complaining on line about the "improvements."  I will leave up what I posted Sunday night in frustration, even though it may duplicate some of what I hope appears here.  (This is being tried again Tuesday evening.) I just hope that I can figure out who can help me because I really do not want to lose access to the 500 blogs I have been posting over ten years.  


FIRST, some more hay ambiance photos: 

good friends

 

NEXT, COUSIN CAMP

        first: important to remember --

            

chasing chickens who are not ready yet to give it up

viewing social distancing, on my way home -- if cattle can do it, why can't we all!!

            Well, there are 4 vertical photos that continue to refuse to be transferred to the blog, even though I did find the link to go back temporarily to the former format .  Two of those photos are my favorites of the week.  I will keep working on all this, but not to worry since I definitely feel that the big picture is really most important these days. The election.  Our democracy. The health of every world citizen. Getting rid of chaos and cruelty that currently rule our government. Inequality. And of course racism, which, like the virus, is real and is all controlling, even if we don't want to believe it.  So, I end by a plea to support the arts and creative thinking as a way to nourish and strengthen the positives that surely lie beyond today. I hope.

Very sad to say, but Blogger (Google's baby) no longer makes sense after an update....

post #500

I am pretty distressed that I can no longer access the tools I need to do this blog! It's a bummer! I am going to have to struggle this week to see if someone can explain this fiasco to me. I may have to change blog providers! AFTER ALMOST TEN YEARS of posting weekly!!  Fellow bloggers are also complaining.  Boldly.  I'm so sorry.  I suspect Google is trying to be more assertive and controlling, on behalf of their profit. They may be most interested in people making more money... so that G. makes more money.  I don't make any money from this venture.  I'm more interested in world peace than in having a piece of the world.

I'll try to add a few photos but I can't make a story out of them or know which ones will make it through the rabbit hole, etc.  If anyone can help explain what is happening, I'd be glad to hear from you, even though I don't trust putting my email address out there, for fear of possible further exploitation.  Of course there's a possibility that I will calm down and everything will soon make sense, with help from "my people." I sure hope so.

                I'm amazed we have managed a version of our annual cousin camp here in Eastern Kentucky.  Everyone, please be safe and take this virus seriously.  

                Gratefully yours, Ann

living each day in the now, for now

post # 499
          Here's a heat-filled hello from Eastern Kentucky! I hope everyone is healthy, wearing a mask when needed, and able to find a way to stay cool. I feel the week has been so full that I've decided simply to share some recent photos purely for their timely loveliness. Also this is the first week this year that has brought me to tears, which, actually, I appreciated. It felt way overdue. I suspect others have had that same response along this long and lingering path filled with so many "hard to believe it's happening" moments.

It has been a lot cleaner and calmer outside my front door after these Phoebe beauties left the nest this week. You Go, Kids!!  I kind of miss you, but not totally. Stay safe!

 

on the side of Sideway Road, during my evening stroll

sweet peas, from a visit to a friend's porch nearby to trade eggs for empty egg cartons

 

newly mowed fields which are favorites of mine

bale rows from that field

Look for this row of bales in the preceding photo, near where the road ends. I sort of risked my life to take this photo, in a hurry.  I just love hay bales, an every year happiness.

There are two more photos to add, but they are currently playing hard to get.  So I'm giving it a rest for a bit, a cooling down period.... That may be what we need now in our public life? The least we can do is wear our masks and care about those around us. That's a reality most people in the current administration seem determined to deny, to the detriment of all Americans.  

what we ask

post #498
       
         We ask
                 will kids go to regular school in August? or
                 will the virus thrive in that shared air?
                 will they work again from home?
                 will their spirits support each other, 
                         day by day, and in the years ahead?
        
        What will they learn? How about us, who cry at night,
                   from exhaustion, from these questions,
                   from those who are afraid and not able to act,
                   from what our world is teaching us, if we listen.
            
         What of this will the children remember next year, or
                    fifty years from now.  

          Can it be that they'll know
                   we love them and we did what we could?


      Today, in honor of kids I know, I just wanted to go through my images and pick out a few of the kid photos I have made over the years. Some of the kids are related to me, some are not, all are known to me.  Many have been on one of my posts over the past ten years -- so many are older now than they were then! Enjoy!

  

Mountaintop Removal Rally

measuring the milkweed

eyes, colors, and social change

post #496
          Kentucky has a really good governor, elected last fall. He is being a good leader as we wind our way through so many unknowns.... He's very clear that his main goal is to keep all Kentuckians alive. He thinks for himself, and he is very empathetic, an important quality a leader needs to have!
         I mention this because I was about to have cataract surgery in March, when everything was suddenly shut down. That included all non-essential surgeries; they were off the table, so to speak. My eager eyes had to wait until three weeks ago to get started, but the second eye was done only a week after the first eye, so I made it through both of them without another statewide shutdown happening. This is good. I am grateful. And, as I was told ahead of time by others with redone eyes, there are some big changes in what I am now seeing. (As a color photographer, I have been very curious about what colors I haven't been seeing clearly imperceptibly over the years.)
          The first "wow" came the first morning after the first surgery.  I woke up in my bed simply relieved that I could see anything! Then I noticed that one end of my bedside woven, arty throw rug was now a much brighter and beautiful blue!  So next, when I covered my not-yet-done eye, the whole rug became brighter. By the next morning, the new blue had taken over my brain, and the whole rug was, on its own, without contrast, evenly and marvelously blue.  

           I obviously can't show this in photos, however, so please do believe my story.  I am showing two photos even so, because I had had no idea that I had such a purple shirt!                                                                      Of course I have been trying to figure out if anyone can know how someone else sees. I'm sorry in a way that I will get used to my revised world, because the shock and awe is a treasure, a luxury, a gift, that will be easy soon to take for granted.  

         In the meantime, our wounded world continues to need attention, and I can't not mention a couple of recent concerns beyond my very personal trip through eye transformation.  The first is a screen shot I made of the Attorney General of Colorado, Phil Weiser, who is working fast and furiously on many issues, with a good team, including my son who is the Solicitor General. The AG has recently been appointed by the governor to take another look at the murder of a young black man last August, I believe, Elijah McClain.  I wanted to explain why this story interests me so much, in addition to my concern that our nation is discovering the brokenness of race relations over hundreds of years that needs to be highlighted, better understood, and rebuilt from the ground up. 

an Instagram post I screen shot

    Also this past week I "attended" (via Zoom) a national gathering hosted by the Friends General Conference of the Society of Friends (Quakers) which was largely focused this year on the concerns of community and race inequality. I am still putting together what was said, talked over, communicated about and committed to within the week even without shaking a single hand or eating together.  I mention this because of the importance of the topic and because it is so much on my mind. The young girl in the photo below is 16; she has been an activist since she was 9.

another screen shot, while Zooming

 

 

I end tonight by showing these same day lilies I've shown before, which still look like they always have -- even with my new eyes. Very loyal bunch.  I thank them for their beauty, and for their not being good to eat if you are a deer..... Please stay safe, vote in November, hopefully by mail, and thank you for reading this far!!!!