had to be there, and humor helps, as does the unexpected

post #401
       Am starting on my eighth year of posting on this blog!  Once a week for most of the time! I say bravo to my crazy self, and to all the pleasure I get from focusing on story telling, with photos, each time. Tonight I am going to hunt up some of the images that I just happened to see. Just happened to have my camera with me. Just had to be there. No Photoshop. Just luck and a thrill and eyes open.

A favorite -- I had returned to my car after visiting with Sandy, my neighbor and friend.  After getting into my car, I looked around to prepare myself for backing up on a hill and a curve.  This is what I saw instead! Just sitting there next to me, on the truck tire. Waiting for me, I presume. My camera was on the front seat next to me. I slowly lowered my window and equally slowly picked up my camera and faced it out of the window. She never moved. It turns out she was pregnant at the time, so maybe she was just enough slowed down not to be bothered by me. I title this photo "on the way."

This is somewhere between a found photo and a quick snapshot. My writers group was meeting at a Panera's, and sometimes I just can't resist. Two poets at work, a quick moment saved, and some fun.

This cracked me up. All these people coming to the Louvre Museum, in Paris, to see the Mona Lisa, and this was how the scene presented itself. I was almost embarrassed to add my cell phone to the collection. All that mystery in the painting, a bulletproof glass in front of it, and no opportunity to connect with the art itself. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Mon Dieu!

 

Talk about the unexpected! Why I noticed this when about to get in my car, in the shed, I will never know.  My eyes at the ready, as they say. I had never before seen such a big snake in the wild, and I had no idea what he or she was up to. Well, up to the rafters, of course. I risked taking the time for a photo, with my handy camera, thinking the snake looked very comfortable up there and wasn't about to get activated.  I decided it was big and black enough not to be a copperhead -- a big black snake or a cow snake -- and I lucked out.

Well, this photo is being included because this birthday card showed up in my mailbox, hand delivered, and I thought it hilarious. What a lot of careful work!  Thanks again, Jean!!

     This photo has also been on my blog before, but I thought it a good example of what happens when you set the remote for a group picture, run to get into the photo, and have no idea what crazy whatever your beloved family members are plotting. 

 

This is from the summer before. I got to the pond just as J. was able to pull off one last throwing--three--cousins--into--the--air in the pond.... This photo still makes me laugh. The kids are too big anymore for this to happen again. I feel lucky to have caught this quick and happy moment.  

experimenting under the Denver Christmas tree. What would happen if.... How would it work.... I love how it turned out.

        This British sign is still there. I saw it again a month ago. I hadn't gone out looking for a sign, or something quirky, or something humorous, but there it was, and the eyes got it. 

        I've managed to use up this day already, so I will do another similar post soon.  Next week I get to share some Halloween ones.  And an outdoors wedding from last night.  This is all by way of trying to stay grounded as our midterm elections get ever closer to happening. I want so badly for things to turn around for the USA. I want to see the American can-do spirit show its power. I want some concentrated attention spent on taking our changing climate situation very, very seriously. I'm so tired of lies, lies, lies, and not just the president's. I don't see anything good about separating young kids from their families. And then losing them. Please vote and stand up against all the attempts to make voting harder rather than more universal. 
        As the ACLU says, vote like your rights depend on it.  Ain't that the truth.

Hiroshima Day, and the bush hogging day last week

post #347
       In my twenties, I traveled to Japan. I flew there from the Navy base in Kodiak, Alaska, while my Coast Guard husband would be gone a month in the Bering Sea on their trusty ice-breaker, the Storis.  I found the food, the customs, the scenery all so worth the trip. In addition, by miracle and by chance, I overlapped in Tokyo with Kesaya, a close family friend from New Hampshire who had recently decided to stay with Japanese relatives for the year. So, for the first few nights I stayed in a youth hostel, where I learned on the first day how to eat a fried egg with chop-sticks by watching how all the other youth hostelers did it. Then I moved to where Kesaya was living, with her aunt and uncle, and I learned a great deal more. I even had the priviledge of being part of a tea ceremony, since Kesaya's aunt gave lessons in their home. This was in the late sixties, so Japan was not then as affluent and urban as it has become.
        Eventually I headed out for some travel on my own, which is why I'm now sharing this story. Along with Buddhist temples, intimate gardens, and trains with magnificant views, I visited Hiroshima, where we Americans dropped that atomic bomb 72 years ago today.  I visited what was then the very rudimentary museum, in one of the few buildings left standing, and I stayed with Quakers at the small world peace center there.  It came to me that all my life I had wanted to go there, to pay homage to all the people who died and who have suffered every day since that terrible event. Being there was like having a door open to my feelings and the hurt I had been carrying for the world.
         I for one can not for the life of me and of those I love been able to accept that nuclear weapons should be allowed on this earth. I know President Truman justified the timing of the bomb to speed the end of our war with Japan, but it can't be allowed to happen ever again. Did we learn nothing from that devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the civilian population? How can we ever justify again the use of even a single nuclear weapon!
          Dropping a nuclear bomb -- a small one by today's standards -- was a very bad, terrible idea back then. It's an even worse idea now. Remembering this day every year doesn't seem like that much to do under the circumstances. I pray for leaders capable of caring about the peace in all places. Thank you, President Obama, for going to Hiroshima in 2015 to acknowledge the reality of our history with this place.

         Here is a link to some photos of Hiroshima soon after the bomb and the same locations today. 

        Meanwhile, back in rural eastern Kentucky, last week, what few fields we have finally got bush hogged. Usually a neighbor mows those several acres yearly for the hay, but it turned out he was unable to do that this year. Instead Wayne, a kind soul and mowing ace, came with his tractor to beat back the high weeds that were taking over. I want to share a few photos I couldn't help making while he was working. I loved seeing the land re-emerge from its overgrowth while I stood where I could watch it happen. Because he warned me it's not a good idea to get too close to a mowing tractor, in case some rock or branch would fly out and do me in, I had to keep me and my camera at a safe distance. So here's some of what I saw:

FIRST FIELD, where usually we would get hay:

shorn section

half shorn section

 FROM MY SEAT ON THE PORCH:

Where's that noisy wren!?

reminders of the recent Cousin Camp

well, adorned

 SECOND FIELD, which wasn't cut last year either:

WAYNE AT WORK -- thank you!! 

THIRD FIELD, really just a hillside with perpetually poor soil, on the other side of the driveway:

  MOWING FINISHED, leaving, and luckily no one was driving down the driveway:

       The fields are already growing back, but we can now see the lay of the land. If the fields aren't mowed, they soon turn into forests. The openness also increases fire safety for the house the fields surround.  Another day in the life of, as we say.... 
         I will soon have done these posts for 7 years, once a week. I sometimes amaze even myself!!! Next week I plan to post the current state of my gallery, inside and out.

a hemp preview

post #236
        A friend with a farm, in McCreary County, applied to be one of Kentucky's 100 farmers approved this year for growing hemp. It is a new program, long overdue.  
       She has dogs living with her, and a horse, a donkey, a goat -- these three returned here after life experiences other places -- and some chickens, two cats, and some cattle. 
       She also runs a B and B there, Farm House Inn Bed and Breakfast, which does well, even though the place is not the easiest to find! Hint: It is near Cumberland Falls State Park. I visited her Monday, which I don't often get to do since she lives four hours away, in the southern part of the state.
       Here are some of the photos I took connected to the hemp project:

extra hemp seeds, after the field was planted

 

trying to be very clear that this is 1) legal, 2) really hemp, and 3) new to the agricultural scene

early plants, waiting for the cultivator to be fixed and up and running

another attempt to be clear about what is going on and what they are hoping to learn this year

These parts are to show what the plant will offer after growing fully instead of how they look today.

 

Peg kindly models her HEMP HAT, all made from hemp, including the woven band.

         Now here are some photos of the dogs, cats, chickens, and cattle who live with her.  The legs at the top of this first photo belong to the goat in the second....

the rooster, ruler of the roost....

   

        I might as well go whole hog here, despite there not being any hogs, and show portraits of each of four dogs, one of the cats, and the donkey with his horse mentor.  Very apparent is the fact that life is pretty good down on this farm!

 

       Thanks, Peg, for your hospitality and friendship and your stewardship. So many of us in Kentucky hope this hemp undertaking will prove successful for our state!  It once was good for Kentucky, and it could be good once again. 

Departures, Revisits, Arrivals

post #128
        As I wrote in my last post, this week began with the funeral for Defford McDaniel, who died February 27 at the University of Kentucky Hospital in Lexington.  He would have been 56 last Saturday.  
      The week long snow flurries and cold weather continued on this day.  Defford was buried in the McDaniel cemetery behind his home, and his bulldozer was used to carry the coffin up the mountain to the cemetery.  The transfer from hearse to the trailer happened near his house, and I had been asked to take some photos of those moments; almost everyone in the photos is related to Defford.  I am sharing a few of the photos today as a tribute to Defford and all his family. 

         

the view returning to the valley

       The revisits I refer to in today's post's title are thanks to the addition of a photo team member --  a new lens for my camera!  I had needed this one for ages, and I really needed it Sunday for the funeral but I didn't have it.  So I decided not to put off the purchase any longer and ordered one. 
       Yesterday was warm and dry, so I took the newly arrived lens out for some introductions -- me to it and it to the woods and paths and the barn, all near where I live.  I am not very geeky about my equipment, but it's so nice to have this lens (Canon 24 -105 f/4 L IS USM.)

another belly button

the log bridge, from above

designs inside the newer part of the barn

a corner of the oldest barn, located within the not-as-old barn....

      Two days ago, after visiting Defford's sister, Sandy, I got into my car to leave and just happened to look over at the truck I was parked next to.  I couldn't believe I had almost missed seeing this cat!  Luckily, I had my good camera with me, actually on the seat next to me, and the cat was gracious and/or comfortable enough not to disappear right away.  I didn't entirely notice, so to speak, the word on the tire sidewall until after I had taken the photo.  Now I'd suggest the image says something about arrivals, about getting to a place that feels good and right, about not always knowing where that place might be. 
      I wish everyone safe journeys.