the meadow, the tractor, and the sky

post #507 

            Hello, world, here is a hopeful try for the once again repaired system to upgrade blogger's posts. So far so good. I'm giving it another try.

        I'm writing Sunday evening after a week with wet weather, political revelations, my meadow half mowed, and finishing reading a book.  I wish I could say I have some new things figured out, but that's for all the weeks that follow.  I've even met recently over Zoom with college friends and with my writers group. I feel very privileged.

        However, I'm distressed about the horrible fires in California and the rest of the West, I don't think Trump is any healthier mentally than he ever has been, and then there's the virus.  It's sad that so many people have to get sick before they actually believe how serious the virus can be. Very sad to get sick, very sad to pretend it will just go away. I have been encouraged that now, when I go to our local Kroger store for groceries, everyone is wearing a mask. This is major. Thank you, everyone, for taking one for the team of your neighbors and community.

        OK, some photos to share from the week:

The wind had now started to blow, as shown by the leaves not holding still for the shot..

I call my meadow beautiful, despite its rough, unkept look, but the time had come to cut it all back for the winter, an investment in the future: 

        This last space is reserved for my photo of Amy McGrath in her first campaign, when Joe Biden came down for a rally for her in a small gym. I have had SUCH A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE this evening with the revised blog procedures that I am NOT going to look for that photo too hard right now. Tomorrow instead. Tonight has left me encouraged.  I love doing my blog every Sunday, and I'd hate to have to give it up in frustration.   [LATER: PHOTO IS IN NEXT WEEK'S POST.]

         My motto for the day: believe and hope but consider the science. 

Thanks for wearing a mask.

 

      

 

on the way, neither denying nor accepting

post #507
          I am so thrown by our nation's turmoil. I recently had a very cordial catching-up conversation with a neighbor who, when I asked, calmly stated that she wasn't so sure the coronavirus was any different than the flu. She was willing to wear her masks at work, but she didn't think they made any real difference.  Yet the family that lives almost at the end of my road has several members in quarantine because some are sick. And who knows how many Americans will defy the science and not be careful this Labor Day weekend.  They won't all get sick, but some will and some of those will die or they might pass the virus on. It's happening all over the world, it's confusing, it's hard on our kids, and it definitely collides with what some would call the American myth that our right to do anything we want is more important than looking out for each other.  
          I'm not complaining so much as disbelieving, but it means I am compelled to bring it up, because anything about anything else doesn't work without bringing up these concerns. It's just hard to accept that we aren't all --- every one of us --- speaking to the current fragile balancing of the personal and the political that faces us as citizens of our shared world.  (And, no surprise, I am sick that our president is going out of his way -- purely for his own selfish purposes -- to undermine the voting procedures the constitution guarantees and requires for the health of our democracy.) 

          OK, enough words. I'm glad Blogger, for this week again, at least, has returned to a saner blog posting operation. Since I'm not sure it will last, however, I remain basic in how I try to present a few photos. 

stopping on Sideway Road to take 2 photos..

My mini-bumper stickers, which -- LUCKILY -- mainly serve to stand out in the Kroger parking lot so that I can find my car after grocery shopping! Well, it is true that several times I have seen people taking photos like this one I made. There don't seem to be a lot of other stickers this year. These are at least non-partisan sentiments.

A BRIEF BRAGG: I have never been the one to be the fixer of anything, but this time, after early consults with J., I managed to get this bottom freezer to stop acting like a toddler.  So far, no more leaks!.

It's meadow time around here, soon to be mowed, so goodbye iron weed...

   The following photo is by my daughter, Rebecca, this weekend.  I think it's a really good photo, but it also shows the location for where the downy woodpecker family feeding photos happened -- in front of the upper window on the left.  I have added one of those earlier photos as a point of photography interest. I was inside that window, looking out, and the light was OK for being able to make it work. Nothing was planned. Thank you, Curiosity. That discovery moment went on for at least a half dozen feeding sessions.

Downy Dad dinner prep, while I'm looking out the window to the limb that's part of a trellis (see previous photo)

           Did I mention to please be kind, please be safe, please envision why and how we could -- with bravery -- restore democracy, and please VOTE? 

birds, bushes, and being real

post #491
           The "being real" in today's post's title is just me stating again that this virus event is really happening.  It's really not going away until, at the least, there's a reliable vaccine. Life goes on, but it sounds like there are way too many people across the globe who don't want the sickness and deaths to be true so they are acting like it's not true.They put themselves in danger, and they risk the lives of others. We are not going to sign a peace treaty for this war. We just need to outsmart it and to believe it is something we have never before experienced.
         Why would anyone make up this unexpected horror show! We human beings of all kinds need to LEARN what we can from this cruel chapter in our lives. We must be able to be clever enough to start now to be ready for the next time and the time after that. This week I had a number of viewers in Romania, and in other countries, and I write this for you as well. Welcome!
         I'm going to continue sharing recent photos from this amazing spring -- a sort of a reminder of the need to understand where we are right now so we can head to saner solutions that so far have eluded us. It will help when we can all pull in the same direction.  Let's not fear the truth so much that we don't make it work for us.

  
          pond report:

cattail

blackberry winter, on the pond

the greens are gaining

two more birds through the window --- I try to quit but sometimes I can't help myself:

I finally got the red-winged blackbird being still for a moment!!

red-bellied woodpecker -- with the belly in view!

love those weeds in the rain

road rain

These feed stations are no longer in service, and I think I should call it quits for tonight myself. I do enjoy putting this post together every week.  Stay safe, and may we all be generous enough to wear a mask in crowded places for the sake of whomever is nearby. Thanks.

pausing for a poem

post #484
      For making sense of these serious, shifting and unsettled times, it definitely helps to have writing friends who use their words to respond to what goes on around us.  I'm fortunate to share in the poems, essays, songs, novels, memoirs, and fiction manuscripts from the monthly writer's group I've been part of for over 25 years. We stay surprised, grateful for the work that surfaces in this supportive milieu. In addition, we rely on each other's perspectives about anything.
      A recent poem George Ella Lyon shared with all of us gave me the idea to feature it on my blog, with a few photos of mine that could have a connection. I next hoped the other five of us would share some words over the next weeks or months. I'd like to add photos when it works to do so. I look forward to seeing what we come up with! 

      When George Ella recently sent us all this poem, she included a short paragraph with it, which follows:
          Thank you [all] so much for responding to my poem in such a deep & thoughtful way. I wrote it in the early fall of 2008 when I was at the Mary Anderson Center as that financial crisis was unfolding. I was concerned, of course, but I had a meadow, abloom with fall flowers, to walk in. I had the birds, the butterflies & dragonflies, the lake, the woods. I experienced such presence and consolation. Ever since then I've had that meadow in my heart to return to. 
          May we all have such places. May we honor them & each other.

THE MEADOW DOES NOT KNOW
about the stock market.
Today she is worth
exactly what she was worth
yesterday, a year ago, at creation.                            

I don’t mean property value,
taxable assets. I mean
milkweed and copper moths
honeybees, cow vetch,
king snakes. Meadow life
is not money. What rises
and falls here are stems
and flowers, leaves and fruit.
No zigzag line of profit and panic
but the great wheel turning.
Here God gives of her
extravagance and here, like
flicker, viceroy, dragonfly
we come into our inheritance.


  

                     
                George Ella, thank you.

milkweed tell-all

post #179
       Way too much snow and ice on its way here.  Can't deal.  Decided yesterday that ranting was not an option.  I should instead put the path to my milkweed obsession on this blog -- even though it will take weeks to do so.  By then we will be closer to spring....
        My story begins June 23, 2013.
       The incentive:  a change of one letter in George Ella's manuscript for our alphabet book!  She took out M being for miners and mountains, and it became MILKWEED IN THE MEADOW.  My reaction was to run out to our meadow to get a milkweed photo before all the blooms finished.  That very day.  Nature changes a lot faster than we realize.
       Well, it turned out my curiousity gene kicked in big time.  I have stayed fascinated by this project for the last eight months. I am still amazed by the many discoveries I would not have even noticed had I not been paying close attention.  Stick around for those in the weeks to come.
        I have ended up with a great many milkweed photos. Today's photos are purely from the first three days.  Going by the numbers, it seems I took less than 80 photos altogether in that time, not all of milkweed.  But that is how I work.  I have never, ever just shot tons of images hoping I get a good one.  (The first day I shot in the RAW/jpeg format.)

Here goes:

NOT milkweed, but life in the meadow - vetch

very first of the milkweed images

a favorite of mine

double butterflies (not a monarch)

trying to show the milkweed plants within the crowded meadow, but to me it doesn't work all that well

         The first part of the photos were made in the meadow near our barn.  I soon noticed these few plants on the side of our driveway, in the flat section that crosses the pipeline that was put in in 1975.  The plants in the meadow did not last as well as these new ones did, but I never saw butterflies in them.  Of course, that doesn't mean there weren't any.  I could just have missed them.  I will call this location # 2.

       After making the last three images, I realized it was late (8:47 p.m.) and I remember saying to myself "Better check on location #1 before it gets any darker."  So my next photo was 7 minutes later - the time it took to drive our quarter mile driveway, grab my camera and walk down to where the meadow is:

I must have taken this photo on the way to the meadow....couldn't resist.

Here is another effort to show the milkweed in context.  Had there been some visiting butterflies, this photo would have revealed more than it currently does.  In my opinion.

     I am brazen enough to request you take a good look at each photo - the basis of everything I ended up seeing is right here.  Thank you.