sweep up, summer cousin camp time, 2020

post #501
        This is another attempt to post on my blog before its good ol' ways are hidden away.  Here are some more of the photo mix from the 10 days of "cousin camp."  It was wonderful to be all together, even while not leaving the property for days and days. We will hope the travelers manage to stay healthy during their trip back to Colorado.  Some hoax! This virus thing continues to be so abundantly scary that I wonder if those who think otherwise have had their brains fried during an earlier lifetime, and they are simply no longer able to process info adequately!

STAY WELL!!!

Other photos retrieved and now shown for the first time:

These are beautiful walnuts overhead on the deck but not yet falling on our heads!! Good timing, team!  We ate all our meals outside, distanced.

herding hens, and a rooster

  [note: the vertical photos I so want to include right in this spot continue to elude me!! So far I have neither thrown my laptop on the floor nor screamed and yelled. Close, but not. Yet.]

 

I made a brief visit to the outside world via TV, to see the honoring of Rep. John Lewis, lying in state in the US Capital. I found this historical and evocative event very moving, and a hopeful sign of the power of human beings to be their better selves.

THANKS BE FOR THE DAILY PLAYING IN THE POND:

photo made with my camera by their daughter/my granddaughter, AGE 9!!!

     
               I think this happy photo is a good place to wind this puppy up, with promises that, if I can, I will take us to a completely new and altogether other place next week. I don't take well to not figuring something out, but for now I've had Enough of Being Baffled!

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.

If redbuds are hard to photograph, try chickens and roosters!

big wheel

post #5
     Before Thanksgiving gets any closer, with all its dead turkeys, I'd like to share three of my favorite poultry photos, with gratitude for those unplanned moments when a hen doesn't move her head -- or a rooster stands still.  I haven't pulled off a good wild turkey photo so far....but I keep trying.  We do raise a dozen or so chickens, totally for all the kitchen scraps composting they do and for their fresh eggs.  (We have mostly Ameraucanas, whose eggs have a blueish shell.  Easter eggs all year long!)  The roosters I photograph belong to other people, so thank you, Donnie, down the ridge, and Peg, in McCreary County.  Predawn crowing is not for me and we do NOT keep roosters.

     Sometimes I am led to explain that the color of an eggshell has no bearing on the egg inside, and the same goes for human beings.

     I haven't yet mentioned in this blog that I make and sell photo note cards.  Each one features an actual photo double-taped on hand folded colored paper, each card titled and signed by me.  Thinking up titles is a kick.  Sometimes I just stick to giving information about the image, but other times I play around with words.  Occasionally I get stuck, but then I enjoy the excuse for brainstorming with my word wizard friend, poet George Ella Lyon. 

    But there is only one word for this coming Tuesday: VOTE!

rooster pride

my best side....