Rankin High on The List

I haven’t posted in a while, because I’ve been busy–mostly busy being depressed about how cold and wet it’s been! Spring is desperately trying to “spring forth” but Winter refuses to go quietly.

Yesterday, however, I had an experience that just had to have a blog post to go with it!  I’ve been checking out some of the different wildlife refuges near me (within a 2 hour drive), to see if there are any great birding spots I’m missing out on.  Two nearby spots, Kyker Bottoms and Rankin Bottoms, are touted as great birding areas, so I thought I’d check each one out and see if they were worth return visits.

I went to Kyker Bottoms on one of the few sunny, warm days we’ve had–saw hundreds of purple martins, quite a few ducks of various varieties, a couple of herons and a hawk or two.  Haven’t processed those pictures yet, but check my Flickr page in the next week or so. Kyker Bottoms definitely rates a return visit, but it’s not the subject of this post.

On Good Friday, I chose Rankin Bottoms because I hadn’t been before, and it was only an hour’s drive. That was important, because I’d originally thought it would be another warm, sunny day, but by that morning they were calling for rain to move in by noon, and it was COLD that morning as well. Not an ideal Spring day. But I’m obsessed with these birds, so I went anyway, hoping to at least see a few birds before the rain started.

The final few miles toward the refuge should be renamed Pothole Lane, because there were more potholes than there was road. I finally got to the refuge and found a place to park. This was the view:

That was directly in front of me; to my left was an area with enough water you could almost call it a pond, and a more wooded area. Off in the other direction was basically more of this marshy, levee kind of scene.

Having no idea if one area was better, I started to head down this road, then changed my mind and walked over to the “pond” area instead, thinking I could check it out for a few minutes and *then* start walking somewhere.

I don’t know if this is an old railroad yard site or something, but there was this large structure up ahead of me. I took a picture of it because I thought it was kinda cool, but it turns out to play a part in this story:

Before I was even completely out of sight of the car, I saw a fairly large bird up in a tree. On the OTHER side of the water, of course.  Murphy’s Law of Birding, if there was such a thing, would say, “The larger and cooler the bird, the greater the chance that it will be on the other side of a large body of water from where you are.”

It was an Osprey! I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an Osprey in Tennessee (but then, before I started bird photography, I wasn’t really paying a lot of attention either).  I took a few pictures, but it was just TOO far away to get much:

This is an uncropped photo with my longest lens, just to give you an idea of how useless it was to try to get good pictures.

I settled in to watch, figuring maybe it would dive for a fish or something. It wasn’t too long before it did take off:

Then it flew up behind me, circled around–and landed right up on top of that large concrete structure I posted earlier! Figures–there was NO WAY I was gonna be able to even SEE it up there, so not only could I not get a picture of it, I wasn’t even sure which side to stand on to wait for it to fly off.

A little note here: I’ve been doing bird photography long enough now that this SHOULD have been an Ah-Ha moment, rather than an Uh-Oh moment. But I guess I hadn’t ingested enough coffee that morning, but Uh-Oh was definitely the only thought in my head.

I walked around the other side of the huge structure, hoping I’d get lucky and catch a glimpse of it. What I caught a glimpse of instead was this:

That’s when the Ah-Ha moment finally happened–a NEST!!

As I walked out further into the field, so I could see up on top of the structure a little better, I found the Osprey in its nest:

For the next several hours, the Osprey and I alternately watched each other and then wandered away. Actually, the Osprey did a lot more wandering away than I did. I only wandered away when they (yes, eventually I saw both of them) left the nest and went to perch in the far-away-across the river tree.

During one of my periods of wandering, I found this beautiful vista:

What looks like grass there is actually some kind of marshy vegetation. I guess the whole area is sometimes completely underwater, depending on the lake levels at Douglas Dam–or something.

Speaking of marshy areas that look exactly like grass–in another one of my wanderings, I saw some ducks and started to move closer to them, only to find myself very suddenly and unexpectedly ankle-deep in marsh water; very cold, nasty looking marsh water.  Note to self: Add spare socks to the list of things you keep in the trunk.

The Ospreys were highly entertaining–they brought nest material back to the structure, as well as lunch.  Then a Black Vulture decided to check out their nest, and got a lesson in why you don’t mess with an Osprey. I wish I’d gotten better action shots of their “air combat” but I got a few worth sharing, anyway.

Here a few of my favorites from the day. The rest can be found on my Flickr page. Please do me a favor; if you look at them and Flickr (and I encourage you to do so!), leave a comment and/or “favorite” it–that tells me you were there, and also helps get my flickr photos noticed more!

Bring material back to the nest

To-Go food for Ospreys

Lunch time!

Sentry Duty

Osprey vs. Vulture

Note: The above is one of my favorites of the Osprey vs. Vulture photos, because it shows their wingspans–from a distance, the Osprey was so much bigger that I initially thought the other bird was a crow.

Much too soon, it started to rain and my Osprey viewing had to come to an end. I’d spent hours there, and never even explored more than just a tiny little plot of the vast refuge area. But Rankin Refuge definitely “ranks” high on my list of places I’ll be revisiting, and soon–gotta check on those Ospreys!

The Eagle Has Landed. And Taken Off Again.

First, let me just say that there is clearly something very wrong with me. I know, most of you already knew that. But in this case, I am referring to the fact that I detest the cold–winter just makes me want to head south, or curl up in a fetal position until spring.  I wish humans could hibernate so that I could just take a pass on winter.  Despite this extreme aversion to all things winter, I go stand out in the cold and the snow and the ice, sometimes for hours on end, and sometimes with absolutely NO results to show for it, just for the chance at a good photo.

Recently, I’ve discovered a great little spot just a few miles down the road from me. It’s not a wildlife refuge or nature center; it’s not even an especially “beautiful” area, but the first day I stumbled upon it, I saw two herons, several hawks, a belted kingfisher (I had no idea we even HAD kingfishers around here) AND a bald eagle! Along with the usual geese and gulls and such. That particular day, I didn’t really get any great pictures, but I knew I’d be coming back often.  The weather and a really busy work schedule kept me from visiting again for a little over a week, but last week I got back to my little spot.

This particular day had started with extremely cold temps, and a good bit of snow still on the ground from our first significant snowfall of the season. But kingfisher photos awaited, so off I went.

I got myself situated, and backed into a nice secluded spot where hopefully the birds wouldn’t pay much attention to me. Then I realized what I’d just backed myself INTO:

A thorn bush, with thorns longer and sharper than most of my knives at home–okay, that’s not really a good analogy, since most of the knives I own couldn’t slice through melted butter, but you get the…errr…Point.

I carefully extracted myself from my prickly situation and found another spot to stand and wait for the elusive and flighty kingfisher.  But before it showed up, a guy walking by on the road stopped and asked me if I knew about the eagle. I said yes, I’d gotten a few pictures of it, but not really good ones. He pointed me in the direction of where it often perches, and so off I went.

I found the spot, but no eagle. So I waited for it. And waited. And waited. Have I mentioned how cold it was? And how much I really HATE the cold? I was seriously considering giving up, but the thought of seeing the eagle was just too compelling, so I stayed.

I did see some wild turkeys while I waited:

And then, finally, there it was! It came swooping across the sky, and very quickly flew around the OTHER side of the stand of pine trees on the hill, where I could see that it landed, but couldn’t get a single shot of it; the pictures would have just made you wonder why I took pictures of a thick mess of pine trees.

Well, I hadn’t waited all that time for an eagle, just to get a brief glimpse of its backside! So Idecided to trudge up the hill and see if I could find it. I knew, of course, that it would go flying off while I was still there on the wooded hillside, but the LOGIC of that was no match for my urge to get closer, so I went up anyway.

Nearly at the top of the hill, I came across a bit of a surprise–ground “evidence” that the eagle liked to perch here often. So, I looked up and sure enough–The Eagle’s Nest!!

Let me pause here and say that this was taken with a long focal length lens AND severely cropped–I was still quite a long ways away from the nest–but even at that, I did worry that I’d disturb them by being so close, so I put distance between myself and the tree where the nest was before  finishing my climb up the hill.  I just don’t want anyone getting the idea that they can get this close to an eagle’s nest, because that is what we call a Very. Bad. Idea.

Well, of course, the eagle was long since gone. Probably. I guessed. Not that I could actually SEE up in that nest well enough to tell, since it was nestled in a thick stand of VERY tall pines.  But I kept climbing the hill, hoping that from the top, I could at least see  the area better to know where the eagle might have flown off to.

All of a sudden there was a rustling noise–turns out, the eagle HAD still been in the nest and as it took off I had the opportunity to get some pretty decent shots of it.

It also turns out–as you may have guessed from the nest–that there are actually a PAIR of eagles.

And so, without further banter, here are the resulting photos of my Close Encounters of the Eagle Kind:

More photos on my Flickr page.

And now, I’m off to go try to find my eagles perched somewhere!

PLEASE NOTE: Eagles are a protected species. It is a wonderful thing that they are no longer endangered, and we should do everything we can to keep it that way! I’d never even seen an eagle in the wild until just a few months ago (at Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge, which is the topic of an earlier post), so I’m pretty pumped about seeing them so close to my home. I have intentionally not revealed the precise location of the eagles, but if you are in the area, it’s likely you know where they are. While they are beautiful to look at, I hope that you will simply enjoy watching them from a distance, and take care not to encroach on their territory.  For me, in the future, I will either remain at the bottom of the hill, or arrange a way to set up a blind a safe distance away at the top of the hill so that it doesn’t disturb them. But as it would require access to private property, I wouldn’t recommend the trudge up the hill to try to get a glimpse of them.

The Road Not Taken

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

—The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost
I thought of this poem last Saturday morning as I tried to make my way to the river at Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge, but my version went something like this:

Two paths diverged in a field, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
But it turned out to be longer, steeper, more difficult way to get to the same spot as the other path.
(with apologies to Robert Frost)

This is what happened to me on a recent Saturday morning. Not once, not even twice, but at least three times.  I’d set out for Seven Islands Refuge again, hoping to spot that bald eagle again, or maybe some herons. The last time I’d gone, I just picked a path and started walking. This time, I looked at the map to see which was the most direct trail down to the river.  I started out here:

Looked a little steep, but I was sure it would level out pretty quickly, and the map showed it was a straight shot to the river “outlook” area.  In fairness, it really wasn’t that steep–unless you are a slightly overweight, seriously out-of-shape 50+-year-old woman carrying a big heavy bag of camera equipment.  Once I made it to the top of the hill and quit gasping for my next breath, I could finally look around me and enjoy the view. It was just about sunrise, and off in the distance, the sun was beginning to peek up over the hills:

I continued on a short distance, and then, there it was. The diverging paths–the map hadn’t shown diverging paths! I wondered, WWRFD?? (What Would Robert Frost Do?) and part of me also wondered if Frost had been as out of shape and “well fed” as I was when he took that lesser-traveled path.  But on this morning, I wasn’t looking for the “adventurous” route, the “lesser traveled” path–and that was a good thing, because they both looked like they had seen little use of late. I just wanted to get down to the river, post-haste. So I picked the one that seemed to slant off slightly more towards the direction of the river.  I walked for about two minutes or so,   when I suddenly realized that the path I’d opted out of had merged right into the trail I was on–the whole dilemma about which path to take had been pointless.

Again, a bit farther on, two paths, and again the dilemma about which to take. And again, a short distance later, the paths came right back together. By the third time this happened, I had begun to get a clue about how this was going to work, and I quit imagining how my life could be changed if I picked the wrong path–I just kept walking. One path was just like the other. And NONE of them seemed like they were getting me any closer to the river.  I began to think I’d somehow misread the map and was walking AWAY from the river instead of towards it, when finally there was a fork in the road, AND a trail sign showing which way to the river.  By this time, I was no longer nearly as interested in eagles or herons as I was in a hot cup of coffee and a long nap. But I’d come too far to give up, so I forged on. As it turns out, I was already nearly at the river. AND there was a bench at the overlook, so I even got to sit down and rest a while.

I didn’t see any herons, eagles, or any other large birds, but I did see some smaller birds:

I take that back. I DID see some geese; not really the large birds I went looking for, but at least it was something. I also saw some beautiful views:

So, in the end, it wasn’t really which path I took that mattered. It was the fact that I was there at all–and being there, enjoying nature, enjoying photography–that DID make “all the difference.”

More photos from my most recent Seven Islands trip can be seen on my Flickr page.

Weaving a Spidery Tale

Happy Halloween! I thought I’d shared a creepy-crawly sort of photo story today, in honor of Halloween, but the story actually unfolded several weeks ago. I’m still waiting to see how it ends.  FAIR WARNING: The photos are ALL of Spiders. Some are really CLOSE-UP photos of the spider. If you don’t LIKE spiders, you probably won’t like them any better as close-up photos. 😀 I’m only posting three in this story, to limit the effects on those of you who are arachnophobic, but I’ll provide a link to my flickr account where you can see the others.

Sometime in September, I left the house one morning, and walked down the stairs–and very nearly ran right into a big spider web, which so happened to have a great big spider on it at the time. An orb weaver spider, to be precise. Now, some females would scream and run away, some would swat it and kill the beast–but I just began imagining the best angle for photos of it.  Trouble is, it was right in front of the garage, making for a terrible background, and it was hanging face down, so the only way to get it from the front was to get down on my knees on the gravel driveway and shoot up at it. I tried that, I really did–but my knees had a committee meeting and decided to nix that plan. My knees gave me many good years of service as a soccer goalkeeper, and they remind me of that when I do something stupid like trying to kneel on them on a gravel driveway.

I did get this picture at the time, which gave an idea of the size of the spider:

Since kneeling on the gravel driveway was out, I started thinking how else I could get a decent photo of it. I was encouraged when it was still there that evening, and again the next morning. Since it seemed to plan to “hang around” for a while, I decided to really think out my strategy–I could get a nice colored piece of paper and tape to the garage door for a better background, then maybe wait til it caught something in its web.

I was still thinking about it several days later when I returned home from work to find a package on my porch from the UPS delivery person–and a missing spider and spider web!!  My guess is that the delivery person had a close encounter of the arachnid kind, since you would basically be about two inches from it by the time you get to my stairs.  UPS Delivery Dude/Dudette probably thought they were doing me a huge favor by ridding my home of this creepy-crawly. I thought that was just the sad end of it…

…but a few days later, as I headed out to work, I discovered the spider had returned! This time, though, it built its web between the stair rails and the ground next to the porch. Since there are vines that grow up and around the railing, this would at least make for a much better background–but the spider was still hanging upside down, and NOW, since the web extended all the way down to the grass, there was no way for me to even get up under it without destroying the web.  I was starting to think ill of this spider, as she was just NOT cooperating with my photographic needs.

Day after day, I’d watch her, hoping she’d turn around–sometimes, I even poked the web, just a little bit, not enough to damage it, just to make her move. And she would move, but before I could grab the camera and click the shutter, she’d move right back, upside down and away from me.

One morning, I devised a plan. I was GOING to get up under that web to get pictures–I figured if I was careful, I could gently lift one or two strands of the web from the ground, which would likely send her fleeing, but I was pretty sure she’d calm down quickly and return. In the meantime, I’d lay down on the ground once I could get past the web and wait for her with my camera.  The plan actually worked, although the resulting photos are still not quite what I’d hoped to achieve–but I was in an extremely awkward, uncomfortable position, mostly having to hold the camera and shoot with one hand. Still, I did at least get a few shots, like this:

And this:

Then I saw something else, hanging from the railing:

Do you know what this is? That’s right, boys and girls–this is a spider’s egg sac. Do you know how many spiders can hatch from a single egg sac? That’s right, far, far too many.

And did I mention this thing is approximately 10 feet from my kitchen door?

Still–I didn’t want to just remove it, seeing as how she’d so graciously hung around long enough for me to plan my little photo shoot.  I wondered if maybe I could just wait til she died and then move the egg sac somewhere, but I had no idea how long I had before the itty-bitty spiders may crawl out of the egg sac.  So, of course, I googled it.

And that’s when the nightmares started.  Because–while I DID find information to suggest it would be a while before the spiders emerged–I also found THIS blog post.

In case my blog post has already creeped you out enough, and you have no desire to go read ANOTHER long post about spiders, let me sum it up for you. He also found a orb weaver egg sac, not far from his door. Well, no. He actually conveniently MOVED the sac close to his door. And eventually, the sac opened. And then…well, let me just quote him in his own words:

“A day with a light breeze and they dispersed on their tiny filaments of silk. It was then I realised that I was an idiot. They could only be blown into the house as a breeze doesn’t come from the house out into the world. And they did – hundreds of them into the living room. All over the furniture. All over the ceiling.”

And now, every time I look at that spider, I envision hundreds of tiny little spiders all over my kitchen, and I begin to itch.  But I still haven’t moved the egg sac. I’m really hoping I can wait until the poor little spider finally catches its death in this cold weather, and then I can take the sac and move it somewhere far, far away from my doors.

And yes, I do know that spiders do not have an emotional, maternal-instinct kind of feeling about their egg sacs, and if I took it now, she wouldn’t sit and weep for her lost children.  But I still can’t do it.

The remaining pictures of the orb weaver are here.

About My Cover Photo

A month or two ago, I posted some photos on my Facebook page that garnered some interest and curiosity–part of one of those pictures is the cover photo of the top of my blog. The burning question was: What ARE those things?? It was recently pointed out to me that I forgot to ever actually answer that question, so this post is the story behind those photos.

If you aren’t FB friends with me, or have forgotten the photos, here’s a couple of them that haven’t been whittled away by cropping to make them fit that slender banner space:

So, what are they? These:

I was out looking for some decent-looking, but CHEAP, vases to use for an event we were planning. I ended up at the dollar store, where I found these vase-and-hydrating bead packages. For a buck.  So, I bought a few. The vases didn’t work for what we were planning, but I figured they might work for something else. I opened one of them and put the little beads into water for a few hours and this is what happened:

I should note that the green ones on the left are from a different package, since I haven’t let the blue ones dry back up yet. I set them in a vase and didn’t give them much thought.

After the event, I was photographing some of the flowers I’d brought home. Then, I decided to put the hydrating beads into the vase with the flowers, but somewhere along the way, an idea began to form in my head.

I had a piece of foam core board with a great colorful, shimmery covering on it, so I used that as a background. Then I put the beads up on a piece of glass–that was the really challenging part, as they are, after all, 90% water, and so they had a tendency to want to slide right off the glass.  That made lining them up and getting them in focus a bit challenging! It was kinda like herding cats.
After that, it was just a matter of experimenting with angles, where to put the flash to get a good reflection, and voila! Waterball photos! And–did I mention they were a DOLLAR?? I love the Dollar Store!

I’ve got some more plans for these little waterballs, so stay tuned!

A Kudzu Horror Story

For any readers unfamiliar with the stuff, Kudzu is a non-native, extremely invasive vine that was brought here in the late 1800s from Japan–the stuff can grow up to 12 inches per day!

Despite the fact that it is rapidly choking the very life out of the southeast’s native flora, I gotta admit–the way it completely covers over entire stands of trees is kind cool looking. It always makes me think of those beautiful gardens where the shrubbery has been carefully pruned to look like animals. Only the kudzu, as it consumes everything in its path, looks more like giant amorphic monsters, silently waiting for the opportunity to come to life and destroy us all.

Recently, I found evidence that some of the Kudzu monsters have begun to move in for the kill.

I was on my way to a doctor’s appointment when I saw this house–at first, I wondered how I’d never noticed it before, as I travel down this particular street fairly often. Then I realized that the last time I’d driven down it was at least a week ago, and the kudzu monsters probably just hadn’t made their move yet.  Considering that I only live a mile or two away from this house, I think I’ll start sleeping with one eye open, and listening for the tell-tale signs of the Vine creeping ever closer.

Someone pointed out how musty, moldy and just NASTY this house must be inside; that got me thinking about all the disgusting little living things that are likely teeming within its walls–and a whole NEW horror story began to happen in my head. But I’m way too creeped out to ever write it.
Feel free to think up your own horror story about The Vine taking over this house and its inhabitants and share it in the comments!

Seven Islands Refuge

Yesterday, I shared the little adventure I had to even get to this 360-acre wildlife refuge about 30 minutes from my home.  Today, I’ll focus a little more on the photos I got while I was there.

I went mostly just to check the area out and see if it was worthwhile for a photo shoot–and also to try some sunrise photos and hopefully some herons.

Well, as I mentioned yesterday, the sunrise happened while I was still trying to get to the front side of refuge, so I didn’t get photos of that.

I saw two herons. Both were just standing on the edge of the river–one was too far away to even consider trying to get a picture of, and the other was this one:

That was the closest I could get, even with my longest lens.  So, the bird photos seemed to be a bit of bust and I decided to head back and concentrate on some macro shots instead.

There were bees, damselflies (which I got plenty of photos of!), flowers, all sorts of macro opportunities. But then I saw a few small, seemingly uninteresting spider webs. These were the little webs that are built right down on the grass, stretching from blade to blade–not the big, interesting webs that hang in between trees. Of course, you’re also far less likely to run smack into one of these and get it, and possibly the spider that built it, tangled up in your hair.

But usually, you just wouldn’t even give these little webs a second glance. But the way I see them is different–I noticed that, although it was after 9 a.m. by now, it was still shady enough that the dew hadn’t yet dried from these webs.  So I got down on the ground and took a closer look and this is what I saw:

Before leaving, I walked down to the “homestead.” I never actually made it up to the house; I spent all my time down at the barn and could have stayed there another hour or two–some really great photos just waiting to happen there!

As I was leaving the barn, a shadow passed over me–the kind that tells you (at least if you’re a photographer who likes to take pictures of birds), that you probably just missed an opportunity for a bird picture.  Suspecting it was probably one of the herons I’d hoped to find, I looked up–but it wasn’t a heron. It was this:

First Eagle picture, ever!! I was so excited! The wind was starting to really pick up at this point, and so the eagle was just catching the drafts and soaring around in circles. It would disappear behind the trees on one side of the road, then come soaring back overhead, only to fly off toward the river. Then in a minute, it would reappear and circle back over toward the homestead.  And I would turn around, taking pictures of it, hoping to get one or two that were decent. Finally, it disappeared in the trees and I decided to head on home. Only, by this time, I’d spun myself around so much, that when I started to walk down the road, I couldn’t walk straight and almost fell over into the ditch! A person with dizziness issues should really try to remember NOT to spin themselves around in circles and then try to walk straight!

More pictures from the Seven Islands trip are posted on my Flickr page, and hopefully I’ll get some more up soon.

A Bad Beginning, A Happy Ending

This morning I woke up at about 5:30 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep–a serious bummer on a Saturday!  Suddenly, I got a brilliant idea: go out to Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge and get some photos of the sunrise, and maybe find some herons along the river’s bank.

I’ve never been to Seven Islands before for a photo shoot, but I’ve been meaning to check it out. I figured I’d drive out there, catch the sunrise, spend an hour or so looking for herons, then head on home. If it was promising, I could go back later with my sister.
I had a vague idea how to get there, and I had my phone’s GPS to guide me.  I grabbed my camera gear, made a quick stop for coffee and bottled water, and off I headed. I knew it was about a 30-minute drive, but I still had nearly an hour before sunrise.

Then my phone’s GPS said, “In .2 miles, turn R on Road A.” There was a brief moment where I thought, “This doesn’t seem like how I’d do it,” but I figured perhaps the GPS was taking me a more scenic way. There was also the briefest nanosecond of a thought that said, “did that GPS thing say something about Google ‘beta’?”  But it was still not even 6:30, there had not been enough caffeine introduced to my system, and so the thought found no root, no “hmm, perhaps I should ponder this a bit before committing to just go where the GPS wants me to go.”
This is how I managed to arrive at my destination, which was about 30 minutes from my home, in approximately an hour and a half.

To its credit, the GPS actually DID take me to Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge. Unfortunately, it took me to the backside of the 360-acre refuge–and even more unfortunately, the ONLY parking and access to the area is from the front side.

No problem. At this point, I was about a mile from where I actually wanted to be, as the crow flies, and it was still well before sunrise.

No. PROBLEM.  While I was only a mile away from my destination, there was a pretty decent size portion of the French Broad River in my way. And no bridge for miles.

Since I didn’t get the extra “boat” option on my car, I ended up having to drive over 40 minutes to get to the right side of the refuge.  The sunrise was absolutely gorgeous though; brilliant orange, peeking up over the countryside. It’s too bad I was still in my car driving when it happened.

By the time I finally arrived, I was pretty “over” the whole adventure. But I decided that as long as I was there, I might as well at least walk around a few minutes, maybe go down to the river, see if it was worth coming back for, and then head home.

I finally left at about 1:00 p.m.  Yeah, it was definitely worth it, and another trip is in the immediate future. But this time, I won’t need to rely on the ill-informed GPS.

Photos to come in the next post, but here’s the first photo I took as I entered the refuge; I’d missed the sunrise (well, no I didn’t. I SAW the sunrise, I just didn’t get any photos of it), but I did see this:

Welcome To My World!

I’ve been here, in the land of blogs, before. It’s always ended badly, because I begin well, but then my posts fairly quickly become fewer and farther between until suddenly, it’s been a year. And there lies my blog, in the great internet junkyard of unused, unread blogs, rusting slowly away. Okay, so a blog can’t really rust. That’s hardly the point.  The point is, I don’t tend to stick with these things.
But hope springs eternal, and so here I am again, embarking on yet another blogging adventure. Perhaps this time it’ll all click–pun intended, as this blog will be largely about “clicking”–actuating the camera shutter to capture life through my eyes.

I hope to share my photos with you, but also some stories about the photos. I hope you’ll enjoy taking the journey with me.