A Look into my Life

Well, once again, it's that time of the month where P.J. has his monthly photo blogging challenge. This month's theme is "A Look into my Life." I figuredwith the amount of photos I took this past month, I should be able to come up with five photos that sort of personify me.

1. Geocaching and travel

As you all know by now if you've been paying attention, I love to geocache. I also love to travel which works out well since they go hand in hand with each other. Last month I attended two geocaching Mega Events, one in the Los Angeles area (Spring Fling) and the second one which was in Flagstaff over Memorial Day weekend (GeoWoodstockXX). Both of the events were put on by the same individuals, so there was a lot to compare and contrast but if push came to shove, I'd say the GeoWoodstock was Spring Fling on steroids. It was just bigger and better all the way around and that's to take nothing away from the Spring Fling. 

Let's just say over the course of five days in Arizona, I got to see a lot, find a lot of geocaches and just have a really good time enjoying this crazy hobby that I've been doing for over 23 years. With the two events and other geocaching excursions I did this past month, I found 430 caches, which was my second best month ever. 

I've said in the past and I'll say it again here; geocaching takes me to places that I wouldn't necessarily visit were it not for geocaching. I mean, I got to stand on the corner in Winslow, Arizona while the store across the street played "Take it Easy" in a loop all day long. Unless you make it a point, a lot of these interesting tourist spots just get driven right by, but because I have an interest in travel and geocaching, I've gotten off the main highway and done some scenic byways that I might have missed otherwise. Watch the Pixar movie "Cars" and I think you'll understand perfectly.

2. Hiking

I also really enjoy hiking along all kinds of trails, but I have a big interest in longer trails, trails like the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) and the Arizona Trail (AZT) to name a few. I've hiked portions of all of these trails in my lifetime and while my age is starting to become a factor in how much backpacking I can actually do, I haven't ruled out the possibility of doing some section hikes on any of these trails. I've just become more accustomed to the finer things in life, like an actual bed to sleep in when I travel as opposed to a sleeping bag and sleeping pad on the ground.

While in Flagstaff, I was able to hike a portion of the AZT. Once again, geocaching was involved. We'd gone up to finish off a geocaching adventure up in the mountains north of Flagstaff and we'd noticed this cache just off the road at a turnout. We decided to find that cache after finishing off the Adventure stop and I am really glad we did. We pulled off at the trailhead, then took a side trail, which took us down to the AZT, which then took us up to the junction that led us out to the meadow you can see in the distance. Eventually, we found another side trail, which led us to the geocache we were looking for, one that had been hidden in July 2001. It's always cool to find caches that are 23 years old. As time goes on, these old caches are becoming rarer and rarer and so they become valuable in the game for different challenge caches out there that want you to find old caches.

3. Photography

If you're still reading along, you're probably noticing a theme for this entire entry, but you knew that was going to happen anyway, didn't you? Anyone who travels knows to bring a camera along to record their journeys and refresh their memories when they get back home and I'm no exception. 

This particular shot wasn't taken on any trip I took, but I happened to spy this ladybug right outside our community center about two blocks away from our house. I really loved the large amounts of yellow and green with that little splash of red thrown in which made for a very pleasing image in my opinion.

My photographs tend to lean heavily towards the natural side of the earth as opposed to the cultural side of things and so I have lots of landscape type photos in my galleries and photo albums. I will also tend to have lots of animal photos both large and small. Looking back on this blog entry however, I think I've actually achieved a good balance between nature and culture this time around. Sometimes that's just how it goes.

4. Food

When I'm out and about traveling, I tend to lean toward more local cuisine, especially when I'm eating at the dinner hour. This trip to Flagstaff last month was no exception. We had Mexican food, we had Neapolitan Pizza, and then we had some American comfort food in the form of this Texas burger with sweet potato fries and a stout chocolate porter. And yes, there's bacon in there too. Just looking at that photo makes my mouth water. This meal, for the most part, was the perfect ending night of that weekend.

Please also understand that for lunch I'll usually eat at a place that's tested and true for fast food, mainly because I have an agenda that I like to complete. We ate at In-n-Out for lunch one of the days on this trip. It was quick and easy and I can now say I've eaten at the highest elevated In-n-Out at just around 7000 feet above sea level. In fact, it's the only in-n-Out I've eaten at where they didn't have the crossed palm trees (a corporate symbol) out in front of the restaurant. It's just too cold for the palm trees to survive. So it's fast food for lunch but breakfast and dinner are really supposed to be savored when I'm traveling.

5. Family

I really couldn't go an entire blog entry about myself without talking about my family and particularly, this little gem. I found myself getting to hang out with my favorite tiny human in the middle of the month in Paso Robles so her parents could attend a wedding there. We got to hang out all weekend together, play in the park, go to a farmer's market and then enjoy each other's company in the evening while her parents were at the wedding.

I don't know if you've ever heard the sayings about being a grandparent, but everything you've heard is definitely true. Being this tiny human's Papa is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. We're fortunate enough that we live only a half day's drive away from them, so I get to see her on a regular basis. That, plus the technology of the day where we can FaceTime at meals really allows me to see her grow up. And yet I'm still amazed when I look back at videos from six months ago and see how much she's grown. Let's just leave it at, I'm really enjoying this part of my life.

And there you have it, my take on the theme "A Look into my Life." Please feel free to comment and check out the other entries to this month over at P.J. blog.

Point of View

It's time, once again, for PJ's photo blogging challenge. The challenge for the month of April was "Point of View." Now, I think this can be interpreted in a variety of ways, so here's what I came up with for last month.

Bracket Field

I live near a large regional park and last month I took advantage of the free parking in the off season on weekdays to do several hikes in the park. The one large hike that I did last month took me around the perimeter of the park, slightly over 9 miles all told. The trail is mostly a fire road, so it's wide, but it does take us into some interesting areas. There is a small airport (Bracket Field) along the northeast corner of the park and I got to see several small private planes take off as I walked along the trail. Not much you can really do with this point of view other than to take the underside of the plane. Interestingly, it's also the only shot of the five that I've chosen that isn't predominantly brown, so I have that point of view going for me as well.

Ground level

Early in the hike, I almost stumbled upon a garden snail. I found this particular animal kind of intriguing, mainly because normally, when I see these kinds of snails, they're usually found in a fairly wet environment. Not so for this guy as he was in the middle of a pretty dry trail. Although, I will admit that the year so far has been one of the wettest we've had on record, which could be the reason this snail was so exposed. Either way, I decided to get down as close to ground level to get a good up close and personal shot of the snail as it traveled along its way, heading for the other side of the trail.

Many times, I'll try to encourage snakes to get out of the trail and I even moved a tortoise we found in the middle of a dirt road off of the road so it wouldn't become road kill later on, but for some reason I didn't do this with the snail. Not sure why outside of the fact that it is not a native species to the area. Still, from its point of view, it probably has only known that one area where it has called home. I guess I should keep that in mind for the next time as I did encounter several bicyclists on the trail and kept wondering, did they miss this guy as he made it across the road? Who knows? But at least I can help it along if I encounter other animals in the middle of the trail, especially the slow moving ones.

Animals from a different point of view

As noted above, we've had a lot of rain since the beginning of the year. For comparison sake, we average in my area about 13 inches of rain per year, which is why we're classified as a semi-desert. Last year (January to December), we received slightly over 35 inches of rain. This year, we've already received over 23 inches of rain since January 1st. Granted we are moving into the dry season in Southern California, but most people who know our climate or have lived here for awhile know that's a lot of rain for our area.

But because of this, we get a different point of view of some animals that we don't see very often. If you've been paying attention, you know that I love animal encounters and will go out of my way to photograph animals in the wild. Very rarely do I get to encounter deer in our local foothills. I didn't see the deer that made these prints, but because of all the rain, I did get a decent shot. I'm sure these prints are no longer up there on that particular trail due to other foot and bicycle traffic, but from my point of view, it will always be there.

Desert tortoise

On the last weekend of the month, a friend of mine and I went up into the desert to do some geocaching. As we were traversing down this dusty one and a half car width dirt road, we came over this rise and I saw this big California desert tortoise in the roadway. Fortunately, my friend who was driving, was able to stop in plenty of time. These tortoises are endangered species and are protected over their range, which we were obviously in at the time. One of the things that you're not supposed to do is disturb them. That being said you do have permission to move the animal off of a roadway for its own protection. You're supposed to move it to the side of the road, in the direction that it was heading.

So we got out of the car and I gently lifted the tortoise off the roadway and off over the bank into this area where it was heading. I wanted to be as gentle as possible since if they feel like they're being threatened, they will sometimes void their bladder in an act of self defense. This isn't a good thing for the tortoise since now it doesn't have its natural water reserve. Fortunately, it didn't do that and as I moved it, I also checked to see if it was a male or female. The curved underbody of the shell told me it was a male and a good sized one at that. If you look closely at the hind legs, you'll see nice long claws which are used for digging burrows in the ground. Those are about a quarter inch in length and from the front of its shell to the back, it was about 14 inches in length. This was also the first time I've ever encountered a desert tortoise in the wild, so I had that going for me as well.

Different camera

For the first time in awhile, I got my Canon DSLR camera out of its bag and took it on a hike later in the month. It had been about 2 and a half years since I last used the camera and I felt it was high time I got it out, dusted it off and use it again. I had posted about this on Facebook previously, but the reason for not using it were a variety of things. I hadn't been satisfied with the way it was dealing with different kinds of light, especially harsh midday light and on one of my road trips, I just didn't use it and relied solely on my phone for photos. I've been happy with the results of what I've been taking recently with my phone, but from my point of view, it was limited, especially when it came to taking wildlife photos.

That came to a head a couple of days before I got this shot of a gopher snake, when I spotted a couple of coyotes in a field. I got a decent video with the phone, but couldn't get a really good close up shot. After I got home, I got the camera out, put it through some paces and then took it out on a hike where I got this shot of a gopher snake "tasting" its surroundings. So I guess what I'm saying here is depending upon the point of view I want to convey will probably determine which camera I use. I'm not going to confine myself to one particular lens anymore.

And there you have it, my take on the Point of View challenge for this month. Please stop by PJ's page to see how others did this challenge. Please feel free to comment here.

Viewing the trail through a different lens

Originally, I was going to title this entry, October 7th, 2021, but people might not understand. Either way, I'm going to have to explain the significance of this date because it pertains to this blog entry. On that date, I took my last photo with my Canon EOS 80D DSLR camera. At the time it was a conscious decision because I was out on a hike in Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona. I'd noticed that I wasn't getting good quality images mainly because the lighting was harsh and so I switched to my iPhone for the remainder of the trip.

I didn't figure that it would be over 2 and a half years until I picked up that camera again, but it has. What got me thinking about picking the "Big Boy" up again was the videos I took last week of the coyotes that many of you have seen on my Instagram or Facebook feed. Although good, had I had the Canon, I would have been able to zoom in a lot closer to the coyotes than I could with the phone. I'm also not saying that I'm going to go back exclusively to the Canon as there are benefits to both of them, which I will detail below.

I have been taking photos since I was in third grade (so almost 60 years). My parents bought me a camera, probably for my birthday or Christmas that year. It took roll film, so it wasn't a Kodak Instamatic. This one had a steep learning curve to it, especially for an 8 year old, but I was up to the task. Eventually, I bought my first DSLR camera when I became a photographer for my high school yearbook. My wife bought me a better camera as a wedding gift and eventually I made the switch to digital. Needless to say, I've been a photographer for most of my life and I have a love for photography.

Which brings me back to last week when I spotted those coyotes. The iPhone is good, actually great for landscape photos in my opinion. Its zoom has gotten so much better, but you still can't get really close shots of wildlife using the phone. And so I dusted off the "Big Boy" and started looking it over to remember the ins and outs of DSLR. The batteries were dead, so that was the first order of business and then I waited for a good day when I knew I was going to go out on a hike. That ended up being this afternoon and these are three of the shots I took along the way.

With the iPhone, I wouldn't have even bothered with the bird on the trail. It would have been too far away, even with the phone's zoom and if I'd gotten closer, it would have flown away and I wouldn't have much. I would have had the same problem with the butterfly. Animals have proximity zones. You get inside their zone and they take off. With the telephoto lens on my Canon, I can get much closer to get a good shot without entering their proximity zone.

With the gopher snake, I know I wouldn't have been able to get close enough to it to get the tongue shot that I got. I kept getting closer to it and eventually I entered its proximity zone and it turned around and headed into the brush. I'd taken lots of photos of it before it turned around and hightailed it out of there, but I didn't know exactly what I had until I was able to look at the shots on the computer's big screen. I had several good ones, but this one was just fabulous.

So in the long run, I'll continue to use my iPhone for most day to day photos, but the Canon is my "Go To" for wildlife photography.

When is Graffiti not Graffiti?

Every now and then I stumble across things that make me go "Hmmmmm." I'm sure most people have a working definition of graffiti, but I thought, why not write about it anyway. I'm sure most people would recognize the artwork on this truck which was parked on a street in San Francisco as graffiti.

According to most sources, "graffiti is a form of visual communication, usually illegal, involving the unauthorized marking of public space by an individual or group." In each of the three examples I'm posting with this, I'm pretty sure that the image makers were not given permission to create what they created, although some will argue, and I think rightfully so, that the middle example probably didn't need permission before creating what they did. But are we sure that the first example of the truck isn't a piece of art that's on display on the streets? I did not research who created the artwork on the truck. I didn't feel like I had to.

What I wanted to do was examine each piece and try and figure out if it's art, graffiti, or something else entirely. I think I would argue that all three pieces are art and graffiti. The phrase, "One person's trash is another person's treasure" comes to mind immediately. I think most people would say that the first piece is graffiti, but some graffiti is wonderful art at the same time. If you don't believe me, then look at the last photo I've attached to this. Those images, on the last four columns, are original graffiti that was placed on the Berlin Wall during the Cold War era.

The second one is the most interesting, I believe. If we look at the definition that I wrote earlier we can makes some judgements about it. Visual Communication?  I would say so. Illegal? Hard to say, but probably not. Unauthorized marking of a public space? Probably, but then again, the Ancients of Utah and Colorado probably didn't have the concept of ownership of land, so it was all public space and who's to say they didn't have permission to create those symbols on that rock outcropping? Today, I know that almost everyone who sees this would view it as artwork, not to be disturbed. I mean, the state of Colorado has viewing points set up alongside the road where you can look at these pieces of art from afar. There are also posted signs stating that the defacement of the art is considered a crime. 

So I guess, time plays an element in all of this. Even the National Park Service has weighed in on this issue. While they don't condone graffiti, they actually preserve graffiti in some of the areas they are set up to protect. I know of at least one instance in Great Basin National Park where writing inside of Lehman Caves inside the park have been preserved as part of the history of the park and cave. The writings (mostly signatures and dates) were done by employees of the National Forest Service over a hundred years ago. Time heals all wounds?

What it boils down to I guess is the public's perception of it or maybe the authority's perception of it. The Berlin Wall, when it was all in Berlin was a striking example of this. The western side contained all of the graffiti. The eastern side was pretty much pristine. Different forms of authority obviously made this a reality. People in West Berlin let their feelings known about the wall in the one way they could at the time and that was by drawing on it. People on the east side didn't not have that kind of freedom since there were barriers in place that prevented people from even getting close enough to it to place graffiti on it.

And while I don't like the gang related graffiti that is so pervasive in some areas, I'm not going to deny that some of it is amazing artwork. What's your take on this? Graffiti? Art? A combination of both? As always, comments are welcome.

Snap Away!

I haven't participated in P.J.'s photo blogging challenge in a couple of months, mainly because I don't like to force my photography, rather I like to let my photography happen and see if anything might fit the theme for that particular month. Needless to say, nothing in my photography in the last couple of months has really fit recent themes, but this month's theme was Snap Away! and I figured anything I took this month would probably work and I've got a few nice shots that I can write about. 

Hopefully, this will get me blogging again as it's been almost two months since I've written anything here too. Got into the doldrums with not being able to do much of anything and just didn't really feel like writing anything. I have a variety of subjects I still have in the back of my mind that I want to write about, most notably I'd like to finish up my 2017 road trip. When last we left our intrepid explorers, they were in Abilene, Kansas. But that's for another entry. This is for the photo blogging challenge.

So here we go.

Bobcat Fire

As anyone knows who follow the news at all, the west coast of the United States has pretty much been burning out of control. This shot, which was taken on September 9th, is looking over my garage. The Bobcat fire started on September 6th, so it was relatively new at the time I took that shot, but it just exploded over the past three weeks. As of this writing, it has burned 114,000+ acres and is now only 63% contained. And this is just one such fire in California, let alone the rest of the western states. If you click on the link and back out of the map a little bit, you can get an idea of what the fire situation is like in the western United States. It's brutal and we really have just started fire season now!

Mushrooms

Mushrooms don't seem to last very long in an urban area. People like to kick them over as soon as they come up. These particular mushrooms are actually creating a lopsided fairy ring. Unfortunately, the groundskeepers at our local park mow the grass on a regular basis, so the mushrooms don't last very long. The day after I took this shot, most had been kicked over, probably by kids, but they wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway because the grass was mown about two days later. Still it's interesting to see how the grass to the right, and inside the fairy ring, is slightly greener and always taller than the grass on the outside. I'm not sure if this is a product of the mushrooms providing extra nutrients to the soil or not, but I enjoy watching them pop up.

Watch where you walk

Last week, I went on an extended hike for the first time in awhile, due to the excessive heat we've been having here in California. We're having more right now, but this is sort of a "last gasp" of summer before it really gets cooler. Earlier, it was just damn hot, triple digit type of heat.

The reason for this shot, is more of a public service announcement more than anything. I've already posted this shot on Facebook for my friends and hiking buddies, but everyone should consider this shot. First, if you look closely, you will see that this is a baby rattler. How can you tell? First, there is little to no rattle, but it has a nice triangular shaped head, so I knew is was a rattler right away. Second, if you look at the footprints, you can see the snake is very small, compared to the footprints. Adults will get several feet in length. This one was no more than a foot long, just sunning itself in the middle of the trail.

When I hike, I usually scan several paces ahead of me, just in case I encounter something like this, so I was aware of it and stopped short. People not paying attention might have stepped right on this one. Once I got my shot, it decided that I was bigger than it was and it turned tail and headed back into the bushes and I made a wide berth around it on the other side of the trail. Thing to note is, not more than 100 yards (meters) to the right of this shot are residential houses. We live in their homes, so we should not be surprised if they show up in our back yards.

Embrace the shaggy

My last haircut was on February 12th. For those of you keeping track at home, that's 7 and a half months, for a guy who usually keeps his hair closely cropped, it's pretty much out of control at this point. I haven't felt comfortable going back to my barber to get it cut and so it continues to grow. This shot was taken on September 1st, so it's had another month to grow since then and it's almost as long as it was when I was in college, when it was "fashionable" to have long hair. I've been told to embrace the shaggy and I have done that, but my wife still likes a clean shave as opposed to a "Grizzly Adams" type of look, and so I still keep my face shaved for her sake.

I have had a beard from time to time, but the last time was the year before I retired. I shaved it off on the last day of school 2018 and haven't had one since. A co-worker said I reminded her of the movie character Benjamin Button, because it appeared that I was aging in reverse as I approached my retirement. Whatever works I guess. I wonder if it still looks like that however?

My better half

I took this photo when we were celebrating my youngest's birthday. My daughter ordered Ding Ding Dongs from a local bakery. We used to live right next door to the owners, so we're trying to support our friends and some local businesses at the came time. Cucamonga Cakery has a Facebook order form where you can order and then pick up on Saturdays, so if you live in our local area consider supporting a local business. Now after my shameless promotion, back to my better half.

She has become harder and harder to photograph over the years. I'm not sure what it is, but I used to be able to get, what I considered really good photos of her, but recently, I haven't, which is why I'm very pleased with this shot as it's one of the best photos I've taken of her in probably five years or so.

And there you have it. This is my five shots for P.J.'s photo blogging challenge for the month of September. Please stop by his site and check out how others interpreted the same theme. I hope you enjoyed my shots and I have to admit, I really enjoyed going through the shots I took this month to come up with five that I could really write stories about. Here's looking forward to writing more about more of my wanderings.

Letters

I seriously thought about not writing a blog for P.J.'s photo blogging challenge for this month. Those of you who follow this blog know that I enjoy photography and I didn't really want to post five photos of exactly the same thing (you'll understand when you get to my last photo here). So then I thought of a different way I could present the theme of Letters, without having to show a letter in each photo, and so you're getting an entry similar in style to how Sesame Street does it's letters, or how kindergarteners learn what kind of things begin with what kinds of letters. So here's my interpretation of the theme Letters for the month of July.

G is for Geocoins and Geocaching

Most of you know I like to geocache, but I haven't been getting out a lot during this pandemic. I like to geocache with others and that isn't really feasible at the moment, so I get out when I can, but I don't like caching nearly as much when I'm caching alone, and so I'm not caching as much.

I do, however, still enjoy talking about geocaching and participating in groups, such as the Facebook group, Worldwide Geocaching. That group  has weekly giveaways and these geocoins were offered as a giveaway about a month ago. I entered and my name was essentially pulled out of a hat and I ended up winning them. Since they have letters on them as well, I decided to use this as my initial photo for this essay.

C is for Comet

This past month, Comet Neowise (C/2020 F3) has been all the rage and I've been seeing some pretty spectacular photos of the comet on the internet. Sadly, because I live in an area (Southern California) that is heavily light polluted, I wasn't able to get really spectacular shots, but we did go out several times while the comet was closest to the Earth and I was able to get a couple of shots that I felt showed it and the tail. 

I'm usually not much in for filters on Instagram, but I decided to see if any of the filters there would enhance the shot enough that you could see the tail a little bit better. As it turned out, a couple of the filters did, so when I posted this shot to my Instagram account, the tail was much more visible than had I just posted the standard image I'd take that night.

Locating the comet was the toughest part of the shot. We used an app entitled Sky Guide, which allows you to search for particular things in the night sky and once we figured out approximately where the comet would be, I aimed the camera on a tripod up and took an initial shot. The comet was difficult to see with the naked eye, but the prolonged exposure of the camera allowed us to see the tail, even if we couldn't see it just standing there. From there on, it was taking different 30 second exposures until I felt I'd gotten a good enough image that I could post somewhere.

W is for Wall

A couple of weeks ago, at 4 o'clock in the morning, our wall separating our yard from our neighbor's yard fell over. Now we're in the process of getting a contractor to fix the wall. The wall was 60 years old, built to 1959 building codes and wouldn't have passed code today. Our contractor is going to repair the wall, including upgrading it so that it will meet builder's code for today. Once repaired, we won't have this nice hole between our two properties. At the least the part that was the retaining wall of the wall did was it was supposed to do. Only the part above the retaining wall fell, so that's a good thing.

H is for humor

I started to put this down as S is for Squirrel, but when I posted this on Instagram and Facebook, everyone said it looked exactly like the squirrel was fishing. Believe it or not, I hadn't really seen that aspect of the shot. I was more thrilled that I'd seen a native Gray Squirrel as opposed to the invasive Eastern Fox Squirrel that seems so prevalent in this area right now. Now that I look at the shot, it does look like this little guy is fishing. The only thing that would make this even better would have been if there had been a cobweb on the end of the little branch.

R is for Rocks

Since the pandemic started and we've been on shelter in place, I haven't taken many hikes, but I have done a lot of walking around the neighborhood. There have been several things that I've noticed that are not wildlife related and one of them have been these painted rocks.

Most of the rocks that I've noticed have a certain style to them indicating there's one particular local artist who is enjoying creating them and distributing them around throughout the neighborhood. Some of the rocks have disappeared, but many of them have stayed providing a bit of whimsy to people who walk by or encouragement in these trying times. I felt this one was rather appropriate in which to end this particular essay. Please stay safe dear readers.

And that does it for this month's photo blog. As stated above, I didn't want to post only rocks, so I chose to interpret it a different kind of way. I hope you enjoyed my interpretation of Letters. As always, please feel free to comment. I usually respond within a day and I promise I won't bite.

Keeping busy

It's the end of the month (wow, it almost felt like a normal month) and it's time, once again for P.J.'s monthly photo blogging challenge. This month's theme was keeping busy and the tough part of this month was to narrow down my selections to just five photos and I actually cheated a little bit on one of them since it's a collage, but you'll see why I did it in the story. This is also the 1 year anniversary of my retirement of teaching. May 31st last year was my last day on the job and ironically, I was much busier in the early part of this first year than I am now, but then again, you could say it's a different kind of busy. Here's my five photos interpreting the theme of Keeping Busy.

1. Environmental art

I viewed part of this theme as not necessarily all me keeping busy, but seeing how others are also coping with this. I go on photo walks on a daily basis around my neighborhood and one of the neighbors just up the street from us has been creating some environmental art as a way to keep busy during this strange time we're having. She walks around the neighborhood looking for stones that she can use in her art projects. She told me she has a mental image of what she wants to create and then goes out looking for stones to help her create her image. She glues the stones to a tile and inlays the tile along the sidewalk in front of her house. This is the third of about 7 or 8 she has created over the course of the last month or so. There is a piece depicting a couple canoeing, a child holding a bunch of helium balloons and a couple backpacking. The backpacking piece just showed up this morning and she has room for about 3 or 4 more pieces along this part of her front yard. Since they live on a corner, I'm hoping she continues with this around the other side of their house.

2. Cairns

Another house near us has created cairns using their existing rocks, at least I'm assuming they're only using their existing rocks. But as you can see, they have a lot of rocks in their front yard in which to choose, so I think I'm safe in assuming this. The cairns actually have changed a number of times over the course of the month. I suspect that others in the neighborhood either are attempting to add to the cairns, or are just deliberately toppling them over. Either way, I've noticed that they take different heights and positions, so the owners don't seem to be deterred by their cairns changing shapes. They also have a rather large collection of gnomes and buddhas in the front yard, many of which are also balanced on some of these stones. You can see examples of both of these in the background of my second shot.

3. Angry Bird©

About three weeks ago, I noticed this Angry Bird© plush toy appear in our local park. I figured it would last a day or two before someone would pick it up and take off with it, but it kept showing up every single day in a different part of the park. Eventually, it made its way out to the front of the community center, where I figured, for sure, it will disappear as soon as a worker sees it just lying amongst the shrubbery. Nope, it continued to be busy and move around and I started documenting its movements as it spent each day in a different part of the park. Several times, I thought it was gone, but it showed up again, or I'd just missed it the last time I was out walking in the park. The park is a fairly large park and there's lots of nooks and crannies in which to hide something like this, but someone or several someones are having fun kicking it around. I guess that's why it's probably an Angry Bird©.

I thought about taking it myself and making a photo journey of it as I wandered about the park, but my wife convinced me that the spirit of the Angry Bird© was that it needed to just move naturally, by others, not manipulated by me, so I left it for others to move around. The only manipulation I did with the bird was to place it upright before taking its photo.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to spot it for the last four days and I'm worried that it might have flown the coop. It's gone MIA previously since I first noticed it in the park, but this has been the longest period of time that I haven't been able to see it somewhere in the park. Ironically, the last time I did see it was back in the far reaches of the park, that very few people go to, so I don't think it was regular foot traffic doing it in. There is a day care on the other side of the fence from where I last saw it so perhaps someone thought it was from there and tossed it over the fence. I went and looked over the fence this morning to see if I see it, but it didn't appear to be there. Hopefully, it'll show up shortly in another part of the park, but if it doesn't, I hope whoever took it will give it a good home.

4. Birds

In this post, I talked about the different kinds of birds I've been noticing in the neighborhood. I've been keeping myself busy rediscovering my DSLR and the main subject over the past couple of months have been birds. The same park where the plush toy had been found is also a great area to go bird watching. I discovered why one day while I wasn't in the park, but the day that I took this shot of a western bluebird. This shot was taken in the front yard of a house that abuts to the rear end of the park. On the park side is a nice fifth of a mile trail that winds in and out of some citrus and juniper trees. Five times around and you've walked a mile and probably seen a lot of nature.

Still, I kept thinking there seemed to be an inordinate amount of birds back in this area. Then I started noticing a peacock call. Hmmmm. So as I was out walking, I spotted the bluebird and got several good shots of it and the owner of the house came out and we had a nice conversation about birds in general. And yeah, he has a peacock in his back yard and so spreads seed around quite generously, which attracts other birds including the western bluebird pair.

So because of the neighbor keeping busy taking care of his own flock, I've been kept busy taking wildlife photos. We sort of have a symbiotic relationship, although he's not really getting much from me, but I seem to benefitting greatly. As noted in my other post, my overall knowledge of birds has increased in the last couple of months and I've been able to up my photography game as well. It's keeping me busy and I'll take that. Walking around outside is much better that sitting home inside on your butt all day long.

5. Speaking of butts

This particular nesting site is in the opposite direction of the park where I take most of my bird shots, but the acorn woodpeckers holing up here some to like this particular tree. There are a couple of different nests inside this tree, not all of which are acorn woodpeckers. 

Over the course of my many daily walks, I'd see the woodpeckers  flying to and fro from other trees back over to this one, but could never spot where their nest was until one day a week ago, when I came upon the tree from a different angle than what I'd normally been approaching the tree. That made all the difference in the world. I watched one of the two parents swoop down from a neighboring palm tree, alight on the trunk of the tree and then quickly disappear inside the hole. I feel fortunate that I was actually able to get this shot, but those two parental birds were busy flying here and there taking care of their young. I guess it's a concentrated burst of parenting as opposed to a longer period that we do over the childhood of our own offspring.

And there you have it, my five photos interpreting the theme Keeping Busy. Please stop by P.J.'s blog and check out some of the other photographer's interpretation of the same theme.

Bird Watching

As noted in my last post, I don't claim to be a bird expert. I have a book that I rely on for most of my identifications and when I can't figure out what I've seen with my camera, I turn to several people on-line who I know are more well versed than I in identifying birds. What I have noticed during my daily walks is there seems to be a lot more birds out and about. It's either that, or I'm just more aware of them because I'm walking nearly the same route every day now.

Before "shelter in place" I would do more of a hike than a neighborhood walk. I saw things, but because of the areas I would walk I can honestly say I wasn't looking for the subtle beauty of small birds, but more likely the overall beauty of a landscape shot. That's one thing I've been working on since this confinement took hold. I've not been able to hike my normal routes, so I've found other areas that I know have wildlife and go back to those repeatedly in the hopes of getting some good shots, like this shot I took a couple of weeks ago of a lesser goldfinch.

I've actually learned where I can find certain birds. I know where the western bluebirds hang out and can usually get a shot or two every day I go there. A couple of weeks ago, I saw a pair of spotted towhees and a friend of mine told me they are usually heard, not seen, so I guess I was lucky. Except that I now know what their call sounds like and it actually alerted me to their being around. Because I've become more aware of bird calls, I now know what spotted towhees sound like and I've been able to get photos of them more than once.

This morning, I spotted this California scrub jay as it was searching the area for food. I'm not sure if that's a peanut that someone left, or if it's just a large seed from a nearby plant, but I learned today that these kinds of jays can still vocalize quite well, even with food in their bills. It gives an entirely different meaning to "don't talk with your mouth full." 

The jays tend to hangout in a certain spot in the neighborhood. Multiple times I've gone back to a certain spot and found several scrub jays hanging out looking for food. The mockingbirds and sparrows, on the other hand, seem to be just about anywhere and my wanderings have also alerted me to where a nest of acorn woodpeckers are. I have seen the mother and father coming to and fro from the hole in the top of this particular tree and I've heard the babies every time either parent shows up with a mouthful of food, but I have not been able to get a shot of them yet. They are pretty quick and the hole in the top of the tree is difficult to spot. I think I need to bring a ladder out sometime to get me closer to the action, but I think the neighbors might find that a little strange, especially since the tree is a couple of blocks away from where I live.

Suffice to say, you might expect to see more bird photos in the next couple of posts, mainly because I'm getting a lot of birds at the moment.

My World

I don't participate every month is P.J.'s Monthly photo blog, but this month's theme (Your World) made for a fairly easy set of photos. I know I really should attempt them every month, so I'll try to do better in the coming months. I've picked up my DSLR again since I've been in "shelter and place" and I have a lot of photos to choose from this month. I think I could probably come up with at least 10 different shots, just from my walks around the neighborhood over the past month, but here's my 5 that captures my world this month.

1. Weathervane

I'm a sucker for cool things like sundials and weathervanes. This particular weathervane is located on top of a house north of me, but in the same general neighborhood. Since I don't take the same route, I don't see this every day, but I noticed it early in the month and thought I really should take a photo of it, since it represents some interesting architecture, especially for Southern California. You don't see too many of these and I like that it gives off a New England kind of vibe. The only give away is the palm tree in the lower left hand corner of the shot. I could have edited that out, but that would have meant cropping some of the cupola out and I wanted that to be the main focus of the shot, and so the palm tree remains.

I remembered the next time I was out to take a photo of it, but the quality of the iPhone shot wasn't what I considered good enough, so I ended up throwing those shots away. I don't take the DSLR out every day, so the next time I walked around the neighborhood with the DSLR, I made sure to walk up that particular street. Because the weather had changed, we had some clouds in the sky which made for a more pleasing background to the shot.

2. Amusement Park

Twenty years ago, I was really into Roller Coaster Tycoon and particularly, Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 (RCT2). The game is one of many out on the market that allows you to play amusement park scenarios, while creating an amusement park, maintaining a budget, building roller coasters of various kinds and making sure your peeps are happy. The thing about Tycoon 2 that made it so good as you could also create buildings into your park and really make your park look like the real deal, with interesting architecture and themed areas.

There are other programs out on the market now, but there's also OpenRCT2 which emulates RCT2 perfectly as long as you have the original disks, however it also comes with enhancements that allow you to play in Sandbox mode. In other words, instead of playing scenarios, you can just create your own landscape and build your own park. Needless to say, I've been playing a lot of OpenRCT2 the last couple of months and this is a screen shot of a flying roller coaster (one where the peeps lay down and it makes it feel like they're flying) that I built in one of my sandbox mode games.

3. Family FaceTime

Our immediate family is spread out with some in the Bay Area of California and the rest of us down here in Southern California. Under normal circumstances, I probably would have visited my daughter when she had her birthday at the end of last month, but couldn't due to shelter in place, so we FaceTimed. That has grown into a weekly event so that everyone can touch bases with each other and enjoy each others' company. My daughter suggested that we have weekly themes. Last week, it was crazy hats, this week, it was Toga. It's amazing what a couple of actual olive branches from the tree in the back yard and a sheet will do to help you win the theme for the week. 

This image got posted on Facebook earlier this week and everyone has had a good laugh at my expense, but it was worth it. I got my wife to smile/laugh in the background of the photo as well, so it's all good.

4. Ornithology

I don't claim to be an expert on birds, but I do have an interest in them and with spring here, there are lots of birds out and about, probably more due to the lack of people out and about. If the theme for the month had been birds, I would have been able to have five different kinds of birds with ease. I have a book that was published by the National Geographic Society entitled Field Guide to the Birds of North America and it has been quite helpful in letting me identify most of the birds I've seen while out on walks around the neighborhood. This spring, I've seen California Towhees, Spotted Towhees, a Cooper's hawk, hummingbirds, scrub jays, two different kinds of sparrows, two different kinds of finches, and several Western Bluebirds, such as this one who posed ever so nicely on a branch in the park just north of my house. 

I'm pretty sure the Spotted Towhees and the Bluebirds are both nesting in some trees in the park. A friend of mine says that I've been lucky with the Spotted Towhees as they are usually heard and not seen, but I've been able to spot them on two different occasions. There are more than just a couple of bluebirds in the park. I've seen at least three different ones, which is why I'm fairly certain they're nesting somewhere in the park as well.

5. Earth Day

This year was the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day. I was in 6th grade at the time, so yeah, I know I'm old. Once again, under ordinary circumstances, I probably would have celebrated in some other way than sheltering in place, but there's not much I could do at this particular time. And so I take photos.

Besides birds, the insects are also out in force, particularly, the ladybugs. Insects and creepy crawlies give me different sorts of challenges, as unlike birds, you can usually get quite close to insects. I've been using a variety of lenses to take photos of ladybugs, honeybees, bumblebees, butterflies and other assorted insects and arachnids. This particular shot I used my 250 zoom macro lens to get up close and personal with a couple of bugs doing what nature intended them to do. I'm very pleased with the focus on this particular shot.

And that, my friends, is my interpretation of the theme, "Your World" for P.J.'s Monthly Photo Blogging challenge. Please click on the link and see how other people interpreted the theme of their world. As always, please feel free to comment. I won't bite.

Flowers are easy

This is going to ramble a little bit becasuse I'm starting to get cabin fever, as I'm sure most people are who are taking "Shelter in Place" seriously. During the past couple of weeks, I haven't been able to do my normal routine as my favorite hiking trail has been closed down for the duration of this problem, so I've resorted to walking along the streets in my neighborhood. The last couple of days I started taking photos of flowers that I saw since Spring has definitely sprung in our neck of the woods. There's a lot of pollen in the air and I'm definitely congested due to seasonal allergies.

But I digress. Most of the shots I've been taking recently have been with my iPhone. It has a good lens, but it's not nearly as good as my Canon 80D lenses, so today, I dusted off the Canon and took it out on my afternoon walk. It's the first time I've really used the camera since my trip to Idaho last summer. First thing I had to do was charge up the camera's battery, as it was deader than a doornail.

Now, several years ago I got myself involved in a 365 project. Challenge yourself to go out every day and take at least one photo per day and publish it online so others can see it and possibly critique it. I ended up starting on January 1st of that year and for the next two years, I diligently went about documenting every day of the year by taking photos. Some days were better than others, but I felt that it made me a better photographer and the one thing I learned was that flowers are easy. In other words, it's hard to screw up a flower photo. In fact, during my 365 project, someone challenged me again to not take a single photo of flowers for the entire month of March. Do you know how hard that is? Sometimes, you don't have the energy to go out and take photos and it's easy just to step outside, especially in March and take a quick photo of a flower and call it good for the day.

I did end up completing that particular challenge, but it was difficult. With that in the back of my mind, I decided that today, I wanted to concentrate on things other than flowers. I'd actually noticed that Painted Lady butterflies were starting their migration north from Mexico and were starting to show up in the neighborhood, so that was a great subject. Last year, Southern California had a huge migration of Painted Ladies due to the unusually wet winter we'd had and they proceeded northward in droves. I'm not sure how large this year's will be but last year, it was estimated that over a billion butterflies of that species alone migrated northward. That's a buttload of butterflies.

Because it is Spring, there are a lot of insects besides butterflies out and about. It's like a bountiful smorgasbord out there for insects. Which flower do I want to pollenate today? Today on my walk, I saw bumblebees, butterflies, honeybees, dragonflies, and lizards.

Another reason for getting my Canon out, was I really wanted to explore things that were a little bit farther away from the path and it's hard to capture those things with an iPhone camera. So I concentrated less on flowers, but on other things, and so you get photos like a lone pine cone that's probably dropped all of its seeds but is still hanging on a branch surrounded by pine cone flowers awaiting pollination so they will eventually create new pine cones.

The lizard photo. I ended up stalking this little guy, probably no longer than 3 inches or so. I think he was actually kind of pissed, because I'd seen a painted lady flit by and land on the rock right were he was, then it darted off and I did see the lizard had lunged at the butterfly. So I guess this guy was pouting because he missed his mid afternoon snack. But it worked for me, because I got a nice portrait of a lizard.

Needless to say, I won't stop taking photos of flowers, but as I noted above, flowers are easy and if you concentrate only on the flowers, you're going to miss a lot of subtle beauty all around you. So I'm going to be walking around over the next couple of weeks, practicing my social distancing, but at the same time, exploring my world through my camera lens once again. I'm looking forward to it and I hope you will enjoy it with me. It's where I can wander at the moment.

Craters of the Moon

There are a variety of things that I enjoy about road trips. Visiting places again to rekindle the enjoyment that I had the first time around is one of them, but I think visiting new areas and exploring things I haven't seen before is even more exciting. That's one of the reasons why I decided to visit Craters of the Moon National Monument on my first road trip this summer.

The park, which is located in Idaho, has been on my radar (bucket list) for quite some time. My time in Idaho, previously, had been limited and I'd never gotten this close to the monument before, although I suppose you could argue that my youngest and I could have stopped there while heading up to Yellowstone National Park, but I guess the lure of the geysers was stronger than the lure of the lava fields. This trip, Craters of the Moon was going to be one of the central pieces of the trip, one where I'd spend a longer period of time to really explore the park.

I got there early in the afternoon, since I only had to drive from Pocatello, Idaho. While on the drive, I stopped here and there to find some geocaches, but I wanted to get to the park early in order to secure a good camping spot. First come, first serve sites area always unpredictable. Many times previously, when I'd visited Cedar Breaks National Monument, I had my pick of the campground, but this trip when I stopped there, the campground was almost full. Needless to say, I wanted to make sure I had a campsite.

The campground is one of the coolest campgrounds I've ever encountered in a national park or monument. I believe the park service just literally bulldozed spots out in the middle of this huge lava field. Many were very secluded, with high rock walls all around, which was very important, as those rock walls cut the wind that whipped through the campground and park during the day.

I got a pretty nice campground and then went around and explored what I could that afternoon. I drove outside of the visitors center area over to an overlook that gave me an incredible view of the lava fields that formed the park. From this vantage point, it was very easy to see the different fields and to tell which were older, based upon the size and amount of the vegetation. The older fields had Limber Pines growing, while younger fields had small sage and plants, or perhaps very little at all.

I then came back into the main area of the park and drove the loop drive, stopping at pullouts here and there to work on several earth and virtual caches that were present in the park. The virtual cache took up the most time because it wanted me to get information from different points around the park, so I decided to concentrate on that. Even so, as I worked on one part of that cache, I ended completing another earth cache which was located at the top of a huge cinder cone in the middle of this particular area. 

The views from the top of that cinder cone were amazing as you can see from the second photo. I actually went back and forth with myself whether I wanted that second photo to be in color or black & white, but as you can see the color side won out. Whenever I take landscape shots, I always look at them as to whether they'll look good in black & white, mainly because I'm a big fan of Ansel Adams' photography.

Finally, after a good afternoon of exploring, I went back to camp, ate dinner and walked around the campground marveling at all the stars I could see in the night sky. Many of the parks in this area of the country have been designated "Dark Skies" parks, because of their remoteness to city lights. Few of us ever see many of the stars in the night sky anymore due to light pollution, so it's always nice to get out in an area where you can see the Milky Way galaxy at night. Unfortunately, I couldn't see the Milky Way for very long, since I happened to be there during the full moon cycle for the month and the moon, once it rose, pretty much washed out much of the sky.

The next day was spent exploring the far reaches of the loop drive and areas I hadn't been able to get to the previous day. I went on several hikes, including the tree molds trail, where I got some nice landscape shots and was able to see some tree molds created by the lava flowing around trees and preserving their outlines. I also got to see where the lava fields stopped flowing near some splatter cones. One splatter cone was called Snow Cone, because it had a large snow dome down inside of it.

That evening, I was treated to a spectacular sunset. After dinner, I decided to head out to one of the parking lots on the loop drive so I would have a large expanse of area in which to move around and take some photos. The evening sky did not disappoint. I have several others, but I think this one, is by far and away the best of the bunch that I took that evening.

Craters of the Moon is one of those parks that if you're going to see it, you really want to go see it, mainly because it's far off the beaten path. It's uncrowded and if you get there early on a trail, or stay late, you pretty much have the place to yourself. I got on the Tree Molds Trail around 8 in the morning, hiked the two miles or so all the way out to the end of the trail and encountered one other person the entire time I was on the trail. Another trail that I walked after dinner and before sunset had no one on it and it was like I had the entire park to myself. It made it very easy to get lost in the beauty of the earth and forget about the crowds. This is someplace I'd visit again.