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.

This is why we can't have nice things

Dear Whoever,

Thank you for wearing a mask at sometime during your trip to the park. But seriously? 

This mask has been lying in the grass for the better part of the last 24 hours. I know, because I walk in this park every single day since I can't go many other places. The photo also shows where it was in relationship to where the trash can is located. You couldn't walk the extra 40 feet or so to deposit your mask there? Apparently not.

OK, so let's now assume that it's one of your children's masks. You didn't notice that your child was missing a mask and go back and try to find it? 

Either way, it's just litter now, well not anymore since I was able to find a small stick, and pick up the mask through the loops with the stick. That added some extra steps to my walk today.

I will give you credit though. At least you were wearing a mask at some time during your visit to the park. It's amazing how many people haven't gotten that simple idea through their thick skulls yet. But, please pay more attention to your mask and your children's masks in the future. This is why we can't have nice things.

Sigh.

And to all of my other friends out there on social media platforms, please wear a mask when you're out in public. I'm getting really tired of this shit.

Where did April go?

A couple of days ago, or perhaps weeks, since everything seems to be blending together at the moment, my son came up to me and said, "The year 2020 is rather unique.  February has 29 days, March lasted 5 years and April lasted 5 days." That pretty much sums up this "shelter in place" that many of us have been experiencing due to the COVID-19 virus.

I suspect that it feels like his sentiment because when the shelter in place first started, it felt like it would last forever, but now it's become rather routine and so the days are moving much more quickly. Whatever the reason, I felt like this photo was rather comical. 

Most of the trails are closed and much of the parks are also closed, only allowing passive recreation. In other words, walk, don't run, unless you can run by yourself. I get that, but if the city doesn't want people playing soccer on the fields because of social distancing, then wouldn't it be smart to remove the soccer nets? Just asking.