The Colorful Time

It
was such a hot and weird October. Until it wasn't. I've never seen an
autumn like this one. I had to get out before it was light to get my run
in before it got too hot. The flowers loved it, blooming there was no
tomorrow.




86 degrees on October 8. The wind was like a blast furnace, the sun’s hand heavy. Yet
it was oddly cool in the shade. Meadows and trees go about

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A Boy and His Calf

This one lucky shot has had me watching the skies at dawn, sent me back on a four-mile jog again and again, trying to replicate it. I have so far failed. One of the funny things about this photo is that while I was composing it, the Great Pyrenees who guards this farm spotted me, and began to bark. I get barked at a lot, since you very rarely see a person out walking or running on these

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Goats and Mushrooms

These
goats tug at my heart. They're kind of doglike. I walk up and talk to this billy, and I can smell him from
about 300' away. The milky, funky, pungent scent of a billy goat on a
damp morning is something you can't miss. I had to use my best Google-fu
to dig up the name of the compounds that go into that smell, and that
taste, in goat cheese. They are 4-ethyl octanoic acid,

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A Quiet Dawn

It's been so wicked cloudy in the last few weeks that, when there is a sunrise, I go for it. I want to see that light spread across the sky and land, across the houses and barns and the backs of black cattle. I want to see it light up the ponds, make sky-holes of them. I keep checking the sky as 7 AM approaches. If there are breaks in the clouds, I know I may have a show to enjoy.

I

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Out, With the Sunrise

It's hard to get a complete sentence written in September. I have to start well before it gets light. Because as soon as the light starts to rise, I'm running back and forth to the east-facing front door, looking to see if there's a sunrise happening. Luckily my hormones, such as they are, are perfectly in tune with my need to see the sun rise. I wake up well before the birds do and lie

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September's Silent Parade

As I write, Sept. 21, the ruby-throated hummingbirds are still here, just a couple juveniles still hanging around and bickering. I love them so. And through the birches and flower gardens, fall warblers are sifting through in earnest. I must glance up from my drafting board 200 times a day, and I'm nearly always rewarded by the trembling leaves that mean a warbler is plucking aphids off

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Bokeh Bird

This female ruby-throated hummingbird is sitting on one of the little
shish kebab skewers that I provide for my clients. My clients being the
gazillion birds who frequent my yard, who I'm trying constantly to
please in creative ways. I've stuck the bamboo skewers, which are
exactly the right gauge for tiny hummingbird feet, into the links of the
chain holding up one of my hanging

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