Getting away

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unknown kayakers on the 4th of July weekend at "our" lake

Don and I are getting away for the weekend tomorrow after work, heading for my family's cottage. It's about an hour and a half drive away, with a sweet little lake. Lesley says I can borrow her kayak! That will be a first for me, though I've been in many canoes.

The plan is to be on the lake when the sun comes up Saturday. Still water, mist, swans, herons (at least I hope some are left and haven't all migrated).

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My photoblog

Click on photos to view larger size. Or better yet, visit my photoblog.

Last month I started experimenting with a photoblog. I like having the larger format at that site. (If you visit that site, please leave honest feedback about the photographs. Whether you know much about photography or not, you know how a picture makes you feel.)

I keep dreaming and drooling over Canon EOS Digital SLR cameras. The pricetag is enormous, so it won't happen any time soon. Maybe a used one someday.

For now my Olympus 500UZ will have to do. I bought it for work (mostly for the annual trips to Ireland) without doing any research. I didn't know I'd get bitten by the photography bug. I could have spent a couple hundred dollars more and gotten a decent Canon model (though not the ones I really want). When you scan photographs at 100% or 200% (on photoshop, for instance) there are "artifacts" and lots of digital noise at times.

So my challenge is to a) study photography, b) learn to take the best pictures I can with this camera, and c) experiment until I find my own personal eye. (I guess that's what you call it, the way a poet has a voice.)

Learning to live with what is.

I post-processed this photo for graininess in the petals. I like how the flower's center remains clear and focused in spite of the almost posterized graininess of the petals.

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Autumn rust

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Don and I found rusted pieces of farm equipment in corners of the barn hanging from nails here and there. Old horseshoes, a gear, hooks of various sizes and shapes.

The purpose is to make a windchime. The JorgDotOrg photo hunt starting tomorrow is "windchime," and we don't have one. So I started brainstorming what I could make one from.

I wrote a poem about it for my poetry group tonight:

Autumn sounds

Small pieces of
rusted farm metal
that once lay nested in corners
or hung on nails
these hundred years

gears and rings,
hooks that look like hairpins
or the number six, discarded
horseshoes, one
with three nails fused in the holes

all
the color of the fallen
leaves softly curled and pinned
beneath them on the deck

where they are
lined up to be assembled
for a new purpose

a windchime

the dong, pling and thrum
that will continue the vibrations
of
the horse’s stomp, the plow’s
jab, the fluid swing
of rope and pulley,
and the clutch and release
of the farmer’s thick fingers
that labored
to his blood’s beat.

- Ruth M.

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New Paris post

Please visit Paris Deconstructed for a photo gallery of Rouge de Paris (red in Paris).

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Morning shadows

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This still life isn't a perfect composition. But I couldn't resist the morning shadows on the wall, so I took it as is, dust and all.

The little girl in the photo is my mother, Barbara, born June 26, 1916, passed away March 29, 1997. The photo sits on Lesley's piano, which is still in our house until she gets her own more permanent place. I'm glad because Lesley plays when she comes home. Barbara was a pianist too, among other things.

Above all she was enthusiastic. Do you know the root of "enthusiasm"?

dictionary.com says (my bold):

possession by a god (énthous, var. of éntheos having a god within, -theos god-possessing)

Mom was enthusiastically full of God! (I think everyone is full of God, but that's another subject.)

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Brown bottles and brownfields

I noticed these beer bottles and cans as I headed up the parking ramp this morning. I don’t think I can reach them, but I wish I could recycle them. They can be used in new container, brick and ceramic manufacture. Or, I could just give them to one of two friends who make homemade beer. (I actually find it rather sweet that the drinkers bothered to place them so carefully above their heads, rather than leave them on the parking ramp floor where they'd probably break and then be harder to dispose of. Or, maybe they forgot them, having intended to remove them, but after a few too many, well, you know.)

Speaking of brown things and cleaning up, have you heard of brownfields? I hadn’t until reading about them this morning on our University’s home page. I’ve heard of neighborhoods cleaning up empty lots and turning them into parks, but this is more. Apparently I’m a little slow on the uptake, because according to wiki, the term has been around since 1992 and the first EPA funded project was in 1994.

According to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), “Brownfields are real property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. Cleaning up and reinvesting in these properties takes development pressures off of undeveloped, open land, and both improves and protects the environment.”

Here at MSU, our Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, in partnership with DaimlerChrysler, is looking into ways brownfields can grow crops for biofuels. They’re looking into growing oilseed crops like soybeans, sunflower and canola, and other crops such as corn and switchgrass on abandoned industrial sites for use in ethanol or biodiesel fuel production. Many other organizations have been cleaning up brownfields for a while.

I am excited to hear about ways researchers, businesses and communities are cooperating to work smarter to care for our poor abused mother earth.

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New growth

Today I'm bringing all the houseplants inside from the porch where they summered. I have quite a collection of these Christmas cacti, since I propogated them over the winter.

You know, I think summer is great, but it's in autumn when you reap the benefits of all that sunshine and warmth. You eat the harvested fruits and vegetables, and you see the new growth that sprouted in the warmth and light.

I've been reading in Tolle about space consciousness, and it comes well timed, because I've been overwhelmed with information overload. I need to be more conscious of empty space, and how it's needed to observe life and also for creativity. I need more stillness.

So all that grey space in the photo is for Life to expand.

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