Category: Nature

I went to Vermont to speak with a cannabis medical specialist. We went over my experience with cannabis, and she agreed with me that I should halt taking edibles for anxiety; she said I didn’t seem all that anxious and had a good attitude. She said she saw no reason not to continue my tiny doses of edibles before bedtime. I was alert, focused, and rested. The sleep is good for me, she said; the anxiety medication seemed unhealthy and unnecessary.

I agree with all of that. I came home (I still see a chiropractor for my back injuries sustained a couple of months ago; I am almost wholly healed.)

On the way home, the wind shrieked and cut through like a nice. I couldn’t open the car door. It was blowing hard, but I got out and took two sunset figures from Route 68. They captured the feeling. It’s good to be home. I have a cup of orange tea, and I’m thawing out. My foot is healing well, I go back to Dr. Daly next week to have the stitches out.

Tomorrow, I visit my primary care doctor, Dr. Dodge, to check my hearing. It might be wax, or it might be time for a hearing aid. I don’t know which.  I notice I keep saying “what” a lot to things other people seem to hear. I’ve learned to embrace preventive medicine and not hide from my body.

The first time I saw this beautiful country where I now live was when I visited a good friend after taking my daughter Emma to a summer camp in Vermont. I grew up and worked in big cities from Philadelphia to Boston To New York City. I had never spent much time in nature or thought about it. My friend moved away abruptly, but I’m still here, and I’m not going anywhere.

But when I came to visit, I fell in love with the idea of living close to nature. I knew I had to live up here, and I wasn’t wrong. This revelation changed my life and in many ways, saved it.

I’m a latecomer to nature, but it’s never too late to see the beauty right under my nose, the beauty I never grasped or saw in my urban life. I believe strongly that living in nature is essential for my health and well-being. I can no longer live without it.

Yesterday, as I sat with Zip in a chair outside touching deeply the sunset before, I took a deep breath and thought “What happiness!”, the sunset is so beautiful and I spent so many years without seeing one or recognizing the beauty all around me.

Embracing the beauty of nature has made my life so much more beautiful and much more real, and the more time I spend in nature sitting and taking pictures, the more deeply nature reveals itself to me. Maria is far ahead of me when it comes to embracing nature, but I’m very happy with what I see and feel all around me. It has been so good for me.

My happiness has been multiplied by a dozen. My photography is a direct result of seeing the beauty around me and coming to believe it is my mission to capture that beauty and share it.  I met Maria here in a hamlet with more cows than people.

My life was enriched by my work with dogs, from herding sheep to therapy work. That brought me to photography. My life began filling up with wonderful things. It was a frightening thing to leave the familiar behind, it was wonderful at the same time.

Every time I take a picture of a lead flower or listen to the song of a bird, I feel closer to them to Mother Earth, and to my reason for being.

It’s so much more peaceful than trembling over the news or wringing my hands over aging.

I often meditate outside and think of mindfulness. My joy increases, my breathing becomes more gentle, and my body changes and brings me closer to the wonder and beauty of life. All this time, it was right there, under my nose, and I can’t even express my gratitude at looking at loving flowers and loving a cat and seeing a sunset before it was too late.

Off to a food shop this morning, and I’m running out of the cannabis that helps me to sleep. More later.

Today, I launched my new experiment to take pictures of birds and nature. I work hard at my photography, and I want to keep getting better. This is yet another way to do that, especially during the winter. I’m taking some Leica lessons in a month or so.

I traded three, possibly four, lenses for a particular used Leica 100-400 mm lens. It’s used, but that is rarely a program with Leica equipment, built to last longer than me.

I had to trade three lenses, four (maybe four). My rule is I don’t buy anything I can’t trade for, or that would increase debt. I won’t know about the bird photos until the new lens comes in two or three weeks. The lens I was using today had the auto focus going crazy while i tried to shoot through the glass in Maria’s studio. I’ll make a profit on this transfer.

I’m trying to figure out what photos I can capture; shooting the glass window in Maria’s studio will take some practice,   more learning, and more patience. My new lens will shoot more precisely through the class than the one I used today, a Sigma 1.2.8.

Birds are astonishingly sensitive to movement. I have to learn how to be still.

So, I practiced today to gauge the bird speed, the settings, and the focus. I like the lack of digital clarity; it gives the photos more softness and appeal. But this is really the first serious effort I’ve made to shoot birds, who move like lightning and take a great deal. The new lens I’m getting (actually used) is a Leica 100-400, supposedly one of the best nature lenses available for a sane price.

The birds zip in and out like rockets; I must be lucky to catch one still. I might need a hand trigger. I took these photos in poor light from inside a bright room. That always makes focus shakey. But I like the way they came out.

Like my flower photos, I don’t want to take close-ups; I want to capture a feeling, an emotion, a softness.

I want the photos to be gentle and touching, something you might want to sit and look at for a while, something that captures the beauty and the detail of life. I want to add the bird people to the dog people, the cat people to the donkey people, and the sheep and curious and thoughtful and spiritual people who read my blog. I want to make these photos spiritual, softly and indirectly.

I love the symbolism of this kind of photo; they capture a feeling more than anything and are deliberately softer than conventional digital photography. These photos are not literal; they are an emotion of a kind. I need to figure a lot of different things out.

These five photos took an hour; I used a tripod and stood and waited, finger on the trigger, through the window of Maria’s studio. I think the one above is my favorite. I have no idea what the names of these birds are.

With my flower waters, I look to capture the soul of a flower, not the standard close-up details. I’ve yet to figure out what I want to do with my bird and nature photos, and the lens won’t be here for a few weeks.

Thanks for looking at these first bird photos. I need a tripod and more work on the exposure and clarity. Sitting in Maria’s studio is fun, which I rarely do, while she works on her quilt and sings and listens to the radio. When the lens comes, I’ll be there often for a while unless she throws me out.

I took a photo of her latest quilt in progress, an “Owl” quilt which many people already want to buy. The photo below is from the quilt today.

Above, from Maria’s new quilt, which is sold.