Category Archives: Snapshots

Birds, Snapshots, Wanderings

Have you ever?

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stepped on a plane and found yourself transported to another world?

where wild horses wander amid the ruins of a great island estate?

where the shadows of trees hold anhingas and wood storks?

and life birds fly past in squadrons of color or shades of gray?

where gators smile to lure the unknowing closer to the edge of their world?

where pelicans pose dockside for a portrait?

have you ever lost your breath to the beauty of a sunrise?

 

(I have!)

I’m like an 11 year old just back from sleep-away camp with a hundred run-on sentences about everything I saw, everyone I fell in love with, every little thing I did… words and photos are just beneath the surface… just waiting for my head to stop with all the spinning.

😉

I’m also painfully slow to process new experiences which is why I talk in lists and pictures, sometimes.

Bear with me…

Snapshots, Whatever

Reluctant Chicken Farmer revealed

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When he’s not tending to his chickens or garden, or ranting about something or other, my brother Kevin moonlights as a computer geek.

Isn’t he cute?

We got together tonight so he could load PhotoShop onto my shiny new Mac, but there was a technical snafu, so that didn’t happen.

My computer geek brother brought home the Windows version of PS rather than the Mac version.

(rolling my eyes)

I took the opportunity to harass him some about not updating his blog in weeks. I helped my niece with her math homework. I got a tour of his new barn, but the chickens were already asleep.

Early-risers apparently.

Do you have a sibling with a skill that makes them your *go-to person* for something? What is it? Do they usually come through for you?

😉

In addition to his computer skills, I can always count on Kev to keep me laughing.

Birds, Snapshots, Wanderings

i’ve been

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swooning over skimmers


contemplating colors for toenails

thinking about a perfect day

staring at a september sky from the shade of my very favorite lighthouse

reading books in bed

finding peace in the sweet lullaby of waves outside my window

flipping rocks to find nothing underneath but sun-warmed crickets and roly-poly bugs

feeling ridiculously happy

loving the way the late afternoon sun makes everything beautiful

marveling at the fall flight of osprey and eagles and peregrine falcons

contemplating colors for toenails

(over-thinking it, probably)

feeling thankful for monarch butterflies and the people who love them

wondering if forever means tomorrow, too

deciding now is what matters most

finding that places remembered have changed

falling in love again, anyway

dreaming of enough days to make up for lost time

enjoying the peculiar kitsch of the jersey shore

the sharing of it and the sand between our toes

indulging the last weekend of summer

cape may finally!

(i’ve been busy)
In the neighborhood, Snapshots

You can’t get there from here without a lot of trouble

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Click to see the full mess!

All along the route
their patience waned
as the roads turned sandier
down to the Jersey shore
when back ways could not avoid
the open bridge
as one slow thin mast
would paralyze the day
and our front-seating it
pushing crowding forward
“not there yet!”
then racing
who’d see the ocean first
pushing towards its vastness
our young lives stretched out
in unending summer
and in one shell
its mystery

“Before the Parkway” by Jerome Leary

The Highlands-Sea Bright Bridge, a 1240 foot drawbridge that spans the Shrewsbury River, is being replaced with a fixed-span bridge that will rise some 30 feet higher than its predecessor.

Gone will be the occasion to put the car in park and step out for twenty minutes while the bridge is open to watch the sailboats go by underneath. Gone will be that instant of panic when the light on the drawbridge turns from green to yellow to red and you wonder if you should chance it before the bells and gates descend to make you twenty minutes late for wherever it is you’re meant to be on the other side of the crossing. Gone will be the convenient excuse of the bridge being up. Gone will be the pause on a summer day.

In the meantime, we have this mess of cranes and a crazy maze to navigate the way from here to there. I can’t help but be discombobulated by the change.

Are drawbridges in your neck of the woods being replaced, too? Will you miss them?