Category Archives: Snapshots

Seasons, Snapshots

Hellebore

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Springtime and its frantic longing for anything new and fresh and green brought me to the horticultural park today, desperate for a change in scenery from the browns and grays, as much as I’ve been enjoying them. I’m in a Spring state of mind and arrived fully anticipating a display of flowering trees and tulips more to be expected in late April than late March.

What was I thinking?

Early Spring is subtle and its quiet splendors ask only that you look past the melting snow and dead grass and mud puddles to find beauty in the delicate green of a hellebore at your feet or the blushing red maples on the hillside. Every year, every Spring, I need to remind myself that Spring isn’t really a season unto itself, but rather a collection of moments and, above all, a time of transition. A period of waiting and watching. The signs now are mostly small and easy to miss, but they’re there.

“Once a day and sometimes more
I look out my day-dream door
To see if spring is out there yet
I’m really anxious, but mustn’t fret.
I see the snow a melting down
and lots of mud and slush around
I know the grass will surely sprout
and birds and flowers will come about.
But why oh why does it take so long?
I’m sure the calendar can’t be wrong.
Sunshine fills my heart with cheer
I wish that spring were really here.“
– Edna T. Helberg, Longing for Spring
Snapshots, Whatever

A found poem

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“Have you forgotten
that you can never
be caught
if you still
hear
trees crackling
and growling
if you can hear
the one
dit of gravel
fall over
the other
dit of gravel
in the wind,
if you can still count
the red berries
on the bushes
and divide
by the number
of birds
in the yard,
if you can recollect
that you
are descended
from some
grove
that no longer
stands,
a ground
you came from
still
run through
by El rio –
abaio rio,
the river
beneath the river
that surfaces
in the most
surprising
places?
You,
who were washed
in a magic
hearing
water
born
with a bowl
curved
inside
your belly,
there
gathering lightning,
gathering rain,
forever filling,
and forever
emptying out.
Where does
the breath go
when it is not
being drawn?”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

I’ve put off posting this *found* poem for a few months, hoping that I might be able to first come up with the author’s name, but I haven’t been able to find any source for it. Maybe someone out there might recognize it.

I found it hanging in a coworker’s cubicle – a photocopy of the typewritten poem that was given to her on a retreat years ago. She doesn’t recall or never knew who the author was, but “The Cairn of Recollection” was handwritten across her photocopy. Searching for that as a title didn’t produce any results.
Books, Pond, Snapshots

Water lily

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How significant that the rich, black mud of our dead stream produces the water lily; out of that fertile slime springs this spotless purity! It is remarkable that those flowers which are the most emblematical of purity should grow in the mud.
– Henry David Thoreau, from a journal entry

I felt like looking at water lilies today, so I’m posting this pic from last summer of one that grows in my little pond. I’ve forgotten the name, but water lilies tend to be mislabeled when I buy them anyway. It’s beautiful, that’s enough!

My guilty pleasure for the day was going to a bookstore during my lunch hour. I bought a charming book of nature quotes, poetry, short essays, and watercolors called Meditations on Nature, Meditations on Silence published by Heron Dance Press. Their books are beautiful and I snatch them up whenever I come across one. Heron Dance also has a website that you might like to explore.
Snapshots, Whatever

A valentine rose

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“Tell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?”
– Pablo Neruda
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Just a little something for you to ponder on a Friday night in February.

Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. He wrote spectacular love poems and simple humorous odes, as well as political and historical poetry. He’s been one of my favorites since college, and I remember his poetry as being among the first that I could enjoy without the benefit of a bilingual dictionary. The snippet of a poem above comes from one of the last works before his death in 1973 callled, “A Book of Questions”.

Snapshots

Not what you think

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To help me learn to use my new macro lens, Bev suggested a while back that I practice photographing little plastic frogs or something. It just so happens that I have a few of the real things around so last night decided to take some pics while I had them out of the tank for cleaning.

Technically, these are toads and not frogs and they didn’t make very cooperative subjects. They kept climbing on top of one another trying to escape the holder that I had them in. It was fun to practice anyway. I’m sure my husband was convinced of my insanity when he was ambling off to bed and I was taking pictures of the fire-belly toads in the kitchen sink. Such is the life of a frustrated photographer. 😉

To further damage your impressions of me – the toads were an anniversary gift from my husband a few years ago. No jewelry or chocolates for this gal! Every so often the DH goes out on a limb and strays from the safe gifts; it’s always interesting when he does.

They’re cute little guys and are very warty. They also have bright reddish-orange bellies. I feed them mostly crickets, but they’ll also eat waxworms or mealworms or very small guppies. Right now I have four of them, but it’s difficult to keep too many together because the larger ones seem inclined to bully the smaller ones and not allow them to eat. When the mood strikes them and they’re feeling amorous, they bark like little dogs.

If you’re in the mood for pics of truly amorous animals, stop by the Dharma Bums blog to see photos of a pair of Bald Eagles caught in the act. Love is the air and Spring can’t be far off now.

Birds, Snapshots

Cormorant

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those perennial apparitions
of the backwaters – their shadows
the faded sails of anchored boats

– John Kinsella

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Nothing much of interest to say today, other than a reminder to stop by Wanderin Weeta tomorrow and have a look at this week’s Good Planets show. I sent along a few photos that I wasn’t able to post during the month of January while I was hosting, so don’t be surprised if you find a pic there that you sent to me. Recycling is a good thing!

I’m thinking about heading south in the morning to attend the Cumberland County Winter Eagle Festival; getting up early enough to make the trip will be a challenge, as will the predicted cold, but the chance to see nesting Bald Eagles and the beautiful scenery in that part of NJ is hard to pass by.

I took the Cormorant photo above a few weeks ago at the Shark River Marina in Neptune NJ. The marina is a good spot to see Ruddy ducks and there is usually always a Eurasian Wigeon there, but I wasn’t able to find it that day. It was a very foggy day; not very good for taking pics, but the Corms made me smile with their wings hung out to dry.

Snapshots, Whatever

Born to run

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This story touched me today. I’m not sure why it should; I don’t know anything about racehorses, other than enjoying the ones I see boarded and pastured locally. There’s two racetracks nearby to my home, but I’ve never been to see a race and don’t gamble anyway.

For a few years when I was first married I used to like to ride my bike across the river and past the stables where the racehorses are kept. In the very early mornings sometimes I would see them out being walked and the sounds and smells of the stables marked the half-way point of my ride.

I hadn’t been following Barbaro’s recovery, but was reminded of him this morning when I heard a somewhat-hopeful-sounding piece on NPR on my way into work. By lunch time I had heard that he was put down. It came as a shock considering what I’d heard just a few hours before.

From the reading I’ve done this afternoon it seems as if Barbaro had quite a fan club out there. I have to wonder why so many people can hang their hearts on an injured horse. Racehorses are injured all the time. It seems almost destined to happen when you consider the way they’re bred to have such delicate long legs beneath an oversized frame. And trained and raced so hard when so young and still growing. It seems like such folly that we should be surpised when one’s injured doing what they’re born to do; to run for the sake of our entertainment.

I think his owners are to be commended for giving him the chance to recover against impossible odds and I’m glad that his vet had the compassion and the courage to put him down before his condition got any worse.

A horse loves freedom, and the weariest old work horse will roll on the ground or break into a lumbering gallop when he is turned loose into the open. ~Gerald Raferty

Snapshots, Whatever

Idleness

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“Winter, a lingering season, is a time to gather golden moments, embark upon a sentimental journey, and enjoy every idle hour.” – John Boswell

I’m going to spend a few idle hours this evening with a new cross-stitch project that I bought the materials for on Friday night and haven’t looked at since. You know how on Friday night with the whole weekend ahead anything seems possible? Well, here it is Monday evening and the fabric and threads and chart are still sitting in the bag where I left them at the start of the weekend.

We had a dusting of snow overnight. Not enough for my husband to be called in to work to plow, but enough to make the everyday scene above look a little special, to me, at least. This is a tiny wooded tangle that separates my office building from the police academy that is situated behind the slight incline and closer to the road. I want to believe that a pair of Red-Tails nest here, because I see them perched in these branches so often, but I’ve never been able to spot their nest.

Birds, In the neighborhood, Snapshots

Take my picture, please?

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Last weekend while I was driving around looking at *fancy* ducks at some of the coastal ponds in the area I was approached by this pretty lady(?) and her companion. I was trying to take some pics of a pair of canvasbacks from my car. All of the ducks were in the middle of the pond – too far away even for the long lens – but these two saw me stopped at the roadside and swam over, got out of the water, and climbed up the bank and stood beside the car eyeballing me. I felt bad for not appreciating their more common beauty, so I switched lenses and took a few photos while they posed so nicely. Why can’t the canvasbacks and hoodies be this cooperative?

I’m kidding, of course. This duck wasn’t interested in having her picture taken – she was looking for a handout. I didn’t have a single thing to offer her, not that I would have anyway. There’s a reason the ponds are posted with “no feeding the waterfowl” signs.

All of the ponds the ducks frequent (both migratory and domestic) are in residential areas, surrounded by homes. Most are passive-use municipal parks and often attract large numbers of Canada Geese and Mute Swans. People using the parks like to feed them and that attracts more of the beggars and probably drives away the migrant waterfowl. It also dirties the water, and in the case of Wreck Pond, which is tidal, creates a significant environmental problem.

Better just to tell her how pretty she is and go on my way.

Small truths, Snapshots

A sweet pastured place

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“Somewhere in time’s own space there must be some sweet pastured place, where creeks sing on and tall trees grow, some paradise where horses go…” -Stanley Harrison

Some of us (not me) will be busy tonight with the season premiere of American Idol. I have work to do to get my head together to teach the semester premiere of College Reading Skills II tomorrow night. So I’m sharing just this pic of some pretty horses that I pass by on my way to work in the morning.

Just up the road from this peaceful scene there was a car crash last week that killed four people – 3 of them high school students. Friends and family have already begun to erect the sad roadside memorials that seem to take on a life of their own and become the focus of a community’s mourning. Why people should choose to remember a loved one in the place where they met a fiery death is beyond my understanding. I didn’t know these kids and sort of resent being reminded of their passing with sodden football jerseys and crooked homemade crosses stuck in the mud at roadside. I should think they deserve a more dignified rememberance.

They’re young adults just learning to deal with grief and, I suppose, haven’t yet learned to mask it and make it more palatable to others, like we grown-ups do. Their pain of loss is raw and they feel the need to do something to demonstrate how much they’re hurting. I understand that.

Me, I keep my eye on the horses as I pass by. I see the beauty and tranquility of this place and think of a few young boys in too much of a hurry to do the same.