Change Is Hard

Wordless Wednesday

April 17, 2024 by dawnkinster 26 Comments

April 11, 2024
by dawnkinster 46 Comments

Sage advice from a young pup

Penny here! Bet you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to!

*Don’t you kind of wonder what’s over this hill?*

Well, first off let me tell you that I’ve been going to school every week. Mom takes me into the ring and gives me treats when I do stuff. Daddy comes along to watch cause I’m beautiful. Or something.

For the last two weeks I have decided I need to tell the other dogs in my class off, and I’ve been lunging and growling and barking at them. Mom takes me right out of the ring when I do that. Dad shakes his head. They haven’t figured out what my problem is — I’ve been going to school since I was a baby and never did this before.

Mom is very discouraged.

But on happier fronts, daddy has been getting some work done on my castle so there’s lots of strangers and weird noises that cause me to bark. A lot. After all it’s my responsibility to warn my folks of all imminent danger.

So mom’s been packing me and my stuff up and taking me away for days at a time. I’m not always sure I want to go, because sometimes when she bundles me up in the car I end up at the groomer or the vet.

But so far we’ve been visiting parks! A different park every day! Sometimes two parks in a day!

Mom and I have been walking millions of trillions of steps every day. She says she’s tired. We both sleep all night, so that’s good. I personally think it’s good for mom to get out more. I’m doing my duty as a faithful dog to show her a good time.

And I guess, if I’m honest, she’s doing the same for me.

*We’re having a good day, aren’t we mom!*

I don’t think a dog could have a better time than I do when I’m at a park. Mom lets me sniff stuff, she’s not in a big hurry, but I move along right away if she says “leave it, let’s go.” I know there will be another good spot right up the path.

There always is.

*Hey mom! They burned my woods! The green will come back, right mom?*

I think that’s a lesson you humans should learn too. There’s always a good spot right up the path.

You can say you heard that here first, and thank me later.

*Don’t forget to stop and smell the flowers!*

Gotta run, mom’s waiting for me. Talk to you next time!

-Your Park Ranger Girl, Penny.

Wordless Wednesday

April 10, 2024 by dawnkinster 15 Comments

April 9, 2024
by dawnkinster 35 Comments

Night adventure

I’ve been waiting for a clear night with no moon and Saturday night/Sunday morning was it. It’s early Milky Way season and it would be visible for a couple hours before sunrise.

I just had to find a dark place to wait.

I got up at 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning, got to Shiawasee Nature Preserve, about an hour north of me, by 3:30. I thought I was prepared. I knew which direction to look. I had the Skyview app loaded in my phone. I had a compass. I’d been there during the daytime and had scoped out a spot to stand that was very near where my car would be parked.

So it was with high hopes I got out of the car in 32 degree weather (but no wind!) wearing a winter coat, scarf, hat, and gloves. I walked the few feet to my chosen spot, set up the tripod and pointed it to the SE. And saw….nothing. A few stars. Nothing much was visible because the light from Flint, 28 miles away, was overwhelming.

I began to doubt myself. Maybe it wasn’t really in the SE. Maybe it was more South by now. After all it was last week I had the training that said Southeast…maybe it moves faster than I imagined. I couldn’t remember the name of the constelations I was supposed to use to find the Milky Way. I couldn’t figure out how to put Antaras (a star) into the Skyview app on my phone to find it.

I was reduced to randomly pointing the camera at the sky in any location I thought it might be and shooting. I saw a few bright stars I thought might be the ‘teapot’ and concentrated on that section of the sky. But that was due South, and I knew that wasn’t right. Still, looking to the Southeast was just too bright.

As I played with my settings I couldn’t check to see if my images were getting better or worse because the back of my camera went black. Apparently I had touched some random button that disabled the live view. Sigh.

I tried the proven trick of upping my iso to the highest it could go, just so I could see what was there, and it was totally blown out white. I tried lowering it some, still white. My fingers were getting cold. My toes were numb. I’d been out there for an hour getting nothing.

In fact, this is my favorite shot from Sunday morning.

*My fingers were numb and I didn’t realize I had hit the remote shutter button when I moved the camera.*

When I got home I found this image, as the best of the bunch. The Milky Way is in there, if you squint hard and use your imagination. I’ve tried editing it to bring it out more…but I can’t figure that out either on this one. Trying to bring the Milky Way lights up while dimming the Flint dome light is just so hard.

*If you sit in a dark room, blow this up, and squint you should be able to see the MW over on the left.*

So I reluctantly posted my image on our group’s Facebook page, explaining my issues (well, the issues revolving photography anyway!) and look below at what someone did for me! They edited it so that you can actually see the Milky Way.

*Thank you Geralynn Dykstra for the edit!!!!*

I’m not so discouraged now. I DID get the Milky Way in the image! I even got stars reflected in the strip of water! I won’t go out to this location for another attempt, there’s just way too much light. But I’ll keep going to dark sky places and I know that eventually I’ll capture the sky the way I see it in my head.

April 8, 2024
by dawnkinster 16 Comments

Roadside wonderings

When I’m out and about I often see roadside memorials. And if I have time, and if it’s safe, I pull over to read the name and date. When I get home I attempt to look them up, see what happened, learn more about the person.

Because every memorial is someone who was real and who is missed and who deserves a bit of recognition and attention.

*This is a very large memorial near my home.*

I know for a fact that the families that erect these memorials want people to notice that something terrible happened right there. And they want their person or people to not be forgotten. Even if you never knew them.

*There are no names that I could find, no date either.*

I’ve done this for years, trying to find out more about the people who died on our roads, ever since my own dad was killed on a stretch of highway between the Alabama/Georgia state line and the Atlanta airport.

*She was almost 30, walking on an overpass with her children when she was struck and killed.*

We didn’t build a memorial, but we did hastily plant some daffodil bulbs next to the busy freeway where he died. I’ve only been past the spot at the right time of year once, and the traffic was so bad I couldn’t look around for more than an instant, but I think I saw a flash of yellow years after the crash. It could have been the daffodils or it could have been a Wendy’s chili cup.

But I choose to believe it was dad saying hello and making me smile.

April 7, 2024
by dawnkinster 23 Comments

Bird saga continues

A couple weeks ago I introduced a friend to the bird magic that is Kensington. You saw the angst with the red headed woodpecker, but there were other bird shenanigans that morning. For instance there was this grackle dad and teenager who seemed not to agree about something very important.

“*Hey dad, can I have the keys to the car tonight?*“

“*No! Your legs aren’t even long enough to reach the pedals!*“

Soon dad will be busy with a new brood and teenager will get more freedom. But until then, from the looks of jr’s face, there are more ‘discussions’ in the wind.

April 4, 2024
by dawnkinster 14 Comments

Heart crushing numbers

April 1st NHTSA released the numbers of truck related deaths and injuries for 2022. I wish it was an April Fools joke.

That year 5,936 people, some of them the truck drivers themselves, died in large truck related crashes. Over 160,000 people were injured.

I’ve been working with the Truck Safety Coalition for almost twenty years. And except for a few years when the death and injury numbers dipped a bit, the horrific losses have climbed each year.

No one but us and a few other small safety groups seem to notice these unacceptable numbers. I’m heartbroken. My heart breaks every year when the numbers are released. I don’t understand why everyone isn’t shocked and horrified. Why it isn’t national news.

The Truck Safety Coalition’s statement about the NHTSA report is on our webpage, but I’ll link to it here. And if I could ask you to please check out a few of the stories of people who have been stolen from us, maybe you’ll realize, as I do, that these aren’t numbers we’re talking about. These are people. And families. They are someone’s child, mother, brother, husband, wife. My dad.

After you’ve composed yourself and dried your eyes, please donate to help us make our voices louder. You’ll see the donate button on all our website pages.

Sixteen people will die today in a large truck crash. Take a minute and look around at your family, friends, coworkers, neighbors.

Which sixteen will die today?

March 31, 2024
by dawnkinster 32 Comments

Bird tails

I was at Kensington last week. We were lucky enough to find the red-headed woodpecker and his friends on this walk.

*They don’t care about you, dove, they just want to see me!*

*Hey, settle down woodpecker, they left enough stuff for all of us.*

*Yea, I guess you’re right. I feel bad about my behavior now.*

*Hey blackbird, I was just telling the dove that there’s enough for everybody.*

*Sometimes I forget it’s not all about me.*

March 29, 2024
by dawnkinster 45 Comments

Karma’s photo challenge – signs of spring around here

As usual, spring in Michigan is a mixed bag. Since we had 60 (15.5C) degree and sometimes higher temperatures in February we were owed several days or even weeks of temperatures in the 30s, (-1.11 C) sometimes lower, in March. With wind and snow to make everything feel extra special.

Still, signs of spring persist even here.

The first sounds of spring, the thing that solidifies the concept of spring for me every year, are the red-winged blackbirds. They announce their arrival loudly with a very distinctive call.

*Feathers puffed up to keep warm in our 30 degree windy spring mornings.*

I usually hear them before I see them. But a day or so after I hear them singing over in the swamp they will have found my feeder. They come in mass and gobble up everything, much to the dismay of the smaller birds.

They’ve been around for a few weeks now and are disgusted, just as we all were, with that last snow storm.

And when I see my goldfinches start to turn yellow – well – than spring is well and truly on the way. It seems that one day they are all olive drab, and the next day the males are sprouting gold spots.

*Diving for goodies fallen from the feeder*

And then suddenly those show-offs are entirely, brilliant, yellow.

In fact yellow seems to be the color of spring. Between the daffodils, which are the only spring flowers we can have due to our hardy deer population…