Another take on the WordPress photo challenge this week. These are doors at Fort Gratiot in Detroit. It was built in the 1840s and now is in disrepair but still fascinating. And beautiful in it’s own way.
Enjoy.
Tag Archives: summer
It’s hard to hear the frogs when the freeway roar is so loud
Private camp site
Katie and I camped out last night. In the backyard. I know, I know, only a crazy woman and her crazy dog would choose to sleep in the damp and cold only yards from a comfy king sized bed. Right?
Well call us crazy.
The moon was full and beckoned us out into the dark around 11:30. We trooped through the already dewy wet grass carrying all the essentials, pillows, blankets, flashlight, phone, Katie tugging at the leash. It was her first backyard camping adventure of the season and she knew exactly where she wanted to be.
I’ll keep watch mama!
On her pillow in her tent guarding her yard.
I have a romantic notion about sleeping in the backyard; I like to listen to the frogs in the pond across the road. There are at least a couple of different kinds including the bull frogs’ deep voices and I love to hear them in the evening from the deck. Falling asleep to the frog choir always seems like such a lovely idea.
The reality, however, is that I am constantly surprised how loud the freeway is at night. It’s a mile away but across a lake from us and I guess that magnifies the sound. Because what I don’t notice much during the day is suddenly a deafening roar in the middle of the night. Still, how many loud cars and trucks and motorcycles would be roaring down the freeway at 3 in the morning?
Turns out quite a few.
So many in fact that I really couldn’t hear the frogs at all. Katie-girl and I are going to have to go on another camping adventure in a real campground very soon. Hopefully far away from a freeway. Before she settled in for her morning nap today she urged me to start planning. A girl needs her outdoor time.
Don’t you know.
Morning moon hanging on
Elasticity of time
Fields of summer
I’ve been retired a month now. My hope before I left work was that time would unfold in the slow dreamy way summer days did when I was a kid.
You remember those days don’t you? Warm summer days when you got up with the morning light and lingered over breakfast, wandered outside later in the day, climbed a few trees, goofed off with neighborhood kids, stayed out late into the evening chasing fireflies.
Each day stretched out indefinitely.
Retirement started out that way. The first few days, perhaps the first week, seemed to last forever. Even now most of the day I don’t know what time it is, and that’s fine with me. And I’ve long since lost track of what day of the week it might be.
But time is speeding up now, just as my grandmother told me, years ago, it would.
Suddenly it’s Tuesday, another weekend ended, another week already moving along, a whole month gone since I last commuted to work. Midsummer and the 4th of July are right around the corner. Somehow a quick after lunch nap stretches into early evening, a few minutes reading on the deck out back and the morning is gone, check Facebook and the sun drops below the horizon without warning.
Time seems to be an elastic band snapping back at me with intensity, a pendulum swinging toward the future at increasing speed. The world seems to be screaming past, daring me to catch a ride, to fling myself up into the speeding vehicle moving toward something unknown. But I’m dragging my feet, hanging on to the golden sun, the misty mornings, the glowing fireflies.
I’m hanging on, trying to slow time down. Just for a little bit longer.
Golden summer marches on.
WordPress Photo Challenge: Muse II
Muse: a spirit or source that inspires an artist.
Family farms have always inspired me. Especially those that are in wide open spaces, surrounded by the crops they grow.
Early morning light on barn.
My mom’s family has farmed for four generations. I guess that’s where I get my appreciation for the beauty that is farmland.
Amber waves of grain.
Farms are always changing, as the grain ripens, the soybeans turn yellow, the corn puts out tassels.
Corn: knee high by the 4th of July.
Slow down, don’t speed through farm country the next time you’re there, take a moment to look. It’s where your food comes from.
And it’s beautiful.
Farm for sale.
WordPress Photo Challenge: Muse
This week’s photo challenge is to show something you photograph regularly, something that inspires you to take more photos. To show us muse.
Pretty clouds…and a sheltie.
For me it’s often the sky. Prior to retirement I had a window at work on the top floor and regularly posted ‘window weather’ photos taken on my phone of the clouds, rain, and sun streaming by.
Now that I’m not working I have to go a bit further to find that wide open sky. But it’s still one of my favorite things to photograph; it changes frequently, it can be beautiful or dramatic; sometimes both. I’m always watching the sky, early morning, midday, and late into the evening. You never know what you’ll see.
Oh. Yes there’s also the sheltie-girl Katie in this shot, another muse. I have a few thousand photos of her in her many different moods. Today, as you can see, she’s a very happy girl. Because she loves to run, and because she knows I have treats.
You can see other interpretations of ‘muse’ at the original post. Or if you like, check out a few of my favorites, here, here and here.
And don’t miss this one.
What’s your photographic muse? You have time to show us, just post a photo on your blog and link to the original post. I can’t wait to see!
Katie-girl.
WordPress Photo Challenge: ROY G. BIV
Do you know what Roy G Biv is? I didn’t. It stands for red, orange,yellow,green, blue, indigo, and violet, the colors of the rainbow. Yesterday I went over to my local nursery to find examples of those colors. You can see other interpretations at the original post, or see a few of my favorite shots here, here and here. And don’t miss this one, it’s wonderful!
Retirement Reflections
Reflections
It’s Monday morning, sometime before 7:00 a.m., and I’m up and out the door. Only as I’m backing down the driveway do I remember all the past Monday mornings when I’ve headed out about this same time on my way to work.
Early morning.
But this morning I’m not going to work.
I’m headed out to a hillside I’ve noticed over the years. Yesterday on our way to somewhere else I noticed the grass was a beautiful golden brown and I knew I had to get back with the camera soon before the farmer turned it all into hay.
As I park on the side of the road, pausing to let commuters zoom by, I begin to smile. I smile because it’s a beautiful day, the sun just topping the trees, small puffy clouds in a blue sky, a cool breeze gently tossing the grass.
Field of grass.
And I smile because I’m not on my way to work.
Driving leisurely back toward home after capturing the field I stop at a local park to enjoy the glassy pond.
Swimming hole.
Sigh.
I’ve got to say that even weeding is looking pretty good to me right now.
Summer arrives
Hope
Because I think we all need to take a breath and see something beautiful…
…because even in the midst of evil and pain there are still beautiful things.
Because there is hope.
Always.
Hope blooms
Wordless Wednesday
Katie’s Day 1
Katie here.
Well.
By now you all know that my mama retired. Whatever that means. It doesn’t seem to be about me so I’m not all that interested. But today I’m starting to figure out that life as I knew it is over!
This is my house and I make the rules. Don’t I?
First of all, mama was home all weekend, which is a little strange cause she usually goes to work at least some of the time. That’s my favorite time to nap and get ready for an adventure. When she gets home from work on the weekends we almost always go somewhere fun and she lets me sniff and sniff and sniff while she walks around sighing and daydreaming and stuff.
But this weekend was all rainy and we didn’t do anything exciting. Mostly she napped on the sofa. I bugged her a lot to try to get her to play but she was in some sort of coma, you know?
Anyway…today is Monday and she’s supposed to get up early, so I did my usual…and got her out of bed at 4:40 a.m. She did not seem pleased. But you know what she did? She just went out to the sofa and went back to sleep! Huh! So I went to sleep for awhile too. Then I woke her up again and she told me to go lay down. So I did though I was confused. This went on for some time till finally she got up and took me out and then we went back to sleep again!
And then she didn’t go to work!! She just hung around all morning! What’s with that? I am missing my princess nap! How am I supposed to keep up my princess looks without my late morning nap?
And then she took me outside and she started weeding!
Yep that’s supposed to be a garden back there.
Well! I LOVE weeding cause I get to be outside a long time with my mama and I get to bark at all the cars that go by, and the jogger, and my neighbor, and a truck, and a duck, and a rabbit, and my neighbor again.
After awhile my mama said I needed to go inside. But then she bagged up the garbage…so I just had to bark some more! Geeze mama, if you want me to be quiet you’ve got to sit down woman!
So anyway, I think my mama’s new full time job is weeding. She says we’re going to go outside every single morning and work on the gardens. Or she might just mow over the top of them. We’ll see.
I’m undecided if this retirement thingy is good for me. So far I haven’t seen any adventures come out of it; mostly I’ve just gotten yelled at for barking too much. I kinda liked it when she went to work, but I guess I’ll adjust. Maybe tomorrow morning I’ll wait till 5:15 to get her out of bed.
You think she’ll like that better?
Love, your gal Katie.
Change Is Hard 