“In every change, in every falling leaf there is some pain, some beauty. And that’s the way new leaves grow. – – Amit Ray
My favorite tree.
I was challenged by Carol over at Wanderings of an Elusive Mind to post quotes for three days. If you’d like to play along we’d love to have you!
I have a young ginko tree in my backyard. Every year the leaves turn a wonderful yellow color and hang on long after most of the maple trees have released their leaves to the wind.
Golden ginko
And every fall I wake up one morning and find all the leaves huddled like a life ring of gold around the base of the tree. After a hard frost all the leaves drop at once.
It must be an amazing site, to see all that gold come fluttering down at once. It would be magical.
This year I kept track of the weather, determined to see my tree shed it’s summer clothes.
Darn!
But I missed it again. I guess it’s shy and only disrobes in the dark. Next year I’m going to have to camp out and keep watch all night, become a tree paparazzi.
If I capture the image I’ll share it with you. Next year for sure.
“There is a plan and a purpose, a value to every life, no matter what its location, age, gender, or disability. — Sharron Angle
I’ve been nominated by Carol at Wanderings of an Illusive Mind. (For a smile and a look at something beautiful, go check out her blog header…she paints with alcohol inks and the horse you’ll find there is stunning!)
Life here is pretty busy at the moment, though I suppose it’s busy everywhere now that the holidays are upon us. Here in the US the combination of politics and holidays don’t seem to go together very well, especially this year.
But I don’t want to talk about that.
I’d rather talk about the value of a life, regardless of the age or location of a person. Especially because of the age and location of a person.
Our elderly family member is settling into a new home, one she wishes she didn’t have to accept. She lived in her own apartment until she was 101 ; that’s longer than most of us will ever live alone. But her legs and her heart just aren’t strong enough for her to live alone any longer.
She knew that someday she’d have to move into a nursing home. Still, now that the time has come, it’s hard.
It’s hard on those of us watching her struggle with emotions as we struggle with ours. It’s hard telling her over and over that she can’t go home again. It’s hard to listen to her voicing her objections to her new location. And it’s hard to leave her there after each visit.
It’s hard to tell her the sky is a brilliant blue and the air is warm and see her sad eyes at the realization she can’t see out the window on the other side of her shared room. It’s hard to listen to her talk about the noises made by other residents at night without having an acceptable resolution. To think about her never having her favorite cinnamon raisin toast again because there’s nowhere to toast it for her. To realize that her space is too small to give her fresh flowers, that she never gets fresh fruits with a meal, that she can no longer enjoy the company of her bird. That she enjoys no privacy at all.
Mostly it’s hard for her.
I believe her life still has value, regardless of the age she has attained and regardless of where she now finds her physical self. And I believe that somehow we need to find a way to make her feel valuable again. Because right now she’s not feeling like she matters to much of anyone at all.
This morning I walked out of the gym wearing shorts, probably the last time I’ll be able to do that for awhile. After all, it’s mid-November. And though today we hit a record high of 72 degrees (22.22 Celsius) I know this weekend we’ll get cold rain, maybe even a bit of snow.
After the frost.
As I left the gym, moving out into the warm sunshine, I wished that it could stay this warm and sunny until next spring. Then I noticed the business next door was playing the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s Carol of the Bells. Loudly. The music was rolling out the open door and I was reminded that Christmas is right around the corner.
End of season colors.
Time is marching on whether I like it or not.
I remember my mom wanting to stop time when we were growing up. She was already mourning our youth before we moved away. Sometimes I do the same, and I certainly hear other parents voice that sentiment.
Autumn morning light.
But time slides away and before you know it the holidays are here, and then the next year, and the one after that. Years fly by, seasons even faster. The sun sets on today before I realize it’s potential. I want it all to slow down.
Unless it’s snowing. If it’s snowing then time needs to scream forward into spring.
Let’s just call this a good lesson in what not to do while trying to get that perfect shot of a huge moon rising up from the pumpkin patch. Oh wait. That’s a different story.
The super moon sort of snuck up on me, even though we’d been told about it daily for at least a week. Suddenly it was Sunday and I hadn’t looked up any instructions on how to shoot a great image. I figured I’d wing it, using things I’d learned about shooting stars.
Moving up into Sunday’s sky
Right. Never wing something that only occurs every 18 years. Especially when you’re already 60. I never did get it right, though, while messing with white balance I did get a gray image that was pretty sharp.
Different white balance on Sunday night.
So Sunday night I went home and read some articles online. I put the manual settings into the camera prior to heading out into the dark. I had good intentions.
A little cloudy Monday evening.
Monday evening the moon came up more than 45 minutes later than Sunday night. Plus the library was open, so there were lots of parking lot lights to contend with. AND the moon came up much further to the north on Monday.
So far to the north that at first we thought it had been obscured by clouds, and we packed stuff up and headed to the car. During the walk down the hill I glanced over my shoulder and saw it, right above the library!
Super moon over library.
I tried a lot of different shutter speeds and found out that the faster it moved the sharper the image when it was just the moon.
Golden orange moon Monday night.
The clouds shifted, moved over the moon, then moved again setting it free. The moon grew more golden, though it still came out orange in my camera.
It was a dark and cloudy night.
I tried and tried to get a true color, trying all the white balance options, but though I got one shot that was more black and grey, otherwise they were just shades of orange. Eventually the moon was high and my fingers were cold, so I gave up and went home. Some of the images are nice, but none of them are what I actually saw.
Clouds move in.
So more lessons must be learned, more studying needs to be done. And I need another clear night with a beautiful moon so that I can try it again.
I can’t say the evenings were total failures — after all I got to spend two nights under a beautiful super moon.
Many of you know that I love the photographic work of Snap Happy Gal. If you study her images you’ll note that the sky is often a big part of the picture; her clouds low and robust, the light always mesmerizing. I can spot her work on Facebook even before I check to see who posted.
Sky is a big deal to me too. So on my drive up to Northport yesterday I noticed when the heavy dark clouds rolled in as I navigated morning rush hour through Flint. And how they rolled and twisted as I reached the flat land near Bay City.
Farmland anticipates rain.
I couldn’t help myself. I had to get off the freeway and see what I could catch. I thought to myself as I drove the back roads – “This is a Snap Happy sky.”
There’s a big lake just past Grayling and it always catches my attention. This trip was no exception as the clouds kept rolling in. I had to stop.
Dark and stormy Lake Margrethe
And so it was, and continues to be this morning, here on the big lake. Lake Michigan swells quietly beneath an ominous sky, caught between summer and autumn.
Summer leaves reluctantly.
Living in a wide open space you can watch the weather approaching. It’s almost like watching it on radar, the way the clouds move across the water. But it’s better than radar because you can actually feel the changes — you’re surrounded, as if you’re sitting in the biggest 360 degree 3D movie theater in the world.
A clear blue sky would be boring.
I think it’s possible we’ll have clouds for all three days of my visit. Some people might be sad at the lack of sun and blue sky.
I’m so impressed by Snap Happy Gal’s Photography of life in the north, especially her night shots of the stars, that I’ve been trying to figure out how to do it myself.
I messed around with night photography when I was up in Northport last December; by watching YouTube videos I figured out how to use my camera’s manual settings, change the ISO, the aperture, the shutter speed. It was below zero the night I spent an hour out on the beach trying to capture the sky, but I didn’t notice the cold. It was just so much fun being out there.
I haven’t tried it since, and of course now I’ve forgotten how to do any of it, so I watched the videos again, set my camera on manual, and headed out to camp in the backyard last night. I have too much light where I live to see the sky in as much detail as you’d see in the north woods, but I was more curious about the process and the color of the light than I was the number of stars.
I set my alarm for 3:00 a.m. and settled in to sleep. Nothing doing. So I read for awhile and tried to sleep again. Nope. I surfed the web on my phone for a bit and finally nodded off about midnight.
At 3:00 the phone gently nudged me awake and I stumbled out into the yard with my tripod and camera, pointed the lens at the sky and pushed the shutter.
Turns out I’m still way too pink.
Anybody up there?
I figured it would be this way as I didn’t investigate white balance, something Heather (the Snap Happy One up north) suggested after my first foray into night photography.
Never know what I’m pointing at.
Still, I stayed awake a couple more hours thinking about the problem and listening to the bugs, frogs, freeway and occasional snorting white tailed dear. I also watched the stars slide across the sky through the roof of my tent. I didn’t really mind being awake. It was a beautiful night.
So today I studied white balance, read a few articles, watched a video, and I’ve adjusted my camera’s white balance setting. I’m hoping for one more clear night so I can camp out in the backyard again. I figure the worst thing that happens is that the photos are still too pink and I have to study some more.
But I’ll get another nice night under the stars out of it and that’s OK with me.
Katie here. What? You thought mama likes camping in the rain? I guess she’s not opposed, as long as it’s a nice gentle rain that stops by morning and then the sun comes up and dries everything out before we have to pack it into the car. That kind of rain.
But of course that’s not what happened.
I’m getting ahead of myself though, let me start at the beginning. Last Monday we drove all the way over to Leelanau State Park; it’s way up at the tip of the little finger of Michigan, just north of Northport, one of mama’s favorite towns.
We went there so that we could visit a bunch of people, some of whom had never met me! The first person we hung out with was Karen, a friend of mama’s from years ago. They used to work together in the Upper Peninsula in the 80s. We had dinner at her house and mama and I ran up and down the 46 stairs to the beach a bunch of times while mama took pictures of the sunset that night.
I’m not scared of these stairs mama!
Mama has figured out that I’m not exactly telling the truth when I say I don’t do stairs. I ran down those 46 stairs no problem each time. And the first time back I forgot, and ran up halfway before I asked to be picked up! Bummer! Mama’s on to me now!
Sunset light makes me extra beautiful in my beach chair.
That night her friend came up and camped with us at our site. It was fun to have her hanging out with mama, though I have to admit I went to bed as soon as we got back to camp while mama and her friend drank wine and talked.
The next day mama and I went into town and visited Dog Ears Books in Northport. I didn’t get to meet the resident dog Sarah, because she wasn’t in that day, but I got to meet Sarah’s person Pamela, and I got to wander all over the store with my mama as she picked out a few books.
I like this store! Support your independent book seller!
We visited the marina too. I enjoy walking out on the docks and looking at all the beautiful boats. I imagine what it would be like out on the big lake on a sunny afternoon.
This one’s for sale mama, want to buy it for me?
It would be perfect as long as my mama remembered to bring the treats. Which she forgot a lot on our walks during this camping trip. Just saying.
Back at our campsite mama noticed a big beautiful cloud out over the lake. This park doesn’t have a beach, just a lot of bushes that grow in the water. So mama hiked out through those bushes and into the water to get a picture of the beautiful cloud and some sailboats.
The ‘path’ back to camp.
She figured her feet would get wet, but that was OK. When she finally came back to camp I had to say “I told you so mama!” because of course she got more wet than she expected. Mama never pays attention when she’s trying to get a good picture. Silly silly mama.
Really mama? You couldn’t keep your shorts dry?
She changed her shoes and her shorts and spent the rest of the day moving the wet things around the campsite, following the shifting sun. When we went to bed they were still pretty damp.
That night the whole campground was full! Most every single site had one or more tents in it. We had lots of crazy screaming little kids on one side of us and a whole big group of teenagers on the other side. It was a lot more noisy than before. But I was tired from all our exploring so I went right to sleep.
Peterson Park has a giant tree!
Mama had hoped she could try some star photography, so she set her alarm for 1:00 a.m. so she could go out and check the sky. Of course she got me up then too, to go do my jobs. She thought that by doing that I might let her sleep later than 6 a.m. It’s always good to have hope.
So at 1:00 we were outside, mama checking the sky, me checking for pee-mail. She said the sky wasn’t good for star shooting; to the west it was totally dark and there were clouds and stars just above us. Out over Lake Michigan it looked dark…like fog. Or something.
We walked about three campsites down the road so I could pee, and then mama felt weird being out there alone so late, and she tugged me back to our site. I didn’t want to go back into the tent but she insisted. And as she turned around inside to zip the door shut she noticed that the young tree on the other side of the road suddenly bent over in strong wind! That seemed odd because it hadn’t been windy when we were out there. And it wasn’t windy where our tent was only a few feet away.
So she watched. The tree whipped around, over and over, the waves began to crash, but the wind was louder than the waves. Mom was worried. Then the rain hit.
It came down in sheets, hard against the tent. Mama hoped the weight of us inside would hold the tent down. She worried about what she might have left outside. Like her shoes. And the tent bag. And who knows what else. I slept through the whole thing.
It rained hard from 1:10 a.m. until 6:00 a.m. Mama stayed awake through most of it worrying. But at 6:00 it seemed to stop, and she had to go to the bathroom (I guess listening to all that water will do it to some people!) so she woke me up and we crept outside. Things seemed to be OK. Her shoes were soaked, but other than that we were good. So we headed to the toilet. We were halfway there when the rains came back. Mama debated what to do. Go back to the tent? Or keep going? She decided what the heck…we were going to get wet either way, so we kept going. By the time we got to the toilet it was just pouring. We got soaked!
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
Back at our site she gave up trying to keep anything inside dry, we just dove back into the tent. I was a mess. Mama was a mess. She dried me off with our last dry towel. Turns out I thought that was fun, almost like a game, so I made mama laugh even though she was dripping wet too. We went back to sleep. Well. I went back to sleep. Mama lay there worrying about how she was going to pack up the campsite in this pouring rain. She had to be out by 11:00 a.m.
Then guess what? The rain stopped at 8 a.m.! Really! It just stopped! Mama had already decided that she was going to pack up at 8, regardless. So she got up and got moving fast. I got put in my crate just to keep me from tracking more mud into the tent. I was not happy.
Not fair.
I am never happy when she packs up our tent. It’s my tent and I want to stay longer! Even if everything is soaked! It’s not fair that she put my in my crate in the car where I couldn’t see anything. But she says it’s just faster without me running around after her barking and getting under her feet.
I don’t want you to pack up mama!
I guess she’s right, because she got everything packed in an hour. We stopped on our way out to toss the garbage in the bin. It was about 9:10 when she popped out of the car to toss the garbage. The rain began again in earnest at 9:11. I swear, we were soooo lucky to get it all packed up in that one hour.
Through the rain we drove south around Traverse Bay, and then north along the other side. We were going to visit Gerry up near Eastport. I met Gerry a couple of years ago, along with her dogs the Cowboy and Miss Sadie. She lives near the water too and has a lot of stairs up to her house.
I’m not walking up all these steps mama!
Once again I had no trouble going down the steps but I made my mama carry me up every.single.time. After all, I am a princess.
Once inside her house I noticed immediately that there was a sofa! And I spent most of the evening napping on it, or Gerry’s chair. And mama and I got to sleep in a real bed! Gerry was very nice to offer us her spare room, especially since everything we had was wet!
Hey mama! A sofa!
I had a great time at Gerry’s house. We went for walks through the woods and we visited her neighbor and I got to nap while they were talking. I napped a lot on this trip. I think that’s one of the best parts about camping, all the naps.
What? I was just resting my eyes!
The next day we went for one more walk and then it was time to head home. I don’t know about mama, but I was exhausted!
Sure is pretty ‘up north!’
We stopped at my favorite park in Greyling, and a couple of rest stops, but most of the way home I was asleep. Don’t tell mama, she thinks I’m vigilant all the time.
At the little park in Greyling. It’s not raining!
It took mama two days to get everything totally dried out once we were home. I’m already asking her when we’re going again, but she says she’s tired. She slept a lot yesterday. Even more than me! I suppose I should let her rest for at least a couple more days before I bug her about our next adventure. Maybe we could stay in a hotel. I have to admit I did like sleeping on the bed that last night. We’ll see. I can always count on my mama to come up with something fun.
She says she has lots of pretty photos to show you and she’ll do that sometime if I ever finish this blog which she says has gotten way too long. Obviously she forgets I’m the princess of the house.
My mama. Secretly I think she likes camping a lot too.
Katie here. It’s been forever since I’ve been able to blog. Mama has been hogging it with all her travel adventures, which by the way, she did not take me on. Just to point out the inequities here. But she flew back home on Friday and this morning she said that it was such a pretty day she’d like me to take her to my park!
Well! You know how I love my park. So I barked and jumped around her ankles until she got moving toward the car! Heavens, I haven’t been to my park in a long time! Mama says it was only the month of July, because she was gone, but in dog years the month of July is a bajillion years!
If you have a treat I’ll sit!
I had so much to catch up on that I stopped a whole lot along the walk. I had to smell everything! And leave pee-mail for my dog friends. Everywhere. After a long time my mama said, “Come on now Katie-girl, you don’t have to pee on everything. Everyone will know you were here. After all, it’s YOUR park!”
Mama was sort of sad because the only flowers left out there were queen annes lace and (oh no!) goldenrod! She says the summer is slipping away and she can’t figure out how to hold on to it. I told her that the reason the summer was going by so fast was because she’s spent most of it somewhere else! And that she needed to spend the rest of it with me. Me me me me me.
Late summer flower.
But anyway.
The best part of my walk this morning was that I met a new friend! A little girl and her mom and baby brother were out walking in my park! I was resting in some shade when they showed up. The little girl was so beautiful! And she asked the right questions before she came up to me. She asked if it was OK to let me sniff her hand, and then she asked if I liked to be petted!
Only a little of this still in bloom.
Mama told her that she asked exactly the right questions and that it was always important to ask the doggie’s mom or dad first. And that if she petted me on my side I’d like it better than on my head. Mama says she was hoping I wouldn’t back up and shy away, cause I break little kids hearts like that all the time. But I was thinking my mama should just quit talking and let the little girl pet me!
And you know what the little girl said as I was lying down and letting her pet me on my soft fur? She said I looked just like a princess! Isn’t that cool! She knew I was a princess! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, everyone should know I’m a princess, it’s perfectly obvious.
Mama told her she was right, I was a princess! And that we had named the park after me. She smiled and asked if she could get a picture with me. I guess she knows royalty when she sees it! So I sat on a bench and let mama take a picture of the two of us. Mama is going to email it to her mom.
I was having so much fun I didn’t even notice this guy. Do you see him?
It was special and I’m glad I met her. She is a very nice little girl, a princess herself I think. I hope we meet her again some day at my park.
I had a wonderful time and now I’m hogging all the air conditioning in my living room by sleeping on the vent. I’m so glad my mama is home. She says we’re going on a walk with my friend Deuce tomorrow night! It’s about time she gave me the attention I deserve.
Natives and invasive mixed together, on our way out of the park.
I hope you all are having a wonderful summer too. And that you all have an air conditioning vent to nap on.
Change Is Hard 