Archive for the ‘Images Captured’ Category
Pictorial Review
Cyndie putting the final touches on the Thanksgiving spread
Gathering around the old family table.
November morning with a new dusting of snow.
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Footprints in the new snow
Pequenita up on the highest shelf of the closet
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Mozyr watching the wildlife on our deck
Happy Thanksgiving
Today is the annual Thanksgiving holiday in the US, where tradition has it that we prepare a feast, with roast turkey being the most common main course. We will not be parting with tradition. In fact, we are combining new and old, cooking the traditional meal to be served on the old family table, but the turkey will be cooked in the brand new roaster Cyndie bought for the occasion, and we are hosting Thanksgiving dinner in our new house for the first time.
There is a lot that we are thankful for this year. I will take this opportunity to thank you for following our adventures here, and for being a part of Relative Something.
Spinning Around
Some days it seems easy, some days it’s as if everything is in front of my brain declaring a need for attention all at the same time. My computer and iPad at home, and my computer at the day-job all have searches and files saved with research, manuals and instructions, …buying information. Maintenance recommendations for the water softener. A log splitter. Air compressors. The Wisconsin Department of Forestry. We should have a different vehicle. I want a Jeep, but we could sure use the hauling ability of a pickup truck. Too bad I really could use a high mileage vehicle right now. It’s got my head spinning. So much for my list of items sorted by priority.
One trick I use to counter the spin is creating images like this one. It’s a different kind of spin. One that works for me.
I haven’t had a chance yet to tell our friends who visited us recently, and who exhausted every option troubleshooting an outdoor light that wasn’t working for us, that I found the switch that controls it. I had researched the cost of buying a replacement fixture and was moments short of contacting the folks who sold us this property, to confirm I wasn’t missing something, when I decided to make one more effort to look for a switch. I don’t know why we missed it that other night. Maybe it was a little farther from the side of the door than we expected it would be. But when I stepped up and peeked behind the dresser that we had placed beside the door, I immediately saw the switch, right in the middle of the back of it.
The whole time Ryan was trying to discover why it wouldn’t light, it was the simple reason of the switch behind my dresser being in the ‘off’ position.
No wonder I find my head spinning sometimes.
Calm Here
It is a curious feeling to have such serene weather at the same time that the unprecedented super storm trashed the east cost of the US. Of course, in the time before electronics, people didn’t have real-time knowledge of what is occurring in other places in the world. What’s the difference in when we learn about other areas that suffer disasters? I don’t know.
We are thoroughly enjoying the new vistas available from the deck of our home.
Here is a shot of the serenity we enjoyed on our early morning on the day after the historic storm pummeled millions of people to the east:
Amazing Change
This is an amazing time of change for us.
Amazing, beautiful, thrilling, intimidating, exhilarating, bucolic, inspiring, exhausting, all-encompassing change.
Not Far
It’s all relative. We have moved far away from where we used to live. We now drive long distances to get to and from our jobs. At the same time, we didn’t move very far away.
We still tune in the same radio stations. I look at the weather map and see the same radar images I have been watching for years. We are not that far away.
Yesterday morning, a heating company crew arrived to install a new gas line for our clothes dryer. The owner hopped out of his truck and said, “You have venison!”
That’s a pretty strange greeting, I thought. Venison? I do? I’m pretty sure he read the confusion on my face, as he then pointed out that it was in the ditch at the end of my driveway and there were car parts all over the road. Someone had hit a deer.
It seems we are located at a popular crossing route the deer travel from a thick section of pine trees on the other side of the road. Earlier in the summer, when we first stopped by to meet the family selling this property, there was a dead deer on the near side, out in the open of the mowed grass by the road. This time the unfortunate doe ended up in the long growth on the far side.
A deer sprinted across the path my car was traveling last night on my way home. That hazard is at a new level compared to our previous location.
One thing that is drastically different for us, is the view out our windows. It is bringing us great joy. I hope the thrill never goes away. I don’t ever want to take this feature for granted.
In Transition
So much to do, so little time in which to do it. I had hoped to do a quick post this morning, before we head out on a big adventure today, but the task turned out to be not so quick. The topic I picked deserves time for more thought than I have right now, so I will save it for another day. In its place, you get, …what else? A picture to view! A leaf, in transition. Like our lives right now.
Enjoy the day!
Self Portrait
While enjoying the scenery up at the lake last Saturday, I captured this image of some guy looking at me through his camera lens:
I like the way it turned out. A little bit mysterious. It takes a second to figure out what is going on.
And, since I am posting photos, here is an outtake from the session on the water. I really like the coloring of lake and sky, and find myself wanting to gaze upon images from this series, again and again. This one falls just short of my goal, because of the slant of the horizon. It bugs me, but the color is still appealing:
I was attempting to capture the ripples created by boat traffic. That feature also failed to come through as I had hoped. The leaf that floated into the foreground grabs attention, but it doesn’t present enough of a classic leaf outline to be a rewarding distraction. It just leaves an impression of, “what is it doing there?”
If you find yourself asking, the answer is: floating.
If the leaf could have taken a self-portrait, it probably would have, but since it wasn’t able, I took the picture.
I can’t get over the feeling that all the water is going to run out the right edge of that image, following the slant. Yet, I still discover my gaze enjoying the view. Maybe that is because I am usually seeing it at thumbnail size. The gradient of colors seems more dramatic as the image is reduced.
Don’t you agree?
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Relative Something 