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Sunlight on the Deck

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What is it that makes something that you have seen every day for 10 years suddenly interest you photographically? Is it a different texture of light, or maybe a particular angle of the sunlight striking? Maybe you have some emotional attachment to the sight, and today your emotions get control, making the ordinary seem extraordinary? Or some new brain chemistry just happens, and you see something in a way you’ve never seen it before? Can you capture that? Will others see it as you did?

Sunlight on Side of Deck

Sunlight on Side of Deck

On The Curb: New Beginnings?

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On The Curb

Is this the picture of a family having been evicted from their home, possibly a casualty of the ‘great recession’? Have the children been forced to uproot their friendships and attend a new school where they know not a single person yet? Will their pets be allowed to live in the new residence, or must they give them up? Can the marriage survive the strains that financial insecurity and change place upon it? What psychological scars will be etched on both the young and the old from this wretching experience? How long will those scars last before they eventually fade away to the effects of time?

Or maybe this is the portrait of a family moving up the ladder as growth and financial security return to a hopeful and waiting United States? Are they leaving this rented residence on the way to a new house of their own that they were finally able to purchase? Maybe there’s a new car in the budget now too, or even a second car? A bigger back yard, better schools, safer neighborhood, quieter surroundings? Perhaps a little less time available for Dad to be around the house, but then there’s always some price to pay.

There’s a story behind this. I wonder what it is?

Trees Deciding They’ve Had Enough

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So it’s all awesome and wonderful living under the big, shady, green trees on the edge of the lake. Or, it is until they come down. In the lake. And you have to get them out.

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It’s a perfectly clear afternoon (albeit there had been heavy rain on the previous day), blue sky, no wind, quiet and peaceful. Then 2 large pine tree trunks, without any warning, begin falling toward the lake. The tree is what is called a combinant tree. It has two trunks coming out of the same root body.

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At first there was hardly any noise. Then gunshot loud cracking sounds as the falling pines land on and take with them a beautiful 10″ Maple.

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Now I don’t mind too much losing the 2 pine tree trunks, other than the expense involved to get them out of the lake. But the loss of that gorgeous hardwood Maple tree just breaks my heart. The violence and volume of the cracking noises it made as those 2 pine tree trunks took it down is something you can’t un-hear. The poor thing was fighting hard for it’s life all the way down, as it was nevertheless relentlessly broken.

That’s enough drama for a while, Mother Nature.

Foggy Winter Morning – Honey Lake

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This winter morning the water is so flat and reflective that it’s hard to tell where the shoreline stops and the lake water begins. There are no Canadian Geese (Birdicus Annoyicus) honking around in the water. There are no foxes trotting around the lake. I don’t see the doe with 2 fawns standing by the shore either. No hawks are flying overhead. Nary a beaver nor an otter grace the lake today. It’s just dead quiet out here, with the silvery storm light refracting in the fog to take all the harshness out of the light.

I don’t hear any bullfrog sounds. During the spring and summer, they call to each other back and forth across the lake, I suppose with challenges to fight, and maybe invitations to hookup. And you’d certainly never know frogs are in any kind of environmental trouble if you were listening at this lake in the summer. But soon we will hear their calls again while it is still yet freezing weather here in Georgia. Every year we are always surprised at how early the frogs appear again. How do they stand that freezing cold when they are still so small?

Then there is the otter and beaver(s) which visit us. I’ve been wondering: How does an otter, and a pair of beaver, make their way safely to this lake in the middle of our residential area? The two small feeder streams flowing into this lake go underground 1000 feet or so north by east from here. The animals have to come from downstream of us. The dam spillway outflow stream is very small, at the most 2 to 3 feet across and less than a foot deep. The nearest lake south that the outflow stream flows into is about 1/2 mile away. So how can they suddenly appear here on this lake with fox, dogs, and people surrounding them while getting here?

And speaking of things we don’t know: Is Honey Lake really even the name of this lake? It appears on many maps that I’ve seen, but is never named. The Honey Lake name comes from long time residents of the neighborhood, who in turn have had that information handed down to them from other more elderly local area residents. Allegedly, 55 or more years ago, this was a stocked fish camp lake that folks came up to in order to get away from the city. With the size of the fish pulled out of this lake, I believe that is true. And I guess Honey Lake sounds as good as any other name to me.

That’s enough wondering for now. Back to enjoying the view, and the peace and quiet.