Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

Well, the whole "my siblings and I have been getting along great" after Dad passed away has ended. We've all heard the horror stories of siblings who fight over the estate, taking each other to court or whatever, and I was so glad that wasn't the case for us. I was proud of how my siblings and I were in agreement about so many aspects concerning what to do with Dad's things. Little did I realize . . . At this point, speaking for myself (though I've heard from another sibling that this is true for at least one other in the group as well), I've washed my hands of one of my siblings. The one causing the trouble. And I have said as much to this sibling. I will no longer try to get in contact. Not that it would do any good. This sibling won't respond anyways. Like a petulant child. Or maybe a chicken shit. Probably 1/4 petulant child and 3/4 chicken shit. Because this sibling knows their actions are truly shameful.  Backhanded accusations have been thrown t...

I've decided every Friday will be my weigh-in day. I figure I bought the darn scale, so I'm going to use it. Maybe it's the ingredient I've needed all along to hold me accountable for what I eat. The trepidation I feel just looking at the scale is ridiculous, but I conquered the fear yesterday and stepped on. Half a pound down.  And that made me incredibly happy. Seeing that third number change from where it's been the past two years was the jolt of energy I've needed to continue on the path I'm walking. The path of eating strictly plant-based.  I've been working on this for a year and a half. I tried several years ago to be vegetarian, but I ended up feeling awful, and my doctor said eat meat. So I went back to eating meat though I really didn't want to.  So for the past year and a half, I've joked about being a bad vegetarian. I started the 90/10 routine. I ate mostly plants and eggs 90% of the time during the month. The other 10% of the month,...

The fall semester is officially underway. Most of us are teaching solely online, so we won't have the usual gathering in the hall to chat and catch up with one another, something we all looked forward to after nearly three months of not seeing each other. I miss my friends so much.  But I do enjoy teaching online. It's such a different animal from teaching in the classroom. I used to give myself little pep talks before going into the classroom, and I made a list of everything I wanted to cover during the class period. I'd check each item off throughout the hour and fifteen minutes. I never sat down, either, always moving around the room while I talked and worked with the students. Now . . . much of my time is spent sitting.   For hours I sit in front of the computer and create the materials that I upload to the LMS. At the same time, I check my email regularly to field any questions that might come in from students. But I have the freedom to stand and stretch, go to the k...

  What a beauty!  Little guy tucked into the leaves of a lily plant. The walkway to the table under the maple tree. Broken wing but still getting along. The abandoned stroller. Kinda creepy. (This was at a state forest I visited last week. I want to return and take more pictures of this with better lighting.) One last lightning but photo. Taken right after sunset, over the field directly behind my house.

My lovely summer is coming to an end. Nearly time to return to work, well, as much as we can return to work, which means being online for the fall semester. From my cozy house out in a little town. And I can't say that I'm sad I won't be returning to campus. I do miss my friends. A lot. But I truly love being out here, awakening to the orchestra that is birdsong outside my bedroom window, sitting on the front porch every morning and evening, wandering through the garden that surrounds the house and finding beautiful little surprises from one day to the next. And while I didn't get the deck on the back of the house (lumber shortage due to the pandemic) or the garage door opener installed (not in a hurry to get this done), those will happen. Just not right now.  Mostly I've just been enjoying being here. The quiet when I wake up during the night is wonderful. The owls calling back and forth make me not want to fall back to sleep. So far, because the temps have stayed ...

Recently I've been sharing some of my photos with friends. One friend emailed me privately, asking if I had at one time studied photography or worked as a photographer because I "have a good eye." I truly appreciated my friend's kind words, and as I mulled them over, I was taken back to my time as an undergrad, when I was studying photography. I loved everything about working with film. Not long into my first black and white photography class, the TA wandered in while I was working one evening. I had just developed an image of a wind chime that hung on the front porch of my parents' old farmhouse. I had achieved a nice range of tones with the image and the TA remarked about this. I was really pleased I was understanding how to work my camera as well as the enlarger and chemicals. I spent hours in that darkroom, determined to learn as much as possible about black and white photography. The professor of the class showed up for the lecture portion but left the lab co...

One of the best parts about cycling along at 14 miles per hour is the opportunity to really see the nature surrounding us. I love stopping on the bridges spanning the creeks throughout the countryside. Yesterday, I stopped to watch the swallows emerge from under a bridge, dipping and diving through the air, hoping to get me to move along. I turned to look in the opposite direction, wondering how the late-evening sun might look as a backdrop to the creek. That's when I noticed this beauty. I could tell from the size I wasn't looking at a hawk. Given I was probably 100 yards away, I figured I wasn't going to get a very good picture of it, but I was going to try. I pulled out my little camera I carry with me and zoomed in as much as possible. I snapped a photo then enlarged it on the camera screen. To say I was just a tad bit excited to see an eagle would be an understatement. I kept snapping photos, hoping at least one would give me a decent image. This one made the cut. It...