Bird Count

I never cared much for the Audubon Christmas bird counts we used to go on. It was more an exercise in others superior knowledge of Orinthology of which I was quite elementary. Invariably I would be paired with the Society expert's team and I would groan. Me with my weak Bushnell's, he with the Leica spotting scope, he with the Stokes and Peterson field guides, me with the Golden's. He with the complete life list sans the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, me with the Cardinal and Mockingbird checked off.

It was a tedious stop, look and listen. The call alone of birds counted so off we would go checking the list of unseen birds. I just watched him work amazed.

How could there be so many birds about?  

After a morning of identifying, me mostly tagging along and agreeing to the seeing, we would head back to compile our results. I never figured what good these counts really accomplished. I think it was more an ego or humility walk, depending on your knowledge of birds.

But being the competitive sort, it always did my ego good when as a team it was humbly announced we spotted forty variety of bird, even several no one else saw, far distancing ourselves from the other groups. 

For awhile there I'd be stoked. I'd determine to purchase that Swarovski scope and replace the Golden with a real manual, don the bird watcher uniform, down to the Columbia khaki matching hat, but by New Years, interest had waned.

Every now and then I would spot Jerry coming out of the woods beaming. How many did you see today Jerry? Just thirty-two. And you? I would mumble something unintelligible, quickly redirecting the topic. All about us the birds were apparently chirping, squawking and peeping, like from some unseen Kingdom.

I wanted in, I just didn't want in as bad as Jerry did. He said he was packing for a trip to lower Louisiana. Seems the Ivory Billed was reputedly seen and he wanted to complete his life list. 

I wished him well. I think I spotted another Cardinal on my life list.

The Year in Photography

I would liken it to the year in debt by not reading the fine print. Early in the year Ritz Camera had an ad, buy the Canon S110, get an SD card and Canon printer free after rebate. I fell. The items arrived. I used them. I went to redeem the $400 rebate by making a payment, thus owing only $185. Wrong. It was a $400 purchase card. Not able to make payment. 

Too late to send the stuff back.

Still in debt.

It was a slow sales year at the gallery, selling two- three with several small print and notecard sales. I threatened several times to pull out.

I won two ribbons, an honorable mention and a third place. Meehaw, the photo of Zoe the cat was also the FB most likes.

It was the year I signed onto fine art America. Thinking this would make selling easier, I only sold a phone case and an 8x10, not even coming close to making up the $20 annual fee to show more than 20 prints.

It was the year of estrangement. My photo friend Ron, who I figured was off key, proved it by lambasting me over my words, him unable to understand play on words or humor, taking me seriously, calling me a hypocrite and all sorts of things. I had to block him.

It was a year the laptops crashed and have sat in the shop forever, hoping they will eventually recover photos to the external Hard drive I bought with my 409 rebate money from ritz.

It was the year of the iPhone6, again, purchased with the rebate. Without the laptop, I have learned to edit on the phone by downloading from smug mug and Google plus photos I had saved, processing thru apps and posting. I also can print if needed via wifi and the Epsom printer. So, in reality, do not really need laptop, though do not really know what a print looks like in a larger format.

So, if ever I get out of debt and our financial crisis eases, 2015 I would hope to replace the sensor dust laden Nikon d3100, move up in quality to a d7100 or full frame, move up in quality from the Canon s110 to a Sony rx100-3 possibly.

I would like to be able to print larger and display nicer the gallery work, canvas or metallic.

My lens wish list would be a 10-24 and 80-400. 

2014

As the years speed on, it's always a sobering time, these last weeks of a year, to reflect. For many, it must have been another good year by the number of people who let Facebook make their movie titled, It was a good year. I haven't watched the first one and I won't. I never cared for those I call the rubber inners, those who, in their good status in life, usually measured in material wealth, have the penchant for announcing to all, via photo mainly, the good fortunes.

Houses, boats, cars, grandkids, wives, all smiling and pretty.

In another place I called it the form letter Christmas card we would receive, telling in long hand how junior is making all A's, middle is working on the Phd, senior just got promoted to President and the house down by the lake will be finished soon.

And we, in our Clarks cousin manner from Lampoon Vacation, look down at our two left white shoes and wonder just where we went wrong? We could never construct such an idyllic letter, what with the no job going on two years, the first estranged in Japan, the second holed in the room on video games, the wife working her brains out of town all week.

And so the rubber inners continue. 

Already the plans in the works for a New Years bash. I will not be invited. I do not fit the celebratory mold. 

In our usual routine, we shall sit dumbfounded til the twelfth hour, amazing at the masses in Times Square so joyful and hit the hay without even an old ang sine. Tomorrow is another day like they all have been since 2002, or whenever it was we last sent out that form letter.

Savvy Viewers

We are such experts at looking these days. We recognize immediately techniques like photoshop, HDR,over-cooking, monochrome, etc.

I use the tools to achieve an affect that an otherwise straight photo would not achieve. Seems some are suspicious of manipulation and have to ask, how was it done? What camera? Etc. That bothers me. They are focused on technique and not the affect or mood. 

I could post the same straight photo and guarantee it would garner little if any response.

The trick is to up the technique to a level where it does not get in the way. Difficult when working with a iPhone, all thumbs, free apps.

Huddle Up

Melanie, Jordon and I went to the Huddle House for breakfast. French Toast for me, steak for Jordon, egg, sausage for Mel.

Then to GNC for Jordon. Home. Trying clean the algae green pool. Leaves. Contemplating tree cutting. Meme came over for to spend evening. Wait for UK to play basketball. Strewing yet over FB and church friends silence. Aurelia poems, well, seems folks must think I'm writing them. Really wonder if anyone even reads titles and such. I post and immediate like tells me either you just liked to be liking or just looked at picture. Probably both. And too, guess I need to keep putting my name on photos. One asked if I took a shot. Again, an affront to me. How often have I ever posted some other persons shot? Heesh Whizard!

Hike

Spent two days early at Alligator. Some deer, few birds. After that elusive light and look. Resort to manual exposure. Down to iphone6, canon s110 and maybe the Nikon d3100 with 18-200 and 180mm in a waist bag. Need to get back deeper in cypress with kayak. I see the Marcellino photographer from down south came up and found the light and look. 

Gallery

Two days at the Gallery. No customers. Earlier I did sell a 12.99 print and a few notecards. Art done cheaply. I switched out most of the current work. Always attempting to guess what sells. The 12.99 i think was of our chickens.

Like Johnny Bullard said, who wants note cards of local scenes, said to be marketable, it has to be recognizable. In other words, not really artistic or creative.

Surfing on air

We are skipping Christmas this year. With Melanie gone, the home is a house. The snowmen she so likes remain in the shed. The snowman tree stored. When Landon was little we would play the Snowman VHS over and over. All these memories on top of the sorrows do not lift me enough to set the snowmen up.

I pray next year changes.

Again and again

How many times does a person fall? The amount of the leaves alloted to us in our yards? I get on track, get anger and issues under some simmering, and something else boils up and over. So I sit and stew, another leaf falls in the pool.

Left Field

I did not want to play baseball. I was afraid of fast balls. My Uncle William Clark, a semi pro ball player would visit us summers, pitching fast balls to me, stinging my palm, busting my lip. When we moved to Kentucky in my fifth grade year, that summer, my friends all played baseball. I wanted no part of it. There was a tall, black pitcher on the Reds named Sam I feared to face, another William Clark. But the boys of Wilmore talked me into it, telling coach to pick me, and so I became a Little League Cub. Being a leftie I wound up in left field, which suited me, far from the action as possible. I was a terrible batter with an .097 average. I cringed when the announcer made that known to all. I did all I knew not to play, but despite my lack of batting skills, I was moved to first base, another good position for a left hander. Now I was part of the action on nearly every play. I even had my dad buy me a Ted Williams first baseman mitt at Sears. I did ok, making few errors. Still I persisted in trying not to face the fast balls. I told my dad the coach cussed. My dad to my embarrassment confronted the coach about it. I never tried that tactic again! What the "heck" was I thinking?

It was that same evening we faced the Reds and their ebony fast baller Sam. I could hear my dad cheering. We were behind. We had two on base. I nervously came up 9th in the order. And there went that announcer, "batting .097, first baseman John Stokes." I did not expect anything different to improve on that fact. All other at bats were strike outs. Sam wound up with two strikes and the former cursing Coach gave me the go ahead to swing. I closed my eyes and swung, hitting to my amazement a ground ball between first and second. It got past the infield. With my running speed I made it to second, the center fielder dropped the ball. With two RBI's, the third base coach motioned me on. I rounded third, the ball was dropped again, he motioned me home. By the time the short stop gained control over the hot potato, I had made it home. My only home run! My only hit for that matter.

It was a score keepers nightmare to plot. We won the game, beating  the lip busting Sam and the Reds. I still have the mitt. One home run, two RBI's, improved on that .097 average.

Damn he was a good coach.

Journey Lost

Today I put in to delete the Lost in Florida and Journey with John Stokes pages on Facebook. It was a little viewed, little commented on page. I do not understand the reasons, I felt the content worthy, I suppose it wasn't.

So in 14 days from today they will go away. I keep the John Clare poetry page because I've long since given up on anyone showing interest in it, save for about 6 people. Meme Clara page gets interest because my mom is more interesting than all. 

Party party

Secular Christmas parties are the absolute worst. Rotund ladies in screaming to burst skinny dresses, dancing to some foreign drum, all too familiar to the clubbers, as we the out of touch sit back amused with the scene. Such was the hospital party at the Country Club last evening. 

It will be a marked contrast tonight as we attend our Christ's Felliwship "party" at Aaron's. We are doing the white elephant gift thing though, which I really dislike.

CC

Callie Curtis the old outside cat has nice green eyes. She is hard to photograph. skittish. Soon after this, she jumped off the lawn chair. 

2:57

Sandhill group silently flew over at 2:57. I only had the iPhone6 in the back yard. Quickly zoomed and got 6. 

Still too Soon

Too soon to return. I logged in briefly to see how many resoonded to the Robert Jones video. Only two. Again, that disappointing frustration. I deleted the link and logged out. It's futile. I am not ready to return with the anger still seated.

When the product you offer in retail is inferior, out of style or not selling, you have to take measures to unload it, to make room for something that will. You try and move it to a high traffic area, you dress it up, you mark it down, and hope it sells. I recall how joyful we would be when another store would take our 144 dog dynasty tees, selling off the shelf in their market. And so I seek a tee that will sell in my market. I have yet to find it.

Fast Fade

One email today. Six yesterday. I had to return briefly to Facebook to say I am here, not there. 

Treemie

Tonight I got to thinking back to Melanie and my first Christmas. We lived in the upstairs garage apartment of Mr Emory Gray on Camp Street in Lake City. I had as a bachelor finally secured the quaint one bedroom for $125 a month after being on a waiting list. I believe it was Vicki Morrell who lived there before us.

At the time, Landon was not due until August 25th and Melanie worked in Gainesville as a RN at Shands in the NICU. That is where we got the name for our little live fur tree, Treemie, after the preemie babies she nursed. In the painting one sees the trappings of bachelorhood in place, the running shoes, the barbells. On the curtain rod is her Cockatiel Hank. On the Sony 13inch TV is Barney from Andy Griffith. Her cat she bought from her apartment in Williston Callie and Andy my black cat.

The oil of the fisherman, my first painting at age eight behind Treemie along with the oil of Renoir painting from my Florida Southern days. It was a grand first Christmas in that wonderfully cozy garage apartment.

Much has come full circle in many ways twenty six years hence. With Melanie now working back in Williston at the hospital she began in, Monday thru Friday, it is like the old dating days of only seeing one another weekends.

I cannot say I am enjoying our arrangement. I am not working, being a houseman. I have not even the desire to set up our many snowmen we have. 

Perhaps we will find the time this Saturday. With our son and grandson away in Japan, having heard nothing from them in nearly two years, we sag terribly this year. We desperately need our garage apartment back!

Far Fence

As runners we always recall our first race. Monticello was the second move of my young life. The first was from Vicco, Kentucky to Sopchoppy in Wakulla County, Florida as an infant. This move came as a shy third grader. I missed my friends Sam and Robert. We could go and do as we pleased all over town with no concern for safety. We had the river and plenty to occupy our Mayberry like days. Monticello was cultured, historical and too large to wander. Making friends was difficult for me.

I did not fit in well and really did not know how. But I could run. 

The day came near the end of Easter break when our PE coach announced we were going to hold a race to determine the fastest runner in third grade. Everyone knew that was going to be Jimmy Haines. They did not know me.

The day came when coach lined us up with instructions to run from the building, down the hill, touch the fence and return.

I had no illusion of winning, I just wanted to not finish last. The whistle blew and I was in the pack but soon moved up near Jimmy. By the fence I had pulled along side him. We touched together. I was being noticed. By midway up the hill, I pulled ahead. I won by several strides.

There was some celebration, but mostly confusion that someone had outran Jimmy.

It was the in that helped me find new friends in Monticello. 

I went on from Monticello back to Kentucky to begin Fifth grade in Wilmore.

There were no races needed to fit in as I was now the confident champion from Monticello.

Board Walk

It was always a joy to land on Boardwalk in Monopoly as long as no one else owned it. Well, today after visiting Bob, I just needed a boardwalk to land upon. I thought immediately of the long, low winding walk on the Florida Trail at the entrance to the Ocean Pond Campground. I have been going here for years. I have shots of Landon, my estranged twenty six year old son, as a toddler on the walk.

Arriving, there was a sign on the trail. Boardwalk removed, swamp impenetrable. I had to hike in to see. Sadly, only a few remnant boards remained. Another destination spot gone. Bobs mind gone. Judy's plaque gone. What is happening here? A photo of how it was:

Judy's Tree

Several years ago Steve Williams and I had Bill Sepko route a nice wooden plaque that read Judy's Tree. We rode out in the Osceola off Still Road and attached the plaque high out of reach.

Judy Hancock was a passionate defender of the forest and all things wild. She died of cancer nearly ten years ago. She was Steve and my friend.

Today while riding back from Ocean Pond, I slowed at the crooked pine, given the name by the Forest Service, and I noticed the plaque missing. I poked around the base but found nothing.

The road has been resurfaced and possibly some worker was amused or had a girl Judy he thought would like it. Someone several years placed a mocking sign Mary's Tree down from Judy's and I tore it down. Perhaps Mary was exacting revenge.

I will know it was Judy's tree. I doubt few will. Just another among thousands.

Robert

Today in order to deflect all the pointed toward self lately, I drove out West 90 to Turner Road to my old friend Bob Jones.

Since last visiting several months ago, there was a difference in how he carried himself, his arms almost stroke like, limp to his

side. But what was marked different, was his advancing dementia. I tried my best to carry the conversation, trying to help him recall things. It was a futile effort. I hit a few times, but mostly it was long pauses. 

Bob and I used to travel all over, doing so many things. Running in and training for races from 5k to marathons. Going all over photographing. Painting, diving for artifacts, biking centuries, kayaking and canoeing all the streams and ocean. I had no other good friend, next to Bob. And now he is fading before my eyes.

Apo and Eis

Wednedsay of day one from Facebook began as all others. Zoe the little Tuxedo female who sleeps on my bed waking me before light to be fed. Buster and Orange Blossom, Melanies Orange tabbies, likewise. JT and Rocky, the lopsiosa and golden too. Callie Curtis the outside cat with the two Rhode Island Red chickens, Rosie and Roger. 

Then the coffee, Maxwell House in the Kreps, manual fill. Hazelnut creamer.

Today was Hebrews 12. especially laying aside all weight, distraction, and looking toward the author and perfector of our faith, Jesus.

Thus the Greek aphorontes eis. An averting or drawing off the eye from one object to another. Apo, a turning off the eye from all other objects, the other, eis, a fast fixing of the eye upon such an object and only upon such. 

So both a looking off and a looking on.

I am thankful for the three who took the time last evening to email me: Rosemary, Paul and Trisha. Rosemary an old friend from Florida Southern days, Paul, who I met while working at JCP, hiring his daughter and Trisha, whom I have never met, but through another FB friend, became friends. a kindred spirit with mine.

And so the sun arises gently, I must be off to greet the first Rays.

Grace

By Grace, the flower soared beyond the vase.

Or, the day daisy said I shall fly beyond the vase.

What would you caption it?

Originally this was used to signify my wife Melanie, suffering with H1N1, near death, as representing the lone flower, apart from the family.

What think ye?

This is with the flower in color. It tends to attract attention. Rosemary felt it distracts. I like subtle understatement.

What are your thoughts?

Hiatus

Today was one of those epiphany type days. It was not supposed to be. It began as most days had of late, getting up, feeding the cats and dogs, checking Facebook. After that a series of cleaning the house, the pool, the yard, checking Facebook. Two cups of coffee, posting a photo. Some food by noon, posting a poem or two. More housework and checking Facebook. Lately I had been growing angrier than any person should over a lack of reply, like or comment. People have lives. I don't. After posting a photo of Melanie's hand in Orlando with a time exposure of me resembling an angel above her, I broke down. It was brief but valid. I called out, Lord deliver me from this that I am. 

One offshoot was an immediate determination to cease Facebook, if for awhile, if not more.

And so I deleted all app's on my Four devices. 

I will try and go a month.

We shall see if I am led thus from the fix I  am in.