In an abstract frame of mind
Posted: February 27, 2013 Filed under: 365 Meditation Challenge, Abstracts, Adventures in art, Air, Daily Walk, Digital Art, Earth, Fire, home, nature, Photography, pond, Quotes, Spirit, Walking, wandering, water, weather, winter | Tags: Abstract art, birds, David Lynch, flowers, goose, Lucian Freud, MaidinSun Photography, nature, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Outdoors, Pablo Picasso, Photography, pond, rain, reflections, water, weather, wildflowers, winter 36 Comments
Mirror, mirror. (An abstract created from reflections in a puddle on the front lawn.)
It is gray and windy here in the Bogs today. But I got lucky. When I stepped outside for my walk late this morning, I caught a patch of blue sky between the dark, gray clouds, and a few rays of sunshine streamed down for a minute or two.
The banded goose and other tales
Posted: February 22, 2013 Filed under: 365 Meditation Challenge, Air, Critters, Daily Walk, Earth, home, nature, Photography, pond, Quotes, snow, Spirit, Walking, water, weather, winter | Tags: Akimiski Island, Bird Banding Laboratory, birds, Canada, goose, MaidinSun Photography, nature, Nunavut, Outdoors, Photography, pond, quotes, rain, snow, water, weather, wildflowers, winter 33 Comments
Geese on ice
Do you remember the banded goose? (That link takes you to a photo. If you want to see the original posts regarding the banded goose, they are here, here, and here.) In case you don’t remember or you’re new here, and you don’t feel like following the links, the basic story is this: A goose with a band around its neck visited the pond back in January, and I reported the goose to the Bird Banding Laboratory to help with their research as well as to see if I could get any information about the goose. Read the rest of this entry »
Listening to the grass
Posted: January 19, 2013 Filed under: 365 Meditation Challenge, Air, Daily Walk, Earth, Fire, home, Mindfulness, nature, Photography, pond, Quotes, Spirit, Walking, wandering, water, weather, winter | Tags: birds, goose, MaidinSun Photography, nature, Outdoors, Photography, pond, Quail Hollow State Park, quotes, trees, water, weather, William Shakespeare, winter 21 Comments
Listening in
I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.
~ William Shakespeare
I’m not sure why I picked this quote. Old Will was wrong on two counts: I love this place (not far from “like,” but stronger), and I don’t consider my time spent in it a waste.
213: One
Posted: April 24, 2011 Filed under: 365 Life in the Bogs Challenge, Adventures in art, Critters, Earth, home, nature, Photography, Quotes, Spirit, Spring, Walking, water, weather | Tags: Easter, Flower, goose, Peggy Jenkins, postaday2011, Rabindranath Tagore, Ralph Waldo Trine, Russell Brand, sports, sunset, Vase, WP Weekly Photo Challenge 18 Comments
One Tomato
This week’s WP Weekly Photo Challenge is One. Easy peasy, as they say. An interesting chance to study things one at a time.
Goose poop
Posted: August 25, 2010 Filed under: Adventures in Life, Air, home, NaBloPoMo, nature, Photography, pond, Summer, travel, water | Tags: Canada geese, Colorado, flowers, geese, goose, Green, Rocky Mountain National Park, wildflowers 2 Comments
(Wildflowers at the Alluvial Fan area in RMNP)
Yesterday while eating lunch, M and I watched a flock of geese fly over the pond, honking out their message to come join them in their travels. As we watched we both encouraged them to keep flying, keep flying, keep flying. Geese are not good pond-guests. They move in, poop all over the grass around the pond, invite hundreds of their friends to join them, have babies, outwear their welcome, and then come back year after year, making a mess of the place. And, as I’ve mentioned before, the poop provides way too many nutrients and causes a heavy growth of algae in the pond which is neither pretty nor healthy.
We’ve worked hard to keep the geese away from our pond. We harrass them which is a good way to get your exercise in for the day as it involves running towards the geese, waving your arms, and making lots of noise. If that doesn’t work — and it usually doesn’t because the geese can move from one side of the pond to the other faster than most people can run — M gets out the garden tractor and drives around the pond, chasing them off. Usually that works. We have also tried bottle rockets (they don’t like the loud noise and we never, ever try to hit them) and a variety of other methods.
This year we have had a great deal of help from our neighbors, more specifically from their dogs. At first I wasn’t too thrilled that they allowed their dogs to run free, but M pointed out that they were chasing off the geese. Score one for the neighbors’ dogs. Score ten or twenty or a hundred for that matter, as every goose chased off ought to score them a point.
I was glad to see the geese ignoring our pond as they flew over yesterday. I don’t like to have to go out to harrass them, even if I don’t mind the exercise. Sometimes it makes me feel a little guilty, as if I’m turning away guests. Then I remind myself of what happens when you invite them in and the guilt dissipates. Bad pond guests are almost as bad as bad houseguests.
If only they would learn to clean up after themselves…
Life in the Bogs 