Blue Heron
Atchison County, KS, 2010
Simplify
“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.” -Henry David Thoreau
A lake in Atchison, KS, March 2011.
Patience and portals
Sunlight coming through the corn in a Kansas field.. but looking like a portal (to me, anyway). Here’s some more Van Gogh:
“Ought one not to learn patience from nature, learn patience from seeing the corn slowly ripen, seeing things grow?”
One of the most frequent comments I get at art fairs is that I “must have the patience of Job.” All I can say to that is, I try..
Taming of the Squirrel
Upon returning from a ‘get-outta-the-house’ mind clearing walk, I found this squirrel hanging out by my deck looking for something to eat.. So I tossed him a handful of sunflower seeds, and he let me come as close as I wanted.. And we hung out for about half an hour.. Strangely I had just read the following Bob Ross quote before I took a walk (I enjoy reading quotes often..):
“People look at me like I’m a little strange, when I go around talking to squirrels and rabbits and stuff. That’s ok. Thaaaat’s just ok.”
The same squirrel is, as I type, sitting right outside my screen door next to where I am, and there’s a red-shafted flicker and a female downy woodpecker about 1/3 it’s size competing for space on my bird feeder while a male cardinal spies them from a neighboring tree. And I’m totally enjoying it all. (It’s the simple things..)
South Dakota
Northwest South Dakota, 2010.. one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been where the landscape consistently changes. I first went to SD in the late 80s and planning to go back to visit again sometime. There were many areas without cell phone reception which was liberating. I think it’s good to be disconnected, in that way, from time to time. Keeps you connected in other ways.
Birds on defunct electricity poles
Western Kansas, 2009
Just Past Sunrise
Western Kansas, 2009.
“I always think that we live, spiritually, by what others have given us in the significant hours of our life. These significant hours do not announce themselves as coming, but arrive unexpected. Nor do they make a great show of themselves; they pass almost unperceived. Often, indeed, their significance comes home to us first as we look back, just as the beauty of a piece of music or of a landscape often strikes us first in our recollection of it. Much that has become our own in gentleness, modesty, kindness, willingness to forgive, in veracity, loyalty, resignation under suffering, we owe to people in whom we have seen or experienced these virtues at work, sometimes in great matter, sometimes in a small. A thought which had become act sprang into us like a spark, and lighted a new flame within us.
I do not believe that we can put into anyone ideas which are not in him already. As a rule there are in everyone all sorts of good ideas, ready like tinder. But much of this tinder catches fire, or catches it successfully, only when it meets some flame or spark from outside, i.e. from some other person. Often, too, our own light goes out, and is rekindled by some experience we go through with a fellow man. Thus we have each of us cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flames within us.”
-Albert Schweitzer, from “The Light Within Us”
Simple
“But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?” -Albert Camus
Somewhere in Colorado, 2009.
More Macro
I don’t think these are the most interesting photos I’ve ever taken by any means.. but I think it’s fun to take a closer than normal look at things.
Macrodew
“Look closely. The beautiful may be small.” -Immanuel Kant
I took my camera out with my 10x magnifying lens attachment in a light rain.