The Chicks in my Yard

I have mamy white wing doves that visit my feeders every day. I'm seeing their chicks join them. White winged chicks don't have the brilliant blue around their eyes and their eyes are more brown rather than the bright orange of the mature doves. They don't seem to beg from their parents going straight for the seeds. The other distinguishing marks for the juvenile white wings are those white patches on their cheeks.

Other chicks I've seen this year - barn swallows, house finches, house sparrows, red bellied woodpecker and blue jay. I know I have a pair of road runners around the property and I saw a bird this week that had such a long tail and appeared larger than the mockingbirds, but I didn't get a good enough look to verify that it was a road runner chick.

It is fun to watch the chicks beg for their food. They posture, crouching, wings fluttering, mouth open . . . The red bellied woodpecker chick was carefully on the opposite side of the trunk from me. But I could tell that the mother was grabbing suet and feeding something on the other side. I finally got a peek of the chick - no coloring on the head, but perfectly able to fly.

The blue jay chick also assumed the begging posture as its parent was checking out my lawn chair cushions for food.

I'm hoping to capture more images of these chicks in my yard.

The Power of Photography- Iran

During our inauguration in January, two of my photography friends from the Digital Image Cafe : Richard Shiro and Stuart Dahne photographed the people at the Mall as they gathered to celebrate our new President. Click on their names to view these amazing images which really captured the ambiance and exuberance of this historic event.

Photography captures not only the actions taking place during historic events, but also the emotions - the joys, the anger, the sorrow, the excitement, the victories, and the defeats. We won't be present to witness many of the world's great historic events, but we can experience them vicariously through the photos that are taken.

My son is an avid news reader and let me know about getting better information about the situation in Iran through Twitter. I started following the post election protests a couple of weeks ago, much of it from Twitter. I've run across some websites that have given me some new insight into modern Iran.

Iran before the election Part 1 and Part 2. give some amazing views of Iran before this election unrest. Iran's young people are highly educated. Tehran is a modern city. Because of the political and religious issues that separate the United States and Iran, Americans don't go to Iran for their vacations. The political rhetoric and the issues that the religious extremists of Islam create color our view of Iran and its people.

Through MSNBC reporter, Ann Curry's Twitter I found this Flickr Gallery of images Warning: While most of the images show the ordinary people who are protesting the fraudulent election results, some show the Basiji violent responses. Some images are graphic. I also found powerful imagery at Social Documentary.net. I have not yet had time to see all of the many images here, but the images I see showed me young people who want more - more freedom to express themselves, freedom to chose their government leadership, freedom from fear, better rights for their women. They want good things for their people. In a repressive society, it takes courage to take to the streets when the risk of death, brutal beatings, imprisonment, and torture are all too real. When you realize that the Iranian government has shut down all traditional media news reporting, these images become more valuable, because people risked their lives just to take them and get them posted on the internet. International reporters have been confined to their offices and are not allowed to do the traditional reporting. When I read my normal news on My Yahoo from the Associated Press, Reuters, etc; I don't find much information about what is going on, because of these restrictions. Most articles start with this caveat: "EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media." Iran is a world power. What happens in Iran can have repercussions around the world. I find these photos to be important - the outcome of the Sea of Green protests will make a big difference in the day to day lives of the Iranian people. And I have to wonder with the news reporting being so difficult, how many Americans and Europeans are aware of the magnitude of these courageous struggles for a fair, democratic election.

While still photography tells a powerful story, film photography can go even farther as we can both watch and listen to people talk about what they think and feel. When looking up more about Ann Curry, I discovered this Dateline special about Iran filmed before the election. It takes some time to view all the segments, it is worth the time because this special report gives an intimate view of the changes occurring within Iran.

As a Christian and as an American, I know that I don't understand all that is going on in Iran right now. But from reading the tweets and seeing the photographs, I am praying for Iran right now with more insight. All people want to live in the own homes in security, want to have a safe journey to and from their jobs each day, want to have families and raise their children . . . I can't believe that most people in Tehran feel safe right now - it must be unsettling and uncomfortable and terrifying. Jesus taught us to pray for our enemies and these photographs give me faces of real people who are going through incredibly difficult times. God gave me a tender heart to care when such horrible things are happening - even when it is in a far away place that I will probably never visit - even when it is happening to people I don't know and will never meet.

These photographs also give me hope. There is much that separates Iran and the Western world - concerns over nuclear weapons, concerns over Iran's relationship with Israel, religious conflicts between Christianity which emphasizes grace and freedom and Iranian Islam's strict laws and punishments. Political change is rarely an easy process, but the vast majority of Iran's population are young. Perhaps there are leaders in the making both in the Western world and in Iran that can find a way to work through these conflicts finding acceptable compromises, so that our world will truly be a more peaceful place.

The Weeds in my Garden - Part 2

My friend, David who gardens in Zambia wanted to see photos of my garden. I have to confess that my first thought was: "I don't want anyone to see my garden - it is not a showcase, it is not "neat & tidy." Several things made me change my mind. I HAVE worked at weeding my garden. Trust me, without weeding, the entire garden would filled with three or four feet tall Johnson grass. A busy schedule resulted in my first real weeding happening after the Johnson grass had staked its claim on my garden. Over several days, I weeded separate sections and used the hoe to further break up the soil. This gave my garden plants the opportunity to get ahead of the Johnson grass. There were a few areas around the peppers and onions that did not get well weeded and are still somewhat choked, but I worked around the peppers this week. And while I planted onions, spring is not the best time to grow onions in Central Texas. I've harvested a few and I need to check better and get whatever ones actually made onions.

Make no mistake, even though my garden is productive weeds and all, weeds are not a good thing for a garden. Weeds can choke out or shade your valuable vegetables and fruits. Weeds steal water from the ground that your good plants need. Weeds are easier to pull when they are small and the ground is still soft from tilling.

Practical things that I am not good at:

My friend, Debbie Rivas, had a life motto: Do a task while it is still "little." In the best of all worlds, one should spend 30 minutes a day weeding parts of the garden. I confess I get busy doing other things and don't allocate that daily time. And, you have to realize, I have the "hare personality." I work very, very hard at one time on a project and then I rest or go on to another project. "Tortoise personalities" are better at doing a little bit of work every day and keeping tasks small on all their projects. But I've learned that there are advantages to being both the tortoise or the hare. I have learned to accept that I am a hare and to work to make the most of my personality type.

Weeding regularly also helps keep the ground around your valuable plants cultivated and loose so that weeds are easier to pull.

The Spiritual Lesson:


I talked in my last blog about how my life was productive even with the weeds that are part of my life. I also believe that because I am human that my life will always have some weeds in it. My garden can survive with some weeds, but it can't survive if it becomes overrun with weeds. Likewise, I can function in life with some of the weeds, but I must actively pull weeds from my life to keep both my spiritual life and my daily life from being taken over by unprofitable habits and weaknesses. The weeds in my life can fill my time and prevent me from getting the important tasks done. The weeds in my spiritual life can choke out the positive things in life, steal the living water from my heart, and shade me from the Creator's light.

Each era of life has a different set of weeds to deal with. When I was raising my kids, there was the weed of activity. We all want our kids to be involved - church, scouts, sports, music, drama, etc. The needs for each of these good activities are great and the volunteers are few. So one of the weeds for me was saying yes to too many volunteer responsibilities. Possibly, my kids should have been involved in fewer activities, but that is SUCH a hard call when you want them exposed to so many of the good organizations and a positive things for kids.

Another weed in today's society is video games. In and of themselves, they are not bad. Taking time for relaxation and recreation is important. Video games can provide an outlet from our mundane and tiresome tasks. But many games have addictive elements and many people find themselves or their children spending far too much time playing video games instead of exercising their minds, bodies and souls. Time spent on video games robs time from productive daily tasks, time spent growing spiritually, and time doing godly work. If you are a game player, keep a time log for a week. I think you'll be surprised. Or do a video game "fast."

The internet is a wonderful thing. We can keep up with our far away friends, read the latest news, pursue hobbies, educate ourselves or read/write uplifting blogs. There is so much good information to be found on the internet, it is a very useful tool. But . . . we can become news junkies, Facebook junkies, Facebook game junkies, etc. Going through the book, "The Artist's Way," I recently did a week where I did a reading "fast." While I didn't completely abandon the internet, I limited the surfing I usually do each day - news reading, forum reading, blog reading, Facebook, Twitter, etc. It was amazing how much time that freed up to do other creative and productive things.

Conclusions:

I want my life to be productive. I don't want to become a "perfectionist" in any part of my life. I want to accept my own weaknesses and human limitations. But, I also do not want weeds to take over my life and to choke out the good things I can do and should be doing.

Here are some of the products that came from my "weedy" garden. They can survive some of the weeds, but without weeding I would not have:

Yellow Squash:



Bell Pepper


Tomatoes


Watermelon


Green canteloups


Almost ripe canteloup



What are the "weeds" in your life? What are the productive and spiritual things that you want to cultivate?

The Weeds in my Garden

It has been a long time since I've had a garden, but for several reasons I am doing a garden this year. I planted radishes, peppers, tomatoes, onions, yellow squash, green beans, cucumbers, honey dew melons, canteloup, and watermelon. I usually do a pretty thorough job preparing the soil - this year adding a lot of "Back to the Earth" compost when we tilled under the grass. I put in simple furrows and got everything planted. I was blessed with a wet spring and I found a way to automate the watering (which is going to have to be modified now that we are under stage 2 water rationing.)

When I gardened years ago, I remember having great production from my garden plants inspite of the ever present weeds. I always seem to have many projects going on at once, so my time is never completely dedicated to the garden. And we have Johnson grass which can be a royal pain to get rid of. Tilling the soil does not get rid of Johnson grass and the rich watered soil provides a perfect environment for each root segment to sprout grass stems that can get up to 3 or 4 feet tall.

I have done some weeding this year, but the edge around my garden is marked with a tall Johnson grass fence that I kept hoping I would get mowed down. Problem is I have vining plants, so now it is probably impossible to mow without damaging them. The inside of the garden has the weeds a little better under control, but they are still there. A perfectionist gardener would be appalled. After all, weeds take nourishment from the good plants. And, there is an inner voice speaking not so softly into my mind: "A good gardener would have a weed free garden."

Saturday evening I picked 20 yellow squash - some pretty big. Tonight I picked another 11 squash. I'm blanching them and putting them in the freezer because those plants are making squash faster than we can eat them or share them with Jonathan and Debra. I'm getting into the rhythm of preserving - pickling, freezing, making jam (I bought the fruit.) The tomatoes are just beginning to start turning red and we get just enough green beans to either eat or put up a few bags in the freezer. The cucumbers are also going gang busters - I've working on my 3rd batch of sweet pickles. I've made 1 gallon of refrigerator bread and butter pickles and 4 quarts of "hot" dill pickles. I'm hoping to do one batch of the red cinnamon pickles and at least one or two more batches of bread and butter pickles. I'm also hoping to get enough tomatoes to do a bunch of jars of canned tomatoes. The peppers have been slow, but they are beginning to make green bell peppers. The melons all have fruit, but none are ripe yet.

My weedy garden is actually producing quite well. I've been thinking that there are probably several object lessons with this weedy garden. I'm a human being and my spirit has weeds as well - those areas of my life where I'm not perfect, areas of my life where sin is lurking, areas of my life where my habits and routines are poor, and areas of my life that need improvement. And, I believe that no matter how hard I try this will always be the case, because I am a human living in a fallen world.

The weeds in my garden give me hope. God is my master gardener. He knows which weeds really need to come out to keep from choking my spiritual growth and which ones can be removed later. He can fertilize my spiritual soil, loosen the dirt for my roots to grow deeper, and rejoice over the productive things that I am able to accomplish in spite of those pesky, weedy weaknesses. I am an imperfect creature with probably as many internal weeds as my garden has. But I know that God has used me in special ways sometimes because of some of those weeds. I need to use an encouraging voice to myself pointing out those good, successful things that do bear bountiful fruit.

Los Madrones

Los Madrones is one of several ranches that has converted from agricultural usage to conservation usage. Mike Murphy and his wife, Julie are working to improve habitat for the endangered species the golden cheeked warbler and also for the Rio Grande Turkey. Members of the Texas Hill Country Nature Photography Alliance, there are numerous blinds with both feeding stations and water features that attract many species of birds as well as other native "critters." It is a great place for both birders and photographers. It is also a great place to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life for a quiet retreat back to nature.

Guests stay at the Casita, a beautiful cabin with both sleeping quarters and a small well equipped kitchen.



The living room is comfortable, but purposefully without TV so that guests can have the opportunity to commune with the beautiful natural surroundings and the peaceful tranquil evenings. Wireless internet is available for those who must stay connected with the outside world.



While there are some nearby restaurants for breakfast and dinner (and I found menus for those restaurants on the table), I wanted to fully enjoy my time at the ranch both for the evening light and sunset and the early morning birding, so I brought a simple dinner and breakfast. The refrigerated came with cream for your coffee and beverages of your choice.



I love the way the perches were set up. Mike provides bird seed, peanut butter, oranges, and bark butter. You can rearrange the props and put the bark butter where you would like the birds to come in to perch.



The blinds are comfortable and it was easy to set up my 300-800 mm lens. Had I been shooting with my 100-400, I would have moved the perches closer to the blind.



There is also a wonderful area around Little Bee Creek that I'm looking forward to exploring when the drought is officially over and the water is flowing again.

My bird list for my stay:
red tailed hawk
bobwhite quail
Northern Cardinal
Carolina Chickadee
House finch
Lark Sparrow
Lesser goldfinch
Mourning Dove
White winged dove
Painted bunting (female)
Rufous crowned Sparrow
Scrub jay
Brown headed cowbird

I heard chuck will's widow, scarlet tanager, and I think one of the turkeys.

There were deer at the blind right before dawn and squirrels.

I'm looking forward to going back to Los Madrones during the fall or next spring - a peaceful place, congenial hosts, comfortable accomodations, great birding and photography opportunities!

The Garden

It has been a very long time since I've had a garden. We kept it small and compact. I had forgotten how long it takes for some of these plants to begin producing. Radishes were fast - ready within the first month. The tomatoes and peppers are just now beginning to produce and ripen. We've been having squash and green beans for a month or so. I didn't start freezing squash quickly enough - I've got some in the fridge that got picked and not cooked. So, I'm trying to pick and freeze in 2 person size portions - I packaged four this evening - I think I've got about 10 bags of squash in the freezer.

The honey dew melon, canteloupe, and watermelon have started, but are no where near ripe.

The cucumbers are also doing well - I had to contact my sister in law to get her pickle recipes again. I'm sure my copies will show up . . . .someday (only 2 were where they were supposed to be - and they weren't on my computer like I thought) . . . but thankfully Mary had hers handy. I'd never made the refrigerator ones - you put them in a container with the vinegar and pickling salt and seasonings and wait 2 weeks. Then they're good for a year in the refrigerator. They're supposed to be bread and butter like.

The sweet pickle recipe is a lime pickle recipe - you soak them in a pickling lime solution for 24 hours - then soak in cold water for 3 hours and then overnight in a vinegar-sugar brine with seasonings. Cook, jar and can.

While I can't believe I got rid of my old canning pots - they were nowhere to be found - so a trip to Target before the storm came in provided a higher quality stainless steel pair. You need two - one for cooking the pickles and a larger one for sealing the jars in a boiling water bath.

I'm getting tempted to make a run to Fredericksburg for peaches. I have memories of a peach butter recipe . . . We've moved things around over the last several years - so I hope I can find the recipe I used in the past. If not, I'm sure I can find a peach butter recipe on the internet.

Our neighbor has been raising cows over the past years. We had an opportunity to buy half a beef. I remember when the kids were little and I had the garden going, veggies, fruits and beef in the freezer, cabinets full of pickles and jellies. This beef has been specially raised to have good marbled meat. The nice thing about getting half a beef is that you get lots of roasts, steaks, and ground meat.

Long ago we had some chickens too. I'm not ready to add chickens to the mix, although I thought about it at one point when I thought the economy was going to get really, really bad. The nice thing about chickens is fresh eggs. They really do taste better fresh. But chickens take a lot of time and I remember how mean roosters can be. But I sure eyed the chicks that were for sale at Gaddy's feed a week or so ago. Chicks are SOOOO cute!

Barn Swallow Family

We don't get barn swallow chicks every year. Sometimes we're not home when the parents are rearing them. But this year, we're home. I'd seen the mother sitting the nest. We now have chicks - one noticeably younger. Today was my first day out to try to capture this porch miracle. The last time I was home at the right time with chicks was back in 2003 and I only had a 100-400mm lens. I'm hoping that with patience and my Sigma 300-800mm that I will get some good shots this year.

I don't have time to watch the mom when I'm shooting - she often comes in very fast. But look how far in she puts her head to feed the chick. Notice too how she balances her tail against the nest.



Sometimes I was able to get off a burst of shots, she's checking me out. I'm using fill flash with my better beamer hoping to get better exposures of the nest that is in the darker area under the eaves of my house.




You'll have to click on this image to see it full size - that's a dragonfly. I bet i could look it up and identify it from the patterns on those wings.



The chick gobbles it down.



I didn't get any prize winning shots today, but at least I've gotten started with this set of barn swallow chicks!

Los Madrones Birds

I took some time and went over to Mike Murphy's Los Madrones Ranch. He has a cute Casita designed for photographers and nature lovers to spend the night. He has set up a number of blinds across his 400 acre ranch with feeders and water features designed to attract birds and other wildlife. I spent Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning photographing birds at three of his blinds.

The western scrub jay swoops in to steal peanuts. After the peanuts are gone, it goes after the wonderful bark butter.



This is only the second place I've been fortunate to see the rufous crowned sparrow. I was so pleased to have an opportunity to get photographs this time.



I saw the lark sparrow last year at Pedernales Falls State Park. I had much better luck photographing it at Mike's place - no glass between my lens and the sparrow!



I have white winged doves at my house, but I thought they were cute as they were eating seed behind this log and poking up their heads at the same time.

My Home Birds - continued

I have tons of cardinals. I think in many ways they are everyone's "favorite" bird, because they are easy to recognize and identify and their bright color is so beautiful and cheerful.



I enjoy the tufted titmouse as well. Very shy, it sneaks into the feeder and flies away at the least little sound.



While the mockingbird is the state bird of Texas, I find them to be the bullies of the bird world. They swoop in and all the other birds get displaced until the mockingbird has finished feeding. But they do sing such beautiful songs!

Images of Mystery and Wonder

When I started experimenting with in camera motion blur photography, I was amazed at the things the camera sensor would reveal. A forest of redwood trees became an impressionistic work of art. Other times light flowed when I zoomed the lens during the exposure.

But sometimes, the combination of the natural landscape and the motion create "characters or creatures."

When we learned that we are heading for the Montreal's WorldCon, Anticipation, I went back to my images to find the ones that have created some fantasy creatures.

You may want to click on these images to get the larger view to get a better view of the "faces."

This one required only a little dodging and burning in three places to bring out the "face" of this critter. I think he needs a name - any suggestions?



I'm naming this one "Primal Scream."



This one required more post processing, but I was amazed at how many eyes I "found" as I worked the image. The title: "Eyes."

Golden Duck Awards

If you were listening really hard this morning, you would have heard me give a loud whoop! We are excited at our house this morning! Henry got an email notifying him that his YA novel, "Lighter than Air" had WON the Golden Duck Eleanor Cameron Award for Middle Grades. The Golden Duck awards are designed to encourage science fiction literature for children. It will be presented at this year's WorldCon in Montreal.

Henry is getting us signed up to go to Montreal in August!

Western Kingbird

I'd been seeing a bird several places around my yard, but never close enough to get a good look see. I was suspecting a Western Kingbird, but I've learned that flycatchers are very similar - with little tiny distinguishing details that I often miss.

These are NOT great photos. This was the closest this bird has come for me to get an image at all.



You can't see the eyes here, but it is a better view of the rest of the body.



After checking my Sibleys and the online Bird resources - I'm still going to say Western Kingbird because I've seen it next to the Scissor tailed flycatchers much farther away and the body size is pretty close. In one of these photos you can see the white edge to the tail - and I've seen that in flight from a distance.

But I'm going to send a link to this blog to a couple of friends from Texbirds so that they can either confirm or tell me why it is a different bird.

Wednesday Porch birds

Birding was slow this morning. It looks to me like the white crown sparrows have started moving north. Just a few days ago, I had a bunch coming to the feeders. Today there were only one or two.

The white winged doves are still here in mass. They don't coo much, but their wings certainly tell us when they have taken off - swoosh!


Best of the few photos today was this red bellied woodpecker. I sure hope there are some woodpecker chicks that will come to my feeder when they are bigger!



By the way, this photo was taken early in the afternoon. The sunlight was somewhat filtered. This feeder is shaded. I used fill flash with my better beamer to get better lighting on the woodpecker.

Twittersheep

Henry came in and pointed me to another Twitter related website: Twittersheep. I entered my Twitter name and this is what showed up:



In a way I certainly can't explain or perhaps even understand, Twittersheep analyzes your tweets and comes up with keywords that are repeating themes in your tweets.

Hum . . . this is interesting on several counts.

1. If this is what a computer visualizes as to what "Mary Ann" is all about, then what do my followers who don't know me think about who is Mary Ann Melton?

2. Are the facets of "me" that are showing up in Twittersheep as large words the things that I think are most important.

While I suspect I don't want to deliberately change my Tweets artificially to bring out certain kinds of words on Tiwttersheep, I do think this is an interesting litmus test as to whether I'm tweeting about the things most important to me.

By the way, you can enter any Twitter account and see the analysis on Twitersheep.

Tuesday's Bird Photos

I'm trying to get myself more disciplined in photographing the birds that show up at my house. So . . . while I do my morning time on the porch, I've been setting up my 300-800mm lens. I write my morning journal, read my Bible scriptures for the day, and right now I'm working through the Artist's Way book. When a bird shows up, I break and attempt to get a photo.

Today was a somewhat cloudy day, not too dark, but I knew that I was going to need the flash to make anything work. I'm still experimenting with fill flash. I want it to look natural, not "flashed." The theory is that you set your exposure for the ambiant lighting and then use the ETTL setting of the flash at -1. (I'm not an expert here . . . and I'm still trying to find settings that work for my lighting and equipment.) Some of my images this morning were way too dark (I had the exposure compensation set too dark) and then when I set exposures to make it brighter, then I got that "flash" look.

But I had two photos that came out in the OK range.

With a gray sky, this is not a great shot of one of my white wing doves. I darkened the leaves a little using a layer of Selective Color. But that gray sky really pulls my eye away from my subject. But it was one of the "better" shots of the morning.



The blue jay has been amazingly camera shy. It seems to sense when I have the camera and lens pointed in his direction and immediately flies off. Since I cut off his tail (remember I had to be quick . . . no time for careful framing here) I decided to crop in and attempt more of a portrait feel. Here the flash worked pretty well adding light without that over bright look.



Neither of these is likely to get submitted anywhere, although the blue jay might make a good notecard. But I've learned in the past that when you set up regularly, some days don't yield any great shots. But . . . every now and then you have a great opportunity.

Monday's yard birds

I'm trying to get out more frequently at home to capture the birds that are coming in to my feeders. We've had a string of cloudy days and this is the first sunny day recently where I've had a chance to shoot with the sun helping me.

The sun can be your friend providing nice, bright, warm lighting to your subject as in this white crowned sparrow.



I've got some other shots where the sun was NOT my friend where it blew out details in either the bird or the surrounds.

When the sun is out, the ambient lighting even in the shade can give you opportunities for some good bird shots.

Here's one of the red bellied woodpeckers that are coming in regularly to the suet feeder. I suspect that this pair is feeding chicks because they come in regularly and carry off food. Today was the first time that there seemed to be some rivalry - I heard some woodpecker wars and I don't know if perhaps I know have two pairs of woodpeckers coming in.




I have a lot of white wing doves coming in. Sometimes I can see thirty or more at a time. They startle easily and the sound they make as they all fly off at once is amazing. What powerful wings they have!



I have visualized a couple of images that I'm trying to get. One of these visualizations is to capture one of the white winged doves coming in with its wings outspread. Here is one of my attempts to capture that idea:

My painted bunting

I seem to have some new birds this year on my five acres. Yesterday I had a mystery bird that the best guess was a female indigo bunting - very cinnamon colored and eating the grass seeds at the ends of the stalks. Unfortunately, no photo, and it didn't show today.

But today, I had another bird that gave me pause. It didn't act like the orange crown warblers which are my usual "green" bird. While this bird was near my ground feeder - it was eating the seeds on the ends of the newly grown grass. I did have the camera out:



I saw female painted buntings last summer at Pedernales Falls State Park. But I knew there were painted buntings there. I was expecting the ID. When I looked up habitat for them, my property is really not their ideal habitat. While I do have a small amount of brushy area down by the pond, this bird was up in the grassier area closer to my house where my ground feeder is. So I confess to having my doubts as to whether I've made the correct ID. I do have a lot of birds coming into the ground feeder right now, so perhaps this painted bunting played follow the leader. Perhaps she is just passing through. But it was fun to see her and to get a photograph!

The Artist's Way

I've started working through Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way. I'm finding it to be intriguing with ideas worth sharing. As a Christian I'm intrigued at how creativity and spirituality are linked. This dovetails with a study I did long ago about gifts that God gave his people when they were building the tabernacle. From Exodus 35:35: "The Lord has given them special skills as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple, and scarlet thread on fine linen cloth, and weavers. They excel as craftsmen and as designers. " While this scripture is referring to the builders of God's Tabernacle, I have to believe that God gave us our creative abilities and that he wants us to use them to His glory.

The Bible tells us that we are made in the image of God. Genesis 1:26 "Then God said, Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us." God is the creator of the universe. If we are truly like him, then we have been given the desire to create beautiful and useful things.

As I work through this book over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing things I am finding useful.

From The Artist's Way: Basic Principles:

1. Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy: pure creative energy.

2. There is an underlying, in-dwelling creative force infusing all of life - including ourselves.

3. When we open ourselves to our creativity, we open ourselves to the creator's creativity within us and our lives.

4. We are, ourselves, creations. And we, in turn, are meant to continue creativity by being creative ourselves.

5. Creativity is God's gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God.

6. The refusal to be creative is self-will and is counter to our true nature.

7. When we open ourselves to exploring our creativity, we open ourselves to God; good orderly direction.

8. As we open our creative channel to the creator, many gentle but powerful changes are to be expected.

9. It is safe to open ourselves up to greater and greater creativity.

10. Our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source. As we move toward our dreams, we move toward our divinity.

Today's Bird Photos

Today was my birthday and I decided to spend part of it on my front porch photographing the birds at my feeders. I had one that I wanted to photograph so that I could send the image to a bird expert, because I was having a difficult time with identifying it.

Here are some of the better shots of the day:

I get large numbers of white winged doves. It is amazing how many of them can fit on the feeder at one time!



As I was taking my shots, I visualized trying to get wing action as they landed or flew off. This one probably worked the best.



This is my mystery bird. I think it might be a Lincoln sparrow, but those black smudgy marks on the sides don't match the illustrations in my Sibleys. I've sent it to an expert to confirm the id.



I still have lots of white crowned sparrows.



I figure they'll be leaving to migrate north before too long.



I've been very pleased to have a pair of red bellied woodpeckers visit my burr oak tree. I have this suet feeder set up usually with a fruity suet and a woodpecker suet. I sure hope they bring chicks to my feeder!

NANPA - Texas Hill Country Regional Event-Block Creek Natural Area

Saturday morning started with a small thunderstorm just south of Fredericksburg. The ranches suggested that we wait until it passed. I went with Mike Murphy's landscape group. It was going to be 4-wheel drive territory, so I was happy to be a driver. I asked about whether we'd need 4 high or 4 low. He thought low, but it had just rained and the steep uphill was MUDDY - I ended up in 4-wheel low and we went right up that muddy hill!

Two weeks prior there had been a prescribed burn on another property that got out of control and burned through the Langford property. I was amazed at how many things were sprouting up through the ash! My afternoon photos show it better, but notice how much green grass is growing in the blackened ground. When I saw how the fire came up the valley and the ridges, I thought about how scary it must have been to watch that wildfire coming your way.



This yucca plant looks pretty burned, but look how much new growth is coming from the base:



There were several places where the fire left beautiful patterns in the wood in the trunks of the trees.



Fire is a natural process that helps clear out underbrush making way for new species. For photographers, this was a unique opportunity to enter a burn zone and photograph the leaves now yellowed, the blackend trunks and the sooty soil. Even though we were here in the spring, the yellowed leaves and cloudy weather makes this look more like a fall landscape.



I know that within the next couple of years, there will be so much new growth that this burned area will be transformed. I hope I get a chance to go back and see the beauty that will come from the flames.

It was still cloudy (a little on the dreary side in terms of lighting) so I knew that I was more likely to have luck with my Photographer's Canvas images.

This is my favorite of the ones I've worked so far. I went beyond what came out of the camera using two filters from Topaz to complete my vision.



My title for this one is "Dancing Trees" because I almost see human figures in these bent and twisted trunks.