Stormy skies over the fields

“When March comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb” ~ English Proverb Well, I thought we were in the clear, but March’s ‘Lion’ stage is still here.  But the clouds make for nice panoramas.  Took this on my ride in near Westley, CA.

Workplace critters – a mallard

“Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.” ~  Michael Caine This little guy crossed the road in front of me, then looked at me calmly as if to say “You late for work again?” There is plenty of wildlife, even in the suburbs, if you look for…

Pano of the field – now I am happy

Clouds and darkness surround us, yet Heaven is just, and the day of triumph will surely come, when justice and truth will be vindicated. ~ Mary Todd Lincoln This morning it was sunny and clear with some nice clouds over the hills, so I decided to take one more panorama and stitch it together using…

Girl at a party

“I love that whole princess mentality, but I also like throwing my hair in a ponytail and just wearing jeans, going on a hike and then eating a big chili-cheeseburger.” ~ Jennifer Love Hewitt This is my little one, with “Lambie” at a friend’s birthday party.  There’s just something adorable about the back of a…

My first Engrish Submissions

Poetry is what gets lost in translation. ~ Robert Frost Some of you may be familiar with the humorous site Engrish.com.  It documents translation mistakes, mostly on commercial products and signs, displaying awful English, not to mention unintentional double entendres.  Above is my first encounter with Engrish in real life, at the local FoodMaxx store. …

Water house

“Water is life’s mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.” ~Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (Hungarian Biochemist, 1937 Nobel Prize for Medicine, 1893-1986) This water house is at a small local farm reservoir, pumping water through the culverts used to water the local orchard (see yesterday’s photo).

Gnarly trees dude

Surely man was not created to be an idle fellow; he was not set in this universal orchard to stand still as a tree.  ~ Thomas Dekker These gnarly trees caught my eye on the way to work.  Not sure what these are, I only know that they are not almonds.  See the water house…

Cat in repose

“People that hate cats, will come back as mice in their next life” ~Anonymous This is my cat Mocha.  He is a sweet and pretty cat.  Like all cats, he is good at napping.  Cat’s always look so peaceful.  I like them.

Order out of disorder

Oh, yeah, I love DVD’s. I don’t have what you’d call an extensive collection, maybe a couple of hundred or so. But I have something on almost all the time. ~ David Fincher One of my pet peeves for years has been the mess that CD’s and DVD’s create when out in general use.  I’m…

Roadside memorials – a fascinating cultural practice

Leave sooner, drive slower, live longer.  ~Author Unknown In my first post on roadside memorials (Death is real, and your car is dangerous), I introduced the subject.  Since then, I’ve done some more research, and an noticing them more. Many memorials have no name, often because the name has worn off from the elements.  Like…

Pretty yellow… weeds

A weed is but an unloved flower.  ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 – 1919) was an American author and poet. Her best-known work was Poems of Passion. Remember last week's UFO picture?  Here's a closer view of the weeds that make the fields yellow this time of year.  Below, you can see some closeups of…

T-ball on a sunny day

A critic once characterized baseball as six minutes of action crammed into two-and-one-half hours.  ~Ray Fitzgerald, in Boston Glove, 1970 It was a nice day to be out at the park watching my boy play t-ball, despite the fact that he seems to hate it. I don’t blame him.  Standing out in the field with…

Furrows and sky

  Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower I’ve been driving past this plowed field daily, and have noticed the shadows that look like scalloped edges at the end of the furrows.  Nice interplay of light and shadow here.

White petals gone, green lives here

  Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see a branch of an almond tree.” – Jeremiah 1:11 (Jeremiah, the “Weeping Prophet”) You may remember this pic, it has changed from the beautiful white petals of early spring.  Green leaves and buds that…

Blue skies and yellow flowers

“I don’t mind UFO’s and ghost stories, it’s just that I tend to give value to the storyteller rather than to the story itself.” ~ Robert Stack (1919 – 2003), American Actor who hosted Unsolved Mysteries Spring is here, which means on top of the green winter grasses, we are now getting yellow flowers.  Soon,…

More panorama experiments – still not good enough

“There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.” ~  Ernst Haas (1921 – 1986) Austrian photographer and artist This location is actually one that Larry suggested I photograph – it’s a strange assemblage of little hills that look a bit…

The wisdom of signs

“The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.” ~ John Philpot Curran At the intersection where the Welcome to Westley sign sits is an interesting sign of aphorisms.  Not sure…

Mastering the art of the panorama

“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” ~  Ansel Adams Larry took an awesome panorama a few weeks back, and I’ve been trying to master this art myself, with less than stellar success – sure the pic above looks nice, but it’s only three of the four pics I took…

First day of T-ball

I’m convinced that every boy, in his heart, would rather steal second base than an automobile.  ~ Tom Clark This past weekend was the opening day for Patterson Little League, and it was sunny but COLD, which is why my 4-year-old has his jacket over his jersey.  It was a big deal in our small…

Homeless Princess

“I love cats because I love my home and after a while they become its visible soul.” ~ Jean Cocteau (1889 – 1963), French Poet  This is Princess, a stray who has been trying to adopt us for a month now.  The only problem is, I have two cats already, and they want to fight with her….