Tell me a Story: July 2014

It is not often that I get to spend quality time with my daughter.  She lives out of town and only comes home for short periods of time. Some days I feel like time is running out, and I want to make the most of what we have. I wanted to walk through the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens once again and so I shifted my work days around and suggested to Amy that we take a bit of time out of our day to go there.  

There is an incredible history to the the Japanese community that developed in South Florida and particularly in the Delray area.  For more about this story read my August 2013 blog.

Amy has just graduated and, if all the answers fall into place, is embarking on a journey of a life time.  This means we may not see her for almost 3 years.  I want to take every minute of the time we have with her to enjoy her, and spend time with her. This was also a great opportunity to take photo's of her.  It was hot and humid, but we persevered.  

Once you start the loop you either have to go forward, or go back.  We kept going forward and that, Amy, is a good lesson in life. Keep looking forward - the future is all part of your dreams. 

I love this child of mine.  She is a confident young lady.  Ambitious and ready to take on the world. She reminds me a lot of me, but already she has done far more than I have ever done. She has achieved my dreams, to study Journalism and English.  I could have many regrets but I don't, that is not to say I am not just a little envious of the opportunities that she may now explore. Amy, you have the opportunity to build bridges - use them wisely and use them well.  

We moved on to the gates through to a new section and started to play around with the concept of walking through the gates and walking towards something new.  If her plans come to fruition Amy will spend the next 3 years in a new country.  

As a mother, I will always be nervous. I will worry about the places she may go. But we know that we have given her the best grounding we could. We know that she will use common sense when she needs it most. She will hear her fathers voice. She will probably hear me say "Use a little caution, Aim".

We found this scene with a tall tree and an interesting rock but when I looked at the photo I decided the image was in the crop.  As I thought about this rock I was reminded of my solid rocks in life, my mother, my father, my husband, my kids, my mentors and close friends. These are the foundations of who I am.  We will always be her solid rock no matter the circumstances.  

Beautiful flowers can be found throughout the gardens.  Each corner features something new. And I think about the new places she will go to. The beauty in new adventures.

We came across this little pond that was really great for reflections. Reflections are always a good measure of who we are in life. Some of my favorite measurements are "Did you show love?", "Did you listen?", "Could you make a difference?", "Did you?".

These gardens are gorgeous, the culture is so different. If Amy travels, she will find herself amongst a completely different culture, and I always want to encourage her to learn the culture, understand the difference. Ask the questions, hear their hearts. 

I love this photo of Amy.  I see the similarity of when she was a little girl.  Even then she was fearless.  She would climb the tree, and fall out.  She would be the one riding the bicycle that lands in the pool.  Thank goodness there was a safety net. She was the one that brought home all the crazy critters.  I only thank the Lord that there were no spiders.  Snakes were hard enough. She was the one that wanted to hold the gator.  From the start we knew that she would the one that was going to be adventurous.  

Amy is different, she is quirky, she is relatively quiet. She is passionate about what she believes in. When she speaks, she speaks with wisdom. She does her homework. She believes in what she is speaking about. I know she will always do that. Always dig deep. Always have the facts. My encouragement would be to remember to keep an open mind. 

In situations where we often find ourselves stressed I try challenge myself to have fun.  Find the highlights, enjoy the laughter. What Amy has chosen to do, combined with the passion she has, she will tend to look for the serious. It is easy to become frustrated and tested, and hurt for injustice. All of that is good, but it can make one disillusioned and jaded. So my encouragement would be to find time to be quiet, to find time to laugh, to find time to find joy in the simplest of things.  

As Amy walks forward on her new adventures in life, I wish for her safe travels. I wish her joy. I wish her new friendships, new experiences, times of laughter and love. To know that she takes a portion of our hearts with her. To know that the door is always open.  That wherever we are, we are there for her, only a phone call away. 

Amy, we love you so much, we are proud of you. You are our joy, and our hearts treasure. We hope that we have adequately prepared you for whatever is ahead of you. Remember to stay in touch. Remember that I worry, that I want to hear from you at least once a week. I want it to be routine so that I never have to wonder. Travel well, travel safely, whether it is this time, or wherever life may take you. And don't forget to call home.......

"The real voyage of discovery 

consists not in seeking new landscapes,

but in having new eyes"

~ Marcel Proust

"Travel makes one modest.

You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world"

~ Gustave Flaubert

When you are finished reading my blog, head on over to Melinda Sauvageau's Page and see what she has posted.  


If you are interested in seeing more of my photography take a look at my Facebook page or my Flickr Page. 

30 Minutes in the Life :July 2014

It is hard to believe that we have been doing the 30 Minutes in the Life blog for a whole year. Congratulations to all my fellow photographers for being so committed to this project and for sticking with it.  I have loved every minute of doing this. I have been stretch and have hopefully grown over this past year.  

In the life of a photographer, whose art is created in tiny fractions of a second, thirty minutes is a sustained thought.  Thirty, minutes, the length of a child's ballet class, a quick sauce's simmer; a commute, is long enough to witness change and short enough to be over before you know it.  We offer you here our monthly results of thirty minutes of watching and waiting and recording, of rendering permanent those fractions of a second that slip past in the time it takes to watch a television show.  

                                      

                                      Thirty minutes in the life ~ Sara Kelly

My very first photo shoot with this group was taken at Green Cay Wetlands, and while it was not planned, it was very fitting that this one be taken there as well.  This time around my 30 Minutes was taken in one spot. If I moved it was to get a better angle for my photo.  But I did not move to much.  I hope that you get as much pleasure out of this as I got taking these photo's. When you find something like this there is this level of excitement that you find really hard to contain.

This  first photo was not part of my 30 minutes however, it sets the scene for those that follow. 

It was Thursday evening and I decided to stop in at the wetlands on my way home from work. I had heard that chicks had left the nest but were hanging out close by. 

The weather in South Florida has been pretty wet, but I came prepared.  A rain sleeve for my camera.  Me, not so prepared - I got wet.  I walked up and down the area I understood the chicks to be in, waited out the rain under the shelter, walked back to look for the chicks.  No luck.  So I had a choice, walk the loop of the wetlands or go home.  Walk the loop won.  By pure accident I saw this nest.  And inside the fluff of a tiny chick.  

On my way out I met a couple who said that they had been there the night before and these chicks were not in the nest. For me that meant they were brand new.  Knowing what I know now, these chicks were not brand new - they were at least a week old, but still that is new enough.

I like new life.  I like babies (so long as they go home with their parents). I like new animal life. I like the curl of a brand new fern.  New life represents new opportunities. I want to enjoy them before mine run out.  

Sunday afternoon, I decided to skip the soccer (which was not hard to do) and head back out to the wetlands.  I had one place in mind.  The chicks nest. 

It was here that I stationed myself for the next 30 minutes watching the comings and goings of the male and female Red-wing Blackbirds.  They took turns feeding the baby chicks.

For a while both parents were away from the nest.  These too looked so vulnerable alone. The open mouth seemed to be the constant position these little ones held.  "Where's the food?"  

As in most cases, and I don't think it is any different with these little guys, survival of the fittest seems to play a large role. Red-wing Blackbirds primarily live on seeds and insects.  The parent flies off and will come back with an insect which she then puts down the baby chicks throat. Typically they will eat things like dragonflies, butterflies, moths or seeds and grain from plants.

Instinctively the little chicks know when a parent is nearby.  The father had yet to reach them, yet their heads were up and they were looking out for him.  

Dad came in and once again the same bird was fed.  I started to feel like "mmm that is not fair".  

I think this had to be the favorite position of the day.  I love their beaks and the alien type look their faces have.  

It was quite interesting - 3 of us were standing on the broadwalk watching the feeding of these little chicks.  At one stage dad flew up and dive bombed the guy adjacent to the person next to me.  I saw this behavior a couple of weeks back near the place where I originally went to look for chicks.  A Red-wing Blackbird male was very agitated when a Wood Stork flew in.  

"Dad you are squishing us"  After feeding the chicks the male settled down on top of the chicks.  Whether this was for protection or whether the humans threatened them, I do not know but he stayed there until the female came back.

The female Red-wing Blackbird hovered on a branch for a short while before flying in to feed the chicks again.

No sooner had the male flown off when the heads went back up again looking for food.  

Once again the furthest bird got fed again.  I was really starting to feel sorry for the little one.  I hope that it begins to assert itself and clamor for food just like its sibling is doing.  

Can you beat that face - a face only a mother can love.  Well me too.  I am totally blown away by the beauty of these tiny little chicks.  They do say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".  

Finally it feels like my rooting for the little one has paid off.  The female gives it food.   I felt like shouting hooray.  

I cannot imagine how draining it must be to come home to these demanding little ones.  Their only objective right now is food.  

The female dug around in the nest and then eventually positioned herself over the chicks.  For a while it drizzled with rain, and she stayed there, as did I.  I covered my camera with my rain sleeved and just decided to get a little wet if need be. An interesting fact that I did not see but someone else caught on camera, is that the baby chick poops out a fecal sac and the mother removes it from the nest.  Hopefully I will get that next time I visit.  

The male flew back a short while later and you can see a tiny red insect in his mouth.  

He was not as cooperative this time as he had been in the past.  He covered the babies and it was much harder to get a good view of them. 

From the looks of things this little one was getting squished by the dad.  Of course that had to be the one I was rooting for. 

Once again the male Red-wing Blackbird settled down on top of the chicks and waited for the female to come back.  At this point I had over 50 photographs of the babies and I decided to head out with a plan to come back another day and see how much they have grown.  

I thought I would go back and just grab one more shot of these tiny chicks to show you how much they had grown in the past 5 days.  My heart just dropped when I got there.  

All that was there was an empty nest.  There were no chicks nearby, no parents flying to and fro.  It is just the unknown.  Maybe they were able to fly, though I doubt it.  Potentially, they were preyed upon.  Perhaps they fell out the nest.  I do not know.  I hate unknowns.  

Walking out there today I stopped to look at something and else, and as I looked down, this is what I spotted.

A new nest, insided it nestled two tiny blue eggs.  These are the eggs of a Red-wing Blackbird. Mom was nearby.  This time I am going to monitor them more frequently, perhaps stopping by after work to make sure that all is okay. I have to say these are probably my favorite of all the chicks.

This is ...the circle of life........

" The bird dares to break the shell,

then the shell breaks open and the bird can fly openly.

This is sthe simplest principle of success.

You dream, you dare, and you fly"

~ Israelmore Ayivor

Don't forget to follow the link and take a look at what Polina Bulman, Brooklyn Lifestyle Photographer has posted for her blog this month.

If you are interested in seeing more of my photography take a look at my Facebook page or my Flickr Page. 

Daggerwing Nature Reserve: July 2014

Do you ever get those days where you feel like you have to get out?  I do, and this past weekend I did.  I think that the weather has forgotten that this is South Florida and summer. The rainy weather is driving me nuts.  After 4 days of rain I just want to get out and go for a walk.  I did not want to drive to far because the weather was not promising, but I figured if I go local, I can get in and out before the rain starts up again.  So I grabbed my camera and my rain cover for the camera and I left the house for an hour. 

Daggerwing Nature Reserve is close enough.  It is not a reserve to go to expecting to see nesting birds or gators or otto's or anything else like that.  I like to go there and focus on plants and insects predominantly. My first trip to Daggerwing Nature Reserve can be found here. I have also taken my reverse lens fitting there and taken macro photos of anything that caught my attention. For the link to the macro page you can click here. 

When I go to Daggerwing Nature Reserve I am not expecting to see much bird life.  I was pleasantly surprised to see this female Cardinal fluttering about with her mate.  

As I mentioned we have had rain.  So raindrops for a short while became my focus of attention.  If I could just get one that I was happy with I would move on. 

The Blue Jay is one of my favorite birds.  At home, it will sneak in and steal the squirrels peanuts.  They Blue Jay typically feeds on nuts, seeds and soft fruit.

Tiny cones, fruit pods and the new life of a plant always appeal to me from a creative point of view.

Dragonflies are always a favorite.  I love how these little critters are put together. They have the most amazing faces, they are so colorful, and their wings are so fragile.  They never stop moving and it is hard to pin them down to get their photograph.  Just when you get the right focus they decide to move off again.  

One of the coolest things I found was this mummified dragonfly.  Cool for me, and probably the spider that got it, not so cool for the dragonfly.  

I had completed my loop and was heading back to the car when I came across the following flowers and spent some time attempting to capture a bee stealing pollen from the plant.  I have to say here that I keep a healthy distance from bees.  I have been stung once to often.  So I was pretty grateful for my 200mm lens.  

Last but not least I was able to catch the Giant Swallowtail butterfly doing the same thing as the bees.  

One of my favorite things to do these days is get out and walk.  To enjoy what nature has to offer us.  To take pleasure in the beauty that is around us and to allow it to still my thoughts and give peace to my soul.  

      "I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery -                                 air, mountains, trees, people.                           I thought, 'This is what it is to be happy'".

~ Sylivia Plath,  The Bell Jar

If you are interested in seeing more of my photography take a look at my Facebook page or my Flickr Page.