Spring is coming

In honor of warmer weather and to whet our appetites for the garden (flower and vegetable) here's a view of our backyard hillside last May - two months from now. Our winter here has been colder than normal, so whether we will see this luscious growth by May is unknown.  But it sure looks good!

Keep dreaming!

Here's what this looks like today - March 1, 2013.

Memories

Photos are incredible saviours of memories! I will occasionally go back to some of the first photos I shot digitally and laugh at myself - but the memories they preserve are priceless.
Tonight I took a walk down memory lane to June of 2007. A group of us went salmon fishing outside of Vancouver, B.C. and the photos turned out to be much longer lasting than the fish we caught! I created a book of the trip, and still look at it and remember.  Up there, there was no cell phone service and only satellite internet service at the lodge, which was slow at best. We got along fine without the outside world for 6 days, up at 4:30, breakfast, fish, lunch, fish, dinner, fish, sleep! A wonderful rhythm of life.

Pacific white-sided dolphins were our company during most of the trip.

33 pounds of salmon

Simple things

Sometimes simple things can bring a great deal of beauty and joy. Arrangements on the beach by the water, 'randomly' placed for our viewing pleasure.
Rocks moved by the waves and set up for us - and moved in the night when we are gone. What an incredible universe we live in!

Back to the Ranch

I enjoy reviewing photos and trying different crops/views than I originally thought of. As I went back through some of the Sea Ranch photos, I had a chance to work with some different ways of looking and telling a story. See what you think.

Bowling balls again

An Abalone shell glistens underwater, but is so stuck that you cannot remove it.

We walk on the beach looking at a lot of small things - and the cliffs look at us as small things.

Sometimes it is just in front of you.

Onlooker

View back down the trail toward Bowling Ball Beach.

Love those crows.

Seaweed on rocks is hard to really capture - tying it into other shapes and forms helps a bit.

Aaahhh the fun!

I entered three pieces in the Bountiful-Davis Art Center statewide art show, a juried show, earlier in February. Two were accepted and tonight we learned that one received an Honorable Mention!
Despite the 'stress' of picking which photos to enter, preparing them, printing them, framing them and then waiting to find out if you were selected, the process has helped me immensely with my own self-confidence in my ability to produce and choose items that others think are good also.
The photo is called "Water Dancers' and here it is.

Miscellania Part 2

Continuing with my review of Sea Ranch photos, I have the second batch for your viewing pleasure tonight. Not too much to say about these, other than many are sections that caught my eye in the midst of much larger views - a lesson to keep looking for those shapes and lines and forms and light that attract you.

Miscellania Part 1

I take a lot of photos when traveling, and they fit into a couple, three categories - documentation of trip; interesting and/or unusual features or happenings; and those that really strike me. Out of the 1359 photos remaining from the Sea Ranch trip, I think maybe 5 are in the last category. One or two may be worth entering in a contest. And those are good numbers for me!
That doesn't mean all of the rest are bad - just my own criteria. As I go back through the photos, I find those that I want to put on the blog, to share with others. So here is the first batch of those, selected before my eyes quit working!

Sometimes it seemed like we were on another world - waiting for monsters or spaceships to show up. But no, it was just over the bluff and just before the ocean!

Sea Ranch to Oakland

We left Sea Ranch about 10am to bring one of our party to the Oakland Airport. After dropping her off, Diana and I spent time in Berkeley re-living some old times there both at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (CDSP) and in the Berkeley hills where we lived. The Berkeley Rose Garden was a source of solace to her then so we took some time to walk through it again - and view the Golden Gate Bridge from the top of it.
All in all a long but satisfying day as we came back very late to our animals and bed!

Two whale spouts came by early in the morning.

Last sunrise at Sea Ranch - note the deer at the edge of the green grass.

Diana's alma mater for her MDiv.

The chapel and Gibbs Hall highlighted by sun and fresh flowers

Plaque at the Berkeley Rose Garden

The Golden Gate Bridge across the bay - view from the rose garden.

Another day in Paradise

We traveled north from Sea Ranch to first, a beach named 'Bowling Ball Beach' (you'll see why) and then onto the lighthouse at Point Arena. Much of the attraction on the beach was the variegations in the rock and hills, along with the rocks and their forms and colors. So much to see - and the tide chased us out!
Here's  decent sampling of shots from the day - so much to shoot but got to stop somewhere! Also, due to the vagaries of the blog software, the photos do not come up in the order I wanted, but enjoy them anyway!

Large surf today with promises of bigger surf tomorrow.

A very cute couple.

Bowling balls

Landing gear down!!

Classic California coast shot.

Point Arena lighthouse

The area looked like a big Cat had scraped it!

Sensual rocks

Small landscapes