Scattered Thoughts . . .

Although these two photos look like things may have gotten a bit out of hand and some anger prevailed, that wasn't the case.  In the splashing photo, the kids were playing and laughing... I really have no idea what Kenzie was thinking when she had that scowl on her face in the other photo though. I don't remember anything of significance happening... regardless, in these two photos, Kenzie appears to have a bit of an attitude...

I'm always looking at the light and hoping to find interesting light as it contrasts with shadow, texture, and patterns. I constantly see the scenes in front of me framed as a photo composition in my head. I don't put the camera to my eye until I see a composition in my head which I find interesting. One evening, a pair of loons visited while the sun was setting. The sun was a bright orange and it was behind this pair of loons. The scene was actually quite blinding but I was able to see something interesting... I was just barely able to see the silhouette of one of the loons... just enough to be able to focus on the loon... all around this loon, the water was shimmering and reflecting the warm orange glow of the setting sun...  The moment I depressed the shutter release, I knew that this would be an interesting photograph... a different photograph... I like it!

About a week ago, I was headed out the door to try to catch a decent sunset. As I approached the door, I began to hear the familiar sound of a distant helicopter... fortunately, I had a medium length telephoto lens mounted on this camera body so I just picked up the pace and continued out the door to see if I could spot him in the sky... I got lucky... I even managed to capture the blinking strobe on the tail as well as some interesting color in the sky!

I wrote about this briefly a couple of weeks ago and included a couple of photos but I just put together a more cohesive set of photos today so I'll write about it again. On our first morning at the lake house this year, Sheila and I were sitting in the living room. The file info embedded in each photo shows that it was just after 5am (although, I thought it was two hours later but Sheila disagrees) ... it was dreary... rather dark... but the lake was illuminated by reflecting the brighter sky.  We were sitting there having some morning coffee... Sheila comfortable on the couch while I sat at my desk beside the couch. My desk overlooks the lake and I noticed something floating in the water directly out in front of our house but halfway across the lake. This is a good distance and it is very unusual to see debris in the lake so it caught my eye immediately. I pointed and asked Sheila, "what is that in the water?" At first, I thought it was just a big log floating wit

Every year, turtles are hatched on our lawn... they emerge from their buried nest, scattering broken shells and then scurry into the lake. We happily find the disturbed mound in our lawn covered with broken shells afterward and always wish we had been sitting there as these baby turtles made their way out of the nest, to the lake and then dropped into the water off our rocky shore.  Turtles can be seen all around the lake but you really need a fairly keen eye to spot them because they blend in so well with their surroundings... then they sit perfectly still until you get too close. Often, you don't even know there was a turtle on a nearby rock until you see what you thought was part of the rock quickly scurry into the lake with a plop! One day last week, I managed to capture a few good photos of turtles as we were kayaking around the lake. And, I have to say, paddling this far makes for a very long day of activity! I was actually hoping to capture a good photo of a bobcat bask

We've been spending time at Lake Groton for about seven years now. We often hear our visiting guests claim they saw a Bald Eagle flying while they were out kayaking. I've always had my doubts though. The unfortunate fact is that there probably are no Bald Eagles in the area. Vermont actually has a Bald Eagle Recovery Plan in effect because these birds are so exceptionally rare in our neck of the woods. There are a few known nesting pairs of Bald Eagles in Vermont (mostly around Lake Champlain where the water does not ice-over in winter) but no known Bald Eagles at Lake Groton. These birds are tracked closely by numerous sources and especially if there are nests. Knowing the exact number of Bald Eagles in all of Vermont and where they are located is important for this program. In all the reports I can find, the few Bald Eagles in Vermont are still near the area where they were introduced at the beginning of this program... near a wildlife refuge in Addison. Lake Groton is id

While my spinal injuries are settling down and I'm recovering, I've been sorting through some of the latest lake photos. I never actually got around to pulling out the tripod to shoot some high resolution panoramic images but I did notice that I had a short series of sweeping photos that I shot using the same lens and the same focal length so I tried to stitch them... I got lucky and it worked! So, here is the view from the house on a beautiful, clear morning. I love the deep blue... the crystal clear skies... the perfect reflection of the trees and mountains in the flat, placid water... the color of the mountains... and the quiet scene... of course, we also enjoy awakening to this scene every morning as we look out the windows...

I've been in significant pain since Saturday. I can't seem to find any position for relief either. Sitting hurts, standing hurts, laying down hurts... anti-inflammatory medications don't seem to do anything... icing it seems to be more of a bother than a benefit. I can't sleep. At rest, the pain is in the 7-8 range on the 10 point pain scale... which is quite brutal and relentless. This latest problem is with my lumbar spine... it feels as though someone pounded a railroad spike into my spine. The pain radiates through my pelvis on the left side... into my left hip... down through my groin and down my thigh to my knee. I get occasional twinges of intense pain in my left foot too whenever I move or turn the wrong way. This pain has been recurring since my first line-of-duty spinal injury almost 20 years ago.  Whenever my spinal pain gets bad, it brings back a lot of bad memories related to the time period of when I first injured my spine. These events replay in my