Scattered Thoughts . . .

My health has been less than stellar lately so I have not accomplished a thing on the house in weeks. The exceptionally wet weather isn't helping get any renovations accomplished either. For a change, however, my health and the weather are in sync... they are both on the bad end of the spectrum but they are in sync. Needless to say, I'm not getting a thing accomplished on the house.  I'm doing a lot of sleeping and resting so my health can heal but I'm also searching for things to keep my mind occupied. One of the things I often do when faced with this particular dilemma is to sift through recent and old photos.  I came across a few loon photos and thought I would write a bit about them here. This first one isn't too bad.  The early morning sun was up because we had no fog on the lake this particular morning. Although it is quite early in the morning (around 6:20am), this loon has some light on him so I was able to capture a decent photo. It could be crisper and

Not much has been getting accomplished on the house lately. My health and the weather are not cooperating with each other in the least. I've been feeling absolutely miserable on some rare beautiful weather days and I've been feeling halfway decent on some rainy days... and, even if I were healthy, we've had a lot of rainy days this summer so getting much accomplished on the house would be difficult anyway. Regardless, I'm not too pleased with how little I've accomplished and how much it affects my health. At some point, I need to feel very well on a few very nice days! In the meantime, I'm trying to keep busy in the house. Most of my down time has been spent sketching plans for various projects around the house, researching building products, and even sitting at the piano whenever I'm feeling up to it. This evening, however, I decided to sift through some of my latest photos to see if I could find anything interesting. The first photo that captured my at

I have a little bit of time to kill before heading to another medical appointment this morning so I thought I would add a few more photos to my blog.  I'm heading to a new specialist this morning... a type of appointment which is never really 'fun' and with a new doctor you never know what to expect. There is a lot of unnecessary crap hanging over my head right now including the threat of losing my Social Security Disability Insurance benefits. Actually, this really pisses me off and adding in this new specialist isn't helping any.  So, I have a bit of time to kill this morning and thought I would share a few photos from last week... This first photo is of a slightly uncooperative loon. Although he was paddling away from me, he kept looking back to see if I was still there photographing him...  This was an early morning photo. The contrast was low because I had to bump up the exposure quite a bit to capture some detail in this mostly black loon. Now the loon

This is little Nemo... one of our resident fish. A couple of weekends ago, we brought the grandkids to Dick's Sporting Goods to try on and purchase some new life vests for them to wear at the lake. They've outgrown their old life vests so it was time for a larger size.  While we were trying on life vests, a nearby display caught Lukey's eye... it was an end cap display of large inflatables for the water. Some extremely large inflatable called a "Floating Island" caught his eye and our eyes... This "Floating Island" is a huge inflatable with two areas for hanging out... a covered area for four or six people to sit facing each other with their feet in the water... and a sunning area for two or three people to stretch out comfortably. There is about a two foot by three foot hole in the middle of the covered seating area where you let your feet dangle in the water while talking with each other and drinking a few cold refreshments.   Gee and I show

I've really been slacking on sharing photos from the lake. I'm even further behind in editing and sharing video but that is a whole other story. Since I have hundreds of photos from this year alone, there are always new lake photos to share. Recently, I pulled out a few interesting photos. In this first shot, this loon was way out there on the lake. The lake is almost a half mile across to the opposite shore and this loon was much closer to the other side of the lake than our side of the lake.  I was on our dock at the shore... it was early morning and the bugs were feasting on me... you can faintly see the remnants of morning fog closer to the shore across the lake. The lake was flat, calm and quiet... I steadied myself against a post like a village drunkard leaning on a lamp post... slowed my breathing, focused... then I saw this distant scene more clearly in my viewfinder.  A boat had just passed this loon and the wake created by the boat was reflecting the

A month or so ago, I wrote about seeing loons sporting different colored plumage. I saw loons with a band of deep green on their necks... I saw loons with a band of deep blue on their necks... I saw loons with a black band on their necks. That left me wondering and searching for a reason. I was initially wondering if this was a sign of maturity... adolescence... breeding... or nesting. It turns out it was none of the above. I've found that the appearance of green or blue or purplish bands on some loons is simply due variables such as the angle of the light, wet or dry feathers, and the color temperature of the light. For example, near dusk or near sunrise, the color temperature is a very warm orange or yellow yet the color temperature at high noon is a much colder blue. When you combine these varying lighting scenarios with the angle to wet feathers, you can see different colors.   Even when you hold a clean, fresh bird feather in your hand, you can oftentimes see a changing

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!

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

Starting with last night's sunset... still a rather uneventful and boring sunset compared to past years but this is how we closed out our day yesterday followed by a nice braised pork dinner with noodles and fresh green beans...  oh... then we had some crappy Cheesecake Factory cheesecake (perhaps the worst cheesecake I've ever eaten)...  This morning was a bit unusual... the lake stayed this placid until 10am! The kids didn't mind watching these fish from the safety of shore but, once they were in the water with these perch (and a small family of Blue Gill Sunfish), they were terrified of them! When I sat on the rocks on the shore with them and we named each fish names from the movie "Finding Nemo" they seemed a little more at ease but the kids were still as skittish as the fish when they were in the water.

Yesterday, for the most part, was a rainy day for catching up on sleep and for resting our sore, tired bodies. I think both of us slept away most of the day. We just napped in front of a fire all day. It was a much needed break from all of the activity lately. This morning the overcast skies are gone and the sun is shining. The lake is calm so we will head out on the kayaks this morning for a longer trip than we have done all year.   I have some rigging to replace on the sailboat before I can go out sailing again. I replaced some rigging before we arrived at the lake but some of the stuff that I did not replace is now only holding on by one single strand! It needs to be replaced now, for sure, so I'll attempt that sometime today too. I'm hoping the wind will pick up again at some point so I can do some more sailing but that rigging needs to be fixed first. In the meantime, here are a couple of photos from this morning...

Yesterday was a busy day but one which left me overwhelmingly fatigued. I ended up sleeping a solid 12 hours last night... the kids slept about 11 1/2 hours... and Sheila slept about 10 1/2 hours!  I've shot hundreds of photos in the past few days and here is just a random spattering from yesterday and this morning...  Early morning... a loon still snoozing on the water with head tucked... Lukey and Papa sailing... Kenzie and Nan... Lukey and Kenzie are always watching and pointing out air traffic... Pop and Lukey... Lukey is practicing his paddling skills so he can soon kayak on his own... Our resident pair of loons this morning... I've never been able to capture a photo of a dragonfly in flight before... This particular dragonfly has has been very cooperative the past few days... he would hover right next to me whenever I was shooting photos from the dock. Early morning on the deck... The lake is already busier than it has been

These two loons were fishing out in front of the house this morning. They were hardly above water though. They would come up for some air every two minutes or so but only stay on the surface for about five seconds before diving again. You'd never know where they would pop up for a breath... it could be next to you or it could be 200 yards away. It didn't take long before the morning flies would send me back indoors after each attempt at a photo or two.

I had originally stepped outside to shoot a few photos of these loons because I saw this pair of loons being illuminated by the early morning sun and the contrast looked great... illuminated loons with darkened water surrounding them. It looked like a great opportunity.  By the time I grabbed my camera, got out on the deck and had found a steady place to shoot, the sun was obscured by clouds... my bright light was gone. The result of dull light is rather dull, flat photos.  Regardless of the dull, flat light, here are a few shots of our resident pair of loons... This loon decided to take off on me and I managed to follow... if there had been more light, these two would have been crisper with less motion blur...  some gee-whiz info... a loon needs up to a few hundred yards to take off! They run across the surface of the water as we see in these photos trying to pick up enough speed to take off. Their short wingspan makes it difficult for them to get airborne but, once t