Sunday Stills: The Letter B

Thanks to all of you who have expressed concern over my absence. First, I should say something about where I've been.

It's very difficult to find inspiration for photography when the natural world around me is dying. Most of the photos I've taken lately are documentary and pretty grim. If you've kept up with the news you'll know our area has been surrounded by wildfires, scorched by high temperatures, and dry as a bone. We've received something like 2 inches of rain in the last 12 months. The river is just a pile of rocks. Animals are dying and the vultures don't even bother them.

Barren and Broken

This was taken near our house. One little Parralena blooming by an unfortunate armadillo (not Patches, but he's not been seen in months).

Our well has been dry for five months and most of my time is taken up finding water and hauling it. The garden, our fruit trees, the lawn, and just about everything else we've planted in the last decade is dead. Fortunately, we've been able to keep most of our animals alive, although we lost some older chickens (Stefania, Kitty Hawk, and Sumo) to heat exhaustion. Since we live in a remote place and can no longer grow our own food we're having to make more frequent trips into the city. It's all very exhausting.

Trying to keep positive about the situation, I'm painting pictures of water. Here's a 24" x 48" canvas on which I've just started working in oils.

Brushwork

I also took a three week trip and followed the rain around wherever I could find it. That made me happy.

Beams of light in a rain storm over New Orleans

It's also been a time to focus on the inside of the house. We usually spend so much time outside we sort of neglect the interior. For instance, we've lived without flooring for five years now and sort of just noticed. Everyone thinks the black mastic that once held down the 50's linoleum IS our choice of flooring...

So, I'm getting ready to repaint all the walls and put in flooring. To make room for this work I'm putting things into storage. Some of the first things to go have been my books and shelving. I don't know why this has been so nostalgic, but it's like packing little pieces of myself away. I took this today as the last light illuminated them.

 

Books

Know that I'm thinking of everyone even if time does not presently allow me to visit or post on your blogs. For more images of the Letter B, visit Sunday Stills.

Round Pegs in Square Holes

Last year, when Farmer Rick was digging the trench for the sewer line reroute, Cody our backyard dog discovered an armadillo using it as a highway late one night. Awakened by constant barking--which could only mean "critter!"--we put the dog in the shed and let the 'dillo escape.

However, the poor creature was so rattled it dove into the fence, wedging its round body firmly into the square wire hole. At first we tried to pull him out, but the anatomy of his bands made that against the grain, so to speak. This left us with the choice of either cutting our fence, or pushing two thirds of a very round rear through. We chose the latter, and discovered--with much grunting on all accounts--that you can put a round peg in a square hole.

That 'dillo ran at the speed of light once he popped through. Seems like we scraped off a few scales in the process. We see him around almost every day, and have named him Patches, for obvious reasons.

This morning, Patches was in the front yard when I went to let the chickens out, so I grabbed my camera and got really close. For those of you that don't know, armadillos are relatively deaf and blind. They use their sense of smell and feel for vibrations. If you move slowly and are down wind of them you can pretty much get right next to them. In this case I was laying in the grass about three feet away.