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.

I'll take that as a compliment

Yesterday I was called in at the last minute to substitute at the school. There were no more spaces where the faculty usually park, so I parked over among the high school students.

It wasn't until I was halfway home later in the day that I looked into the rear view mirror and realized my car had been decorated! (Click to biggify).

Your Hot

Bad grammar aside, I think I'll take it as a compliment. (Especially since the weather was cool!)

It's been incredibly windy, with gusts strong enough to blow large sheets of roofing tin off a stack and around the yard. After a slight frost last week, the weather has continued to be unseasonably warm but a real freeze is predicted for tonight. We tend to forget Winter does eventually arrive here in the land of Summer.

There will be plants to water in and cover, other plants needing to go from the house into the greenhouse, and chicken coops to close in with plastic. Some dry wood will need to be cut and moved into the house for the fireplace. But it's only an afternoon of work. We don't have to drain or store hoses, as it will be back up into the 70's-80's again soon.

Sunday Stills: Clouds

With luck we actually had some interesting cloud formations on Saturday. I decided to take a little artistic liberty on this challenge and process my cloud images with multiple filters.

Here's a bee's eye view of clouds from the prickly pear cactus in fruit and some dessicated Navajo tea flowers. I like how it looks other-worldly, like martians with antennae.

These two are of the clouds over the old historic school ruins as seen from our short grass prairie. I like how the black and white brings out the swirling of clouds in the first one. The second one de-emphasizes the clouds but I like the mysterious, ominous feeling in this one.

For more cloud images, visit Sunday Stills!

Lightning Storm

 

Tonight the crickets were singing while a distant storm illuminated the sky. I captured my first lightning shot. Years ago I took a night photography class with my Pentax K1000, but I haven't tried anything with my digital camera before now. The forecast is for rain, but it looks like it has passed us by again.

Sunday Stills: Clouds

It's official: We are now in both the hottest and driest spell on record here in southwest Texas. I had to dig through the archives to find this photo of clouds taken in 2007 since we have almost forgotten what they look like. I chose this one because I like the oculus where the sky is peeking through. It also gives me hope we will see some rain again someday. I will go out and dance in it!

For some wonderful examples of clouds, visit Sunday Stills. I know I'll enjoy seeing everyones clouds!