Here are some very still images:
That was about noon. This new camera identified his face, even though he was sleeping Although it was taken without flash, it corrected the light. Bummer. I liked the glow of the screen lighting up his face, and was hoping that would show.
Then this, a few blocks from my house, 2:00ish:
I was out a bit, not far, nothing exciting, and saw this fair-sized tumbleweed. I stopped to get a picture, and it wasn't going anywhere (posing, not tumbling). I thought what a lame tumbleweed, as tumbleweeds go, to be documenting. And that locals would think I was taking a photo of nothing. So I thought about what is "nothing" in different places. I would love to see a raccoon close up when it wasn't looking at me (not spooked and running away). Except for watching one tear our food up one night in Michigan when we were camping, they're rare. I'd like to see an armadillo that's not dead by the side of a road (and I haven't even seen one of those for 30 years). Some people live where they can for real see eagles (I've seen three or five in my whole life in New Mexico, and those were golden eagles, and I saw six or more bald eagles in Minnesota in just a few days. Some people live where they see alligators, or kangaroos. Kirby had a gecko on his porch for days, but it wasn't there when we got there. I thought the kudzu in South Carolina was fantasy-land beautiful (probably because it wasn't my yard it was burying). There are people in Hawaii and southern California who haven't seen snow (not while it was snowing, anyway), and I've never seen lava, nor felt an earthquake.
I guess this is justification for this tumbleweed, and a call for people not to hesitate to post photos or accounts of mundane local things, because foreigners are looking (like me, if you're not in the SW U.S.).
Embarrassing P.S. to all that. The photos had been done quickly and then brought home and uploaded without examination. When I was previewing this post I noticed something in the third photo:
It's not a tumbleweed. It's two or three dried up ragweed (our local version thereof) plants all grown up together with enough roundness to act like and pass for a tumbleweed. Mature tumbleweeds just have a thick stem at the bottom, not a major stalk throughout (usually). http://sandradodd.com/tumbleweeds
So anyway... It was a dark and not-at-all-stormy day...
And a while ago Holly got to talk to Brett (who's in Scottsdale) and I got to talk to Kirby (who's in Austin).
6 comments:
I love pictures of sleeping kids =). A couple summers ago, when my now-grown stepson was visiting, I snapped some pics of him snoozed out on the living room floor. Younger kiddo and I cracked up when our (now deceased, but back then rather blind), not-so-light dog walked right over Bub a time or two and he didn't even budge. I can't remember when I last slept THAT hard . . . probably in my late teens.
We moved to west Texas 15 years ago, from Houston, and I had never seen tumbleweeds in person before -- I loved watching them roll and bounce across the highway. Our little city has grown quite a bit since then, and I generally have no complaints about that, but I do miss seeing tumbleweeds -- out here, you really do have to be in an undeveloped area to see them.
Armadillos -- We went camping at Abilene State Park for the first time a couple months ago (it's only an hour from us), and an armadillo walked right up to the car (we'd pulled over to watch it). When it got to our tire, it realized perhaps it should turn around and walk the other direction. Later, as we went on some of the hiking trails, we saw several more. Kiddo was quite good at spotting them and quietly following them. I've lived in Texas all my life, but had not seen a live armadillo until then. I waited 43 years for that, and am tickled that my son saw them for the first time at age 10.
We went to England when Holly was little, just she and I, to stay with friends. The girl we were visiting and Holly went to stay overnight with another family. The girls found a hedgehog in the road, took it back, the mom de-ticked it, and that was a COOL thing to have happen for a visiting American kid!
The Adventures of Holly Dodd in East Yorkshire
Your tumbleweeds are fun to see for me in mushroom/mildew/kudzu country! I don't know that I've ever seen any in person. These deer are a common (though glorious!) sight at our house in NC.
As for eagles, I've always been proud that my mom's family has a piece of vacation property on Birch Point (the last tip of land
on the Washington coast before you hit the Canadian border) where a bald eagle has nested for many years in a dead tree. We see the eagle (though his mate died long ago) almost every time we visit. The property was declared to be some kind of nature preserve because of the nest and our family agreed not to put up any additional buildings on it. My sister has video of the eagle, but I don't think she put it on the web, or I'd link to it.
:) Sally
de-ticking a hedgehog . . . who knew?!?!
Probably those ragweeds are trying to infiltrate the tumbleweed community and study tumbleweed culture. You totally blew their cover!
--JK (unschooling parent in El Paso)
They still had a chance to make it to the drainage ditch where the real tumbleweeds hang out this time of year, though.
They were totally posers. I was fooled. :-)
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