Sigh... link to NEW blog...

...because creating a new one is more fun than updating? ...because I like WordPress better? ...because 750 miles was too limited in distance? Well, whatever, here's the link to the new (mostly unimproved) blog:

Life with Birds
http://lifewithbirds.wordpress.com

Please tell all your friends. Well, at least please tell all appropriate family members who are required by blood to look at my pictures.

One Reason Why Spring is Better

It's not that winter is cold, though that can be off-putting, or that there's snow on the ground, though that does make it more of a workout at times, but the short day-lengths... there's just no way for me to get out walking when it gets dark at 4:30 and I don't get off work till 5:30. So I get very few walks in these days (and take fewer photos).

Which is unfortunate, because as my mom and I have discussed, walking and just being in nature is beneficial on a variety of levels, for reasons science doesn't fully understand yet. That it is true, though, is beginning to show up in nearly every study that has looked at the question.

Here's one of the more recent ones, and offers familiar scenery to me, having done a lot of walking in both the natural and downtown areas of Ann Arbor:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081218122242.htm

In this one, the results seem to show that being in nature is actually more beneficial than the walking itself, that the scenery offers more than the activity.

Scenery I still have... I catch glimpses of it out the windows, and it is nice, and much appreciated after living in Sam's basement for a year. I still think I need an exercise bike or something, though.

Ramblings concerning Obama and Rick Warren

World of Warcraft is down for maintenance. That means I actually have to use my brain for thinking. I wrote this as a response to another blog post, but deciding I didn't much care for that blog anyway, I'll post it here as well, where people whose opinions I already know I trust (if not always agree with) with might read it, because that is more satisfactory, despite everything.

I disagree strongly with some of what Rick Warren stands for, not least of which is his stand on gay marriage. I believe there is something fundamentally wrong with making marriage between any two consenting, of-age adults illegal. The "definition of marriage" isn't 5,000 years old, as Mr. Warren believes... it changes nearly every generation, and most probably with every marriage. It ought to be a right for everyone of legal age to make their own definition of marriage, to make their own unions. That it is not, is a prime example of the failing of equality in this country.

That said, I have no disagreement at all with Obama choosing Warren to deliver his invocation. It's a wonderful example of what I like and respect about Obama. So many people, and especially politicians (because it's PC to do so) place people in categories of right and wrong, good and bad, either/or, black or white, based on one opinion, vote, or association. "You said, did, or associated with someone who said/did [insert undesirable opinion here], hence you must be Wrong." The McCain campaign did this to Obama in the worst way, suggesting Obama was Wrong because he had tenuous ties to a very tenuous "terrorist." If you cast too critical an eye, everyone is viewed to be on the wrong side of Right, and you're only able to hear opinions which already align with your own, until opinion becomes dogma and anything else is heresy.

I think it takes a wise person to say, I may disagree with some of what you think, but I can respect you anyway, hear you anyway, and try to learn from you. I voted for Obama because I believe he is a wise man. If he chooses to ask "Pastor Rick" to deliver his invocation, I will trust in his wisdom and in the possibility that people whom I disagree with in some respects might still have something worthwhile to say, and to listen to.

From the Archives

The dogs: Star and Pi.

A shot from a little preserve just the far side of the border into NY, back in August.

Button Bay State Park

Last Friday we drove up to Dead Creek WMA, where the migrating flocks of Snow Geese were hugely impressive but didn't photograph well (I desperately need that telephoto lens Jeffrey keeps telling me I should splurge on). I did get one shot I liked:


With the rest of our evening, we drove up to Button Bay State Park on Lake Champlain. Its gates are closed for the season, so we walked in and out to the point, where I snapped photos of the sunset, and one of the fall color still gripping a tree or three:

My Front Yard in Fall

Okay, maybe not "my front yard," but George lets me borrow it to walk the dogs. It's rather less of a yard and rather more of a farm... a large one, between George's house on Middle Rd. and all the way out to Otter Creek. I could walk for hours out there -- there's the room and beauty enough to do it. A few photos I've snapped in the last couple weeks:


And a few from the first heavy frost we got, just before the rising sun melted it off:

In Search of Trader Joe's - Oct. 17th

Trader Joe's sells certain items that are staples of my diet... whole grain tortillas and pizza dough, frozen bell peppers, refried black beans. There is no Trader Joe's in Rutland. In fact, there are no Trader Joe's in the whole of Vermont. Our search for the nearest Trader Joe's took us to Northampton, Mass, a good two and a half hours away. The drive itself was worth it all on its own, though... two and a half hours through the Green Mountains, then the Berkshires, in mid-October, is anything but a trial. Locals tell me the "leaf peepers" pay good money for those tours.

I didn't get any of the photos I wanted. Really, I was just too dazzled by the beauty of it to wrench my brain away from awe and into photo-taking mode. Nevertheless, I snapped a couple from a lookout on a summit in the Berkshires:



We also stopped in Shelburne Falls, Mass, and walked their claim to fame: the "World Famous Bridge of Flowers." Not the sort of thing I usually stop for, I'm glad Jeffrey made me do it.



The shame of it is, the only photos I've taken of dahlias were in Mass. George grows dahlias (though these days he leaves the work up to his son and hired help) -- dahlias are, in fact, George's claim to fame, at least locally, and we were here to witness them in all their glory... but I took not a single photo. These were on the Flower Bridge:


But George's, of course, were much nicer.