Glow

Monday was a beautiful day.  I spent the entire beautiful day inside, in a chair, doing my civic duty at the Delaware County Courthouse.  And I mean all day!  And then, because I'm so lucky, I have to do it all again downtown for federal court next Monday.  Jury duty twice in 8 days??  Lord help me.  Anyway, Tuesday was not a particularly beautiful day.  It was a rainy day.  But I really didn't care.  After 8 hours in a courthouse I was determined to go for a walk.  Of course it rained and poured for my entire walk but that just made the tree colors even more amazing.  They glowed!

Taking a Walk

The end of October was snowy and the end of November has been incredibly warm.  A strange mix but who can complain when it's so nice to take a walk. 

One Way to Carry Nest Material

Spillways Are Open

I have a lot of photos for this post.  It's the first time I've been at the Conowingo Dam when the spillways were open.  I'd heard rumors that the eagles went crazy fishing when that happened.  Maybe they were done by the time I got there.  I had visions of photographing an eagle flying in front of the rainbow glittering off the spray but only the seagulls and pigeons were cooperative.  

So anyway, here are some photos from a beautiful Thanksgiving morning.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Class

Maeve Rooney

Galit Brodie

Hannah Baker

Maeve Rooney

Galit Brodie

Hannah Baker

 I don't blog about teaching very often but Monday I photographed a bunch of work from this semester.  These are from the first assignment back in September.  I don't have photos of step one which involves the students making observational line drawings with sharpies.  They use those lines to create the 10"x10" compositions seen in the bottom three photos.  The top three come from these 10"x10"'s. 

Last of Fall

One last splash of color.  The leaves are pretty much all gone now.  Rain has moved back in but the temperature??  Who knows.  It's all over the place 30-70 degrees and everything in between. 

More Travels from the Past

 I've been going through my photo albums and scanning a few images.  I took so many amazing trips before I starting blogging!  These are from Herculaneum which I visited with my art and philosophy class in 2003. 

 

Cameroon

The experiences I had visiting Cameroon in 2003 are still having a big impact in my work.  In speaking to a friend about her year in Thailand I envisioned a diverted river.  Some experiences are so powerful that while your river keeps on flowing it flows in a completely new direction.  My biggest regret in the aftermath of my time in Cameroon is not asking more questions.  At the time I was so overwhelmed by the information I was already receiving that I didn't ask things I would really like to know.  For example, is this type of binding poles together planned?  Is it individual?  Does each person do it a different way or does one artisan like variety??  In any case I was really struck by the beauty and variety of these bound poles. 

A Dramatic Show

Photographing Trees

Tuesday Matt and I took a walk around Heinz NWR.  The sky was very overcast and there really wasn't enough light to photograph the ducks.  Unlike.  But the upside- it was great light for photographing trees. 

Great Performances

And finally, another great performance from Sunday night.

Champs

The championship competition in Millersville was the last time the marching band will perform their train show.  It was a great show.  I only have a few thousand photos of it.  Almost enough to make a movie from still shots!

Day and Night

Millersville University is out in Amish country.  We saw quite a few buggies on our way from Conowingo Dam to the Champs competition.  But I did not expect to see any on our way home.  Seriously, that's about all you could see when you were right up on top of them.  Black buggy, dark night, what in the world are they thinking?? 

An Eagle in Every Tree

I took a whole lotta pictures yesterday.  We stopped at Conowingo Dam on our way up to Millersville University for Olivia's Championship Band Competition.  I think there was an eagle in every tree.  It was the first time I got to hear them calling to each other.  I wish I had a recording to share.  It was very cool.  I'm planning to make another trip to the Dam soon so you can look forward to some more bald eagle photos!

Championships Today

American Bittern

I met up with the birding group at Heinz NWR this morning.  It's a beautiful sunny day today even if it did start out a bit chilly.  I have quite a few photos to share but I have to start with these shots of the American Bittern.  It's a fairly rare siting for Heinz and I'm sure I would have walked right by it if it hadn't been for the group.  This may be more photos than you need but I've never seen this bird before, it's elusive, AND it practically modeled for me.  So I can't resist posting them.

Yes, there's an American Bittern in this photo.  That's some seriously good camouflage.

Here he is.  He even keeps his chin up to blend in more effectively.  The yellow feet give him away.

Drawing

This is the drawing I made way back in July at the Tyler Arboretum.  It always takes me a while to decide if I like these oil pastel drawings.  They make such blunt marks I always feel like I'm not getting it right.  I have to wait for my memory of the whatever I drew to fade so I can look at the drawing for what it is. 

A Walk Through the Wood

Olivia was off school on Tuesday for election day so she and I headed down to Longwood Gardens to do some drawings.  It was a very unseasonable 70 degrees outside!  After lunch we came home and took a trek through our "backyard."  It's so nice that the early snow (remember five minutes ago when I was posting photos of snow???) did not ruin our fall colors.