The Event

Late in the pitch dark night, much too early one morning when the sun was high in the afternoon sky, ever so slowly it happened quite suddenly. 

There was no sound when, loudly, it came crashing down upon them. No one expected it, but it was just as they had predicted. 

What had happened was entirely beyond description and yet everyone had a mental picture of it on the tip of their tongue. 

The smell of it rang in their ears. 

The entire crowd was speechless, the nattering endless. For hours on end the blathering lasted but a moment. 

And then, in the calm of turmoil, it was the village idiot who quietly projected (in a manner that everyone in sight could hear), "while this event, which lasted but a split second, could go on forever, there is no time like the present for a nicely chilled cocktail."

Working Man's Technology

Our Lady of Guadalupe – Mission, Texas

 Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church was established in 1899 as Our Lady of the Mission. It was renamed in 1927 when the church was rebuilt after a disastrous fire.

 Windows in the choir loft.

 Major renovations, completed in November, 2013 included new wings on either side of the sanctuary.

Light from clerestory windows reflect a beautiful soft light from the arched ceiling to an expansive sanctuary attended by worshipers every day of the week.

Light Painting

 Painting with a penlight thanks to our friend Ruth Blackmon who suggested we try this as a group.

 These are my best attempts with water drops on a CD

Morning After

Trying to walk off yesterday's food binge, I went out the the Red Cedar River this morning. In otherwise untracked snow I saw these deer tracks on the sidewalk alongside the river.

Even in Michigan where people are used to the cold, there was only one other person willing to brave the sub-freezing chill.

 The temperature has been in the low 20s F. the past three days. The river still flows freely, but there are many patches of ice on the water.

Branches from an overhanging Willow dip into the water to provide a surface where ice crystals form. They appear as  brushes recharging from an artist's palette.

Thanksgiving Morning

Light snow fell most of the night. We woke to a powdery dusting on the ground and trees, by early afternoon the wind had blown it all onto the ground.

Outside Barb's back door we were treated to a variety of songbirds: Slate Gray Juncos, Cardinals, Blue Jays, Mourning Doves, Sparrows, Nuthatches, Chickadees and a Flicker.

In the photo a Junco sits in a berry tree outside the backdoor waiting for a Red Squirrel to finish gorging itself from the bird feeder below.

Winter Sunset

Black Walnut Trees stand naked, silhouetted against a winter sunset, in Grand Ledge, Michigan.

Michigan November

Cattails stand upright in a frozen pond bending away from the icy wind and drifting snow near Grand Ledge, Michigan.

I didn't really expect to find open water frozen over and new fallen snow so early in the year. Then again, friends in Texas have been writing that this is the coldest weather in the Rio Grande Valley in more than forty years,

Ice patterns in a quickly frozen puddle provide testament to sub freezing temperatures that are still hanging in.

I'm hoping that south Texas warms up before we return next week.

Bleak November Morning

All it needs is a flock of grackles and an Alfred Hitchcock story.

Minimalism