trumpeter swan! I thought it was an ostrich at first - bout whipped my head 'round, stopped traffic to shoot. Still didn't know what it was till i got home....

which took a little longer than expected! hehe ;-) A banner day: got to share an unexpected hour with an every-day hero, disguised as a tow-guy from Larry's, out of Carbondale. If anyone needs a tow, i highly recommend them. They were the only ones who would come get me, and i spent an hour on the phone looking!

gave up racing the sunset home, skidded off the road about two miles out on the county road to grab some shots of the sun sliding toward the corn bins and the swollen duck-hunter's pond...

this is our western view last week, after the second "100-year flood" we've had in the last 15 years.

and this was a lucky shot, improbable really, taken at some distance against gunmetal clouds. I could barely see the heron at all, then realized i was taking pictures of an empty stump. I was amazed to see this one between heron on stump and no heron at all, as i scrolled back. It's hard to see the LCD screen in daylight, so i often shoot "blind."
It really made my day!
Toes!
I got Toes! ;-)

okay, please consider last post with grain of salt. I left it up because that is how i feel sometimes. So it represents a little part of me that loves to dance, loves interaction, loves the thought of family and plays doll-house with some made-up family in my mind. When i regain my senses, i can see that i am fully delusional, that people may be busy, have different predilections and are not behaving relative to me at all. Where do i get the idea that people are supposed to share my enthusiasms? I have so many, i am sure they can be quite wearing.... But i have been hanging back quite a bit, because it felt like a big echo chamber, no pings. And it is so easy for Mind to fill in those blanks... Actually, it seems almost impossible NOT to!