Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Seeing Changes


If my neighbors and I had a contest to determine who has the Most Magnificent Puddle in their driveway, I’m pretty sure I might win. After 24 hours of gentle but nearly nonstop rain, the dog and I headed out for our walk this morning and had to figure out how to get around our newly-formed small pond, and to see whether perhaps wild salmon had migrated onto our property.

The funny thing is that, as I sit at my computer and type these words some two hours after walking the dog, I can see from my office window that the sun is now popping through the clouds. The pictures I’m posting below are evidence that the weather doesn’t stay the same for very long around here. Two days ago there was no sign of rain and I stood exactly where our mega-puddle now exists to shoot the sunrise picture you see below. Two weeks ago we had chilly temps and there was amazing frost on the ferns in the nearby woods.

When I was a little kid and my parents would take my sister and me to visit our grandparents at their farm, there was so much to see and do that I apparently couldn’t remain focused on just one thing for five minutes -- petting a dog, or visiting a newborn calf, or hiding in a cornfield -- before moving on to something else. I remember my grandfather telling me: “You’re as changeable as the weather.”

I guess it’s good that I grew up and became mesmerized by the magic of the camera. Every five minutes there’s something new to see and photograph.