Along the way

 

 

Nine-banded Armadillo

 

Slowly going about his armadillo day.

 

 

Along the Way

 

 

Axis deer.

 

Spotted like a fawn, but it’s a full-size deer.  Not native to South Texas.  An exotic introduced in the 1930s from India, now with a well-established population throughout the Hill Country.

 

A Great Egret

 

 

Pretending he’s standing in front of a mirror.

 

 

 

It’s cold

 

 

We’ve been enjoying days in the 80s but the arctic blast has finally made it here.  Now we’re doomed to highs in the 40s and 50s until the end of the week.

 

We’re expecting considerable sympathy from everyone we know.

 

 

Canvasback Duck

 

 

Not a common duck for us.  Like most North American ducks, they spend summers up north, mostly in Canada and Alaska.  Winter in the south as far down as Mexico.  Sometimes we go an entire year without seeing one.  This year I got lucky and found a few early.

 

Distinctive.  Red head.  Sloping face from the top of the head to the tip of the bill.  White back.  I wish I had really good pictures of them to share, but I don’t.  They were kind of far away.  The best one I got was this.

 

 

Good enough to prove I was there anyway.

 

Go Broncos!

 

 

They needed this win today to cement their place in the playoffs for the first time since Payton Manning took them to the Superbowl about ten years ago.  They got the number 7 seed in the AFC.

 

And thank you Kansas City for not playing your starters…

 

 

Roseate Spoonbill

 

 

 

 

 

 

A southern bird, it lives along the Gulf Coast of the U.S. and the coasts of Mexico and Central America, but mostly in South America.  It eats small fish and other tiny critters by swishing that big flat bill back and forth through the water.

 

Coyote

 

 

The photo I sent out a while back.  It wasn’t the clear shot I wanted, but it was the best I could get through the windshield.

 

I wanted the coyote to finish crossing the road so I could see him out the side window with it rolled down.  That would be a nice clear shot, much better lighting, but by the time he got across the road and I could get an unobstructed view, this was the only shot left.

 

The east end of a westbound coyote.  Nice wild grass though, right?

 

I got an email from Classmates.com

 

 

They reach out to me periodically about my High School experience.  Woodrow Wilson High School, Long Beach, California.  Sometimes I click a link to look through a few pictures and see if there is anyone I recognize.  I don’t.  Can I recognize a name?  I can’t.  Except this time.  Right there, the first picture in front of the class of ’63 was cousin Ed.

 

In remembrance.  In his truck.  It was good to see him again.

 

Seeing the picture was a surprise, but I already knew he had died earlier in the year.  Until then we still kept in touch.  In all of my living memory, there was always cousin Ed.  Our families got together regularly.  Aubrey and Ethelen, his parents.  Aubrey was my mom’s older brother.  Ed and Tom.  Brothers.  They were each my age.  Ed was six months older.  Tom was six months younger.  I was always closer to Ed.  We were in the same grade at high school.  Tom passed away as a young adult early in life a long time ago.

 

Ed and I were kids together in the same town.  He visited us in Colorado when we lived there.  We visited him in Las Vegas when he lived there.  He visited us in Washington State.  At his houses in Las Vegas and in Pennsylvania we met some of his extended family.  He never had biological kids of his own, but by way of wife Diana was fully immersed in family.  He became father, grandfather, great grandfather, and even great-great.  He was surrounded by and immersed in family.

 

Never normal.  Always a character.

 

My first

 

 

My first real camera.  A Petri 7S manual camera with all the settings.  I bought it at a pawnshop while I was on the island of Okinawa in 1964.

 

And got my first best picture.

 

Gene Stencel was the subject.  In the barracks.  A Quonset hut.  He had a candle.  I saw the lighting potential.  Got him to shield the flame with his hand.  Timed exposure in the dark.  Nailed it!