Blue Ridge blog

Giving you the bird(s)!

After work I went to the Valle Crucis Park. The weather was behaving and I wanted to see the havoc recent rains had wrought. There was some devastation, but the birds didn't seem to care. I saw many robins, including this one (top) perched on a fallen branch near the pond.

Later I saw a Blue Heron strolling and dipping his feathers in the waters. I scared it at first and it flew away only to return within minutes. I stalked it for a while, squishing my brand new sneaks in the mud, until he tired of me and flew down the Watauga's stream.

I returned home at dusk and noticed foreign globs in the trees. I finally figured out the blobs were turkeys perched way up in the poplars. I pulled out my 300mm lens and scooted 'round the woods till I could find a respectable silhouette.

The Chicken who loves me...

First and most important..Happy Birthday, Amy.
I would have posted about goats, but I was fresh out 'em... raincheck.

Tonight my Mom told me, in her own special way of course, that my blog was stagnant. "I can tell you haven't done anything exciting lately," was what she really said.
And I replied, "Oh don't you worry, I'll post some exciting chicken art on it tonight."
"Oh good," she said adding, "That's better than what's been on there lately."

My Mom's a blog critic:)

So I picked sh*t with a chicken at the Goodnight Farm tonight. Yep. I was belly down with a rooster who really, really liked me. He kept pecking me in all the wrong places. Finally I had to give him the 'Let's just be friends,' talk-off and he didn't take it so well.

In any case, I used a bit of Lucis Art on the bottom photo. Otherwise this is straight forward chicken art.

Tiny signs

I spent the weekend in Greeneville, South Carolina. It wasn't very green there yet, that is, not unless you count the cash I dropped like confetti up and down Main Street while waiting for my youngest to dance. Pretty town, though.

Saturday's weather was rough. The towers did not just scrape the sky, they were enveloped by it. But see. There are reddish buds on the trees. Signs of green to come.

The time changed has messed with my schedule. On a positive note...the sun will stay up longer after I get off work. Maybe I'll have more time for shooting:)

Saved by the cat...

Lately I've gone through, yet again, another period of blogging 'doldrums,' If you blog, you know exactly of that which I speak. It is a time of intense self-doubt about the whole meaning and reasoning of blogging. At it's worst, the blog is in a hormonal mid-life crisis. Urges to hit the delete button and selfishly take the ball home so no one else can play, aren't uncommon. It ain't the right thing to do, but it is a thought every honest blogger admits to having, on occasion. Sometimes blogging is easy. At other times, it feels like work or being stuck in quicksand. Quitting seems less painful.
But then, all the sudden, something as simple as a cat watching Valle Crucis life pass by from the second floor of tobacco barn makes the whole blog ticker tock again and we bloggers resume as if nothing was amiss in the first place .
I'm not sure I can explain it any better than that.

A thought: It is not a good day to wear your Pink Floyd t-shirt in Boone....

Yesterday there was a report of a man with a gun near the campus of Appalachian State University. You can read the details here. And you can view the university's alerts here.
I am pleased to report that the dissemination of information was blazing fast. In fact, with in 15 minutes of the initial alert, the teenage texting was in a fury. I received "Mom are you ok?" messages from my girls. Even my mother called. Overall, the system in place worked well.
The alert was serious but I had to chuckle a bit at the tv helicopters poised over campus waiting to capture any mayhem.

***Update***
The whole fiasco was a hoax

A different kind of Super Fly...

With the greatest of ease, a member of the Extreme Team goes for a basket at Apps home game against Western Carolina yesterday. I used my D300 yesterday to test it's ability to work under the gym lights. This shot is at ISO 3200 and the noise...what noise?
The D300 makes me wanna go to a night time high school baseball game just to test it's capabilities further.

For my Mom and Dad and anyone else interested in what I am doing in my new job:
Here's a site which posts some of my campus grab shots. Be sure to click on the view more feature photos option.
Gnumoon and I worked the Polar Plunge together. This is our future and it makes me happy.

On the home front:
Sweet husband is sewing an MC Hammer costume for my youngest's upcoming competition dance season. He's doing it because I basically refused. He's a better mother than I. Youngest is helping him, but she is a bit overwhelmed with a massive English project, math, AP exams, dance and other teenage life torments. Last night as she toiled over writing a paper, she suddenly stopped what she was doing and said in almost a pitiful tone, "I really hope these aren't the best four years of my life."
Later, she read her paper to me and all I could think was, "Wow, that's powerful." She has a gift for writing and communicating, whether it is through body movements or the written word, she has a quiet, unpretentious way of getting her point across. I pray she never loses her demeanor.
I'm gonna keep her.