Folky snake

S is for SNAKE
This picture was taken at the Martin Guitar factory in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. They have a fantastic museum of folk art collectibles, displays of wonderful guitar memorabilia and the guitars used by various artists from Johnny Cash to Crosby Stills and Nash. Theres also a fabulous walking tour that is so worth the time and you can see the way Martin guitars are constructed - everything from the way they are polished to the embellishments cut into the fronts around the hole. Its hard not to drop a few bucks in the gift shop on t-shirts, hats and assorted doo da. It looks to be a great place to work, and I recommend the tour if you are in that neck of the woods or are within driving distance. A big thanks to my Brother Mark, who drove me out there one day while I was back East two years ago for the one and only time in years. I have a lot more pictures I will link as a slide show sometime in the future.

Reflection and such

R is for REFLECTION
It was a great weekend, Friday night Dave and I went to see Slumdog Millionaire, everydarnbit as good as I have read. Saturday, we headed out to a swap meet and eventually landed in Medford and Costco for the usual supplies and a hike along the river. Maggie and Pepper seem to be getting along extremely well, and both picked up a few ticks.
There were encouraging glimpses of blue sky, sunshine and warmth and the days are getting longer.
Pretty soon we will be floating down the river, reflecting on the fact that we survived another winter.

Mama Mia...

M is for MADONNA
Mid afternoon at the hospital, someone mentioned it was a full moon these days, which I immediately thought....that explains everything.
It was busy beyond belief, scheduled surgeries and add-ons plus it was short staffed in the back forty. Usually the afternoon shift I work at 3Rivers is slow compared the morning one but that was not the case today.
Compounded by the fact that I had a full day before I even checked in at 11 am, up at the crack of dawn trying to make changes to the Media Kit and website I'm working on, and a morning appointment in town. These past few days I'm scrambling to keep all my plates spinning.
Todays photo challenge submission was a nite light I picked up at the Humane Society thriftshop last summer for a mere 2 dollars, it lights up too. One of these days it will make it on to ebay, but in the meantime it collects dust and provides a token measure of comfort just looking at its beautiful face and delicate hands. These days with a full moon rising maybe I should plug her in and let her light shine bright.

Making Lemonade

L is for LEMONS
Todays submission to the Alphabet Photo challenge was altered with yet another Photoshop filter, Paint Daubs. Kinda fun exploring the filters, this one makes it look almost like it was painted.

New Frontiers

K is for KNOT
Daves' organic garlic is a staple in our cooking, he has been growing the most amazing crops for years. Every fall replanting the best cloves and normally harvesting around two hundred beautiful bombers in July. Its the real deal, and we have been perfecting a fantastic dressing with a combination of the roasted and raw garlic plus a few other ingredients. It goes on everything from salad to salmon. Yesterday he dropped off a still knotted six pack of the 'purple italian' to make another round of dressing.
This afternoon I shot the picture and it looked wildly boring, not a lot of time in my day to play, or hunt and seek new subject matter, I decided to explore some Photoshop filters (this filter is Poster edges) and got I lucky, it really pulled the knot out so it was more readable, and I learned something new.
Who said you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

Senior Moments

I is for IDLE SENIORS
On Saturday Dave and I headed over to the Grange to see if I could get our local chapter of the Old Time Fiddlers who were playing there, to commit to playing the Senior Fair in June. We stayed for a few tunes, where I shot these photos for the Alphabet Challenges' letter I. Outside it was 64 glorious degrees, it was a tough decision to remain inside watching them play music, rip up the dance floor and socialize. We then headed over to the local swap meet, scoring a few treasures and afterwards, the Mini Pet Mart to get the dogs nailed trimmed.
This morning we headed out for a hike and drove out to Waters Creek, outside of Selma. We wound our way about 5 miles up the mountain, where we were overlooking the fog. It was absolutely breathtaking, a reminder of the reason I remain despite the winter weather that continually challenges me.

Chickens

"The rooster may crow, but the hen delivers the goods"

H is for HENS
Chickens were one of the most fun and fascinating aspects of my move from city life to country living, I loved watching them, primarily in the hope I could glimpse an egg exit their fluffy bottoms.
My hens, it seemed rejected their nesting boxes and instead dropped eggs randomly...later I would find it was because there had been a rather large snake raiding the nests.
Totally fascinated by their routines, I would spy on them through a tiny section missing from the door to the roosting area. At dusk, they would retire to the tree branch that Keith nailed up in the enclosure, always lining up in the same order.
I decorated the walls in there with magazine photographs I found of poultry, hoping to make them feel at home. One day after a prolonged period of watching I was delighted to actually see it happen, one of the hens let an egg drop, and to my amazement, I could see it was soft as it came out.
The problem was the roosters, at first there was only one, but when I got a few more chicks from a neighbor up the road, hoping to increase the size of the herd and egg production, one of them developed into another rooster. And suddenly the heat was on, the girls had no rest, and the boys weren't just crowing at dawn, they were crowing all night long. Once they began fighting, I was told one of them had to go, or one of them would kill the other. Bad tempered, they went after my legs anytime they could and I became highly fearful not to mention increasingly irritated by the all night crow show.
One evening, I noticed in the local paper an ad for a free rooster, and so I called the number. I too have a free rooster, if you get more than one call please give them my address, his bags are packed.
It was just around dusk when a beat up pick up pulled into my driveway, and a petite older woman emerged with one leg in a brace. She limped confidently up my driveway and after peering through the peep show hole, I watched her fearlessly fling open the door, and in the blink of an eye she snatched it off the roost by its legs. It dropped upside down instantly sedate in her hand. She limped back down the driveway, effortlessly dropped that crazy rooster into a cage in the back of her truck, drove off and that was the end of my sleepless nights.

Ben

G is for GOAT
Heres Joans' remaining goat, gentle Ben, he is so sweet, loves his head rubbed, and loves dog cookies. When I go into the fenced area to drop my food scraps I've brought over for the chickens, he'll come right up next to me and I'll feel this warm breath blowing in my ear. Like hes trying to tell me something....cooookieeees.........
He's incredibly socialized, as are all her animals- Joan does this bonding thing when they are born, I have to ask her, theres a name for it I can't remember.
Everyone is like family, all her creatures, great and small.

The daily flog

F is for FEATHERS
Been busy revising and uploading website changes and working on some display ads for my new client. Had a meeting this afternoon in Kerby regarding some signage for the Guild. The new gallery and addition is wonderful and I'm looking forward to creating some big banners with the logo materials I did a year or so ago. Meanwhile todays pic was tough, I walked around in the drizzle looking for something and settled on a couple feathers Dave put on a board, and called it good, not a lot of time to play today.
I stopped at Joans on the way back from my meeting in Kerby to take some pics of Ben, mr goat (for tomorrow) and pick up some eggs.

Keeping it Simple

E is for EGG
One of the staples of my diet, I decided on the egg as my subject matter for today. That part was simple, yes indeed. Chose a location, ....every surface in my house is a stage of garage sale items and found objects arranged in an every changing rotation of hodge podge interior desecration. Martha with a disorder that has yet to be identified, but involves kitschy steroids.


In the past six months it seems like these little plastic toy soldiers have been turning up everywhere, maybe they have always been part of the landscape unnoticed, but not until last summer on a camping trip to the Chetco, did I begin to start picking them up and utilizing them randomly and erratically.


I walked around the house picking up a few other items of eclectic and unrelated interest till I sensed I was going too far. I was relieved and gratified that I had not resold those cool Pottery Barn plates I picked up for a song at a garage sale this past summer for two bucks, each one of the four has a beautiful illustration from a vintage french poster.


The egg shells from breakfast still on the counter inspired me to head outside and grab the bird nest I considered using for B day and then set up the shot that made me think, ah now I'm really going tooo far.... especially when I saw all the little spiders frantically exiting it.
I try to remember to keep it simple, but instead I'm normally a runaway train and here's eggactly what I'm talking about.
Click here for the one I decided to submit for Charlie Bears Alphabet Photo Challenge, as well as the other submissions!
Thanks for taking the time to read, and comment!

Diggin it!

D is for DOG
Oh so much fun checking out all the photos being submitted for the Alphabet Photo Challenge from across the country and across the pond. While the midwest shivers, and my Brother in the Northeast- along with the UK shovels snow, we are getting some warmer temps and I'm able to sit outside and soak up some sunshine these days.
Todays' photo was taken at Daves, I gave him this little dog a few years ago for Christmas, it reminded me of Bullet. I didn't do much other than point and shoot, it was sitting there backed by a couple of white plastic ukeleles as I was poking around looking for some 'D' material. I love the background picture in the left corner of Daves kids, Brian is out of college two years now, and Daniel, the baby in the picture, is a senior in high school and a talented guitarist and artist.
I submitted the alternate without it, because I thought the composition was better.
Work to do so I'll stop rambling...

See the U.S.A. in your...

C is for CHEVROLET
There ARE those commercial advertising jingles buried in my brain that take me right back to being a kid growing up in the 50's. The most brilliant one that comes to mind is the Chevy one, with a close second being the Oscar Meyer wiener one. This road warrior was probably not the model that most people imagined themselves flying down the freeway in, hair blowing in the breeze.
...around these parts, there are quite a few of these dinosaurs still going strong and adding visual interest and beauty where the rubber meets the road.
Todays photo submission for the Alphabet Photo challenge was taken on "G" street, here in beautiful downtown Grants Pass.

No Pain no Gain?

"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."

Abraham Lincoln

This is one of my very favorite quotes, that is of course unless you have a mind numbing toothache...
I was supposed to get a tooth yanked about three years ago.
It was really bad. A problem had developed no thanks to a poorly capped tooth, but due to my phobia of dentists and lack of insurance, once the infection healed, I shined it.
A couple of trail bars last Saturday started this weeks recent round of pain and found me this morning reclining in the dentists chair at the crack of dawn and gratefully leaving with a packet of penicillin.
I tried to take my mind off things by starting to shoot a few photos for the Alphabet Photo challenge that starts this Sunday, so I'm not running around in a state of creative panic on Saturday... uhhh tomorrow, going ... A, what can I shoot that starts with the letter A.
I was over at Daves' after my dental appointment- (for some sympathy and breakfast) when seeing a cool broom (the letter B) hanging on the wall, I decided maybe I should get a jump on things.
I love staging photos, and hopefully there's plenty of material to work with between our respective abodes.
My goal is to post each days photo, starting Sunday, through the month of February, (and the runner uppers), God I hate to make decisions, this one or that...
Please sign on with me, either to post (a photo) or 2 follow mine that I will be posting on my blog!