Going ... going ...

Sundown

The summer sun is sinking low;
Only the tree-tops redden and glow:
Only the weathercock on the spire
Of the neighboring church is a flame of fire;
All is in shadow below.

O beautiful, awful summer day,
What hast thou given, what taken away?
Life and death, and love and hate,
Homes made happy or desolate,
Hearts made sad or gay!

On the road of life one milestone more!
In the book of life one leaf turned o'er!
Like a red seal is the setting sun
On the good and the evil men have done,--
Naught can today restore!

[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]

Open up your heart - let the Son shine in

When the cares of the world weigh you down, it's hard to be optimistic. But listen to the song in the link below the last photo - it's a little video I put together - and imagine the 5th Dimension singing about the Son (as found in Revelation 7:9-17, and especially v.15-17). And join me on my stroll continued from last week through a little part of creation, when the sun came out.

Have a blessed Sunday.

Winter's arrival

As we left home late last week to celebrate Christmas with family that lived some distance away, we also left behind a worsening winter storm - exactly on time for the official start to winter. Fortunately, along the way the weather turned from wet snow to rain and then even that ceased - perfect winter travel weather. We returned last night in the darkness, but even so we could see that winter had settled in.

This morning the pale sun did its best to brighten the day, and I had to go out - after acclimatizing the camera and lenses (and myself) to the -15C/5F temperature - to record the beautiful winter landscape. Everything was frozen under a thick blanket of snow.

And as I'm writing this, the wind is swirling around the house ushering in the next thick layer.

The winter sun ...

Quietly awaiting the warmth of spring ...

Sasha in her element ...

At last ...

I don't want to jump to a hasty conclusion, but ...

The relentless heat engulfed us once again today. Our lawn is a major fire hazard - only the weeds flourish but they lend themselves to easy pulling since their roots can't grip dust.

Towards noon clouds started forming. Our hopes had been dashed so often over the past 2 months that we didn't put much credence in the '40% chance of thundershowers' forecast. The clouds gathered into darker thunderheads but despite the occasional rumbling, no moisture materialized. Now masses of dark clouds appeared but they passed quickly to the north and south of us - we'd seen this pattern before.

The sun played peek-a-boo with us throughout the afternoon. Several times I left the garden weeding to go indoors when what appeared to be an earnest rain started. It petered out as quickly as it had begun. I was determined to finish weeding  after dinner so I didn't go in when the rain started yet again. However, this time things were different - the rain didn't let up and in fact we received several hours of very welcomed drizzle.

If the forecast for the next few days holds, we might be able to declare an end to the drought. I suspect there will be much joy should that happen.

Caught in the morning sun

"There is no hope for a civilization which starts each day to the sound of an alarm clock." (Author Unknown)

You might have guessed that I'm not a morning person. It's not that I don't like mornings - I do, very much - since I'm still up early most mornings and then go to bed. And this week I've even been getting up early to do some photo shoots. So this morning I found myself driving through the countryside looking sideways more than straight ahead. And since I had my camera with me anyway I could just stop in the middle of the road and capture a scene that I wouldn't normally be up to see.


Even though I have some (relatively) early morning work this week, I still subscribe to the wisdom in the quote above - my wife (definitely the early bird) wakes me up !


(10-22mm  f11.0  1/100 sec  ISO200)


click on photo to enlarge