Fall Break

We have a long weekend for fall break so I promised myself I would have one day where I did no work - no grading, no writing, no editing, no freelance. I have lived in Wisconsin for more than a year and have not really left Milwaukee. So yesterday I went for a leaf peak drive.

Hiking the Adirondacks

Kate and I went up to her favorite waterfall and brook this week to wander around and take photos. We had a debate about whether it qualified as a hike or was just a walk. I pointed out that we had 100 photos of waterfalls as we walked, which means we have to be walking up. Otherwise it would just be a stream.

Why take the easy route when there are waterfalls to view?

There's also a bit of video on youtube.

And a bunch more photos:

Celebrating the return of Spring

Christa and Jason came up for the weekend and since Saturday was lovely weather we went out for a nature walk. It was slightly muddy for the shoes Christa was wearing, but she was definitely the cutest person on the trail.

We went to Lion's Den Gorge Nature Preserve at the suggestion of my friend Joe (the documentary filmmaker at work).

Here's some photos:

Welcome to Milwaukee

It's been a month, I should probably tell you that I survived the move.

Beautiful day on the river

The humidity broke so after mowing the lawn I rewarded myself with a 4 mile paddle. I only got pictures of the egrets, but I also saw gulls, a cormorant, an osprey, 2 ducks, and 2 ??? (small, speckled brown on top, white on the bottom, pecking in the mud at the edge of the water).

My new house

I didn't take as many pictures as I intended because the husband was there showing us around, so mostly the realtor photos are a good view. Here's a few that I took though.

2016 Family Reunion

For now just photos. Give me a week and check back and I'll add some videos of the Folks vs Peeps competition. Folks won the Passaukee this year (again) taking the Ladder Ball, Salad Bowl, Bocchi Ball, and the tie breaking kayak race. The Peeps won the the Egg Toss, Volleyball, and team standing on the SUP.

Moonrise at Fort Hill

The full moon came up just after the sun went down on the night of the summer solstice. Enid would be out looking for ghost ships now, but I was just after some photos. At first it was very hazy and I thought it might be a bust, but actually it got kind of interesting as it passed through the layers of clouds.

Night on the Water

I'm having a little too much fun taking long exposure night shots. I went out two nights this week.

Official start of the season

The start of the season not because it's a holiday weekend, but because I finally got my boat in the water.

I want that little house some day when I'm very wealthy.

Weeds...

... or why I haven't mowed the lawn yet.

There's a nice sized patch of these along the side by the pine trees.

Here's a bee for scale. See, I can't mow, the flowers are still being used.

Neighbors down the road have some pretty weeds as well.

I never get tired of low tide sunsets

I went to Rock Harbor for my thing for the day. And I had more than one shot I loved so it gets its own post. If you're bored with my sunset photos then you can skip this one.

Also there were horseshoe crabs mating. I've never seen that before.

Herring Run

The herring are definitely running. So I went to the Brewster Grist Mill (along with every family with small children living on the outer cape) on this fine spring day. I parked myself at one of the waterfalls and shot 90 photos pointing that way. 18 of them managed to have a fish making a run for it. 1 of them anyone other than me would be able to actually see the fish. I just looked for so long I know what to look for.

It's starting to get real

The good news is I found a house while I was in Milwaukee last weekend. I made an offer, we did a little negotiating, and the offer has been accepted. So now it's down to things like the house inspection and the financing. Those are the common things to sink a deal at this point, but I'm not expecting trouble with either.

It's too cold for this

I went to the West Dennis beach for a sunset that you can really only get in the winter. There was someone out kite surfing. My fingers were numb just photographing the sunset, this guy was getting wet. I don't care how good your wetsuit is, the air temp was 32 degrees and very windy.

As they say on the internet, pics or it didn't happen.

A Little Louis

It's kind of nice to have job hunting be over and have not that much to talk about here for the time being. I mean I'm working on stuff. My class at Fitchburg is under way and going well. I've been poking at Enid's Wall, though that's been a bit more thinking than writing honestly. I've been looking for grants and such to apply to for the tern documentary, but unsuccessfully so far.

Honestly, I'm spending a lot of time on the rocker taking it easy as this is likely to be my last lazy semester for quite a while. Louis keeps me entertained.

A good start to the new year

At this point I think everyone knows, but just for the record: I have a job!!!!! I'm so glad that's resolved. The process of job hunting was very bad for my emotional and mental well being. And it's a job that I expect I will settle nicely into and enjoy. I may well never have to job hunt again. (I should probably change the name of my blog now.)

So to kick off the new year, yesterday I went on a hike with Katie and Brenda.

My current schedule

At Mom's request, but it helps me to keep track as well as well. I'll keep updating it as necessary until we finally get to Christmas.

A bit of self indulgence

You can skip this one if you want, but Louis was making me particularly happy today.

The color of the sky

January 10, 2004 I did a little experiment: a picture of the sky once an hour all day. All the night shots I've been doing lately reminded me of it.