sights unseen

One of the reasons I started this blog was because I kept seeing things in my neighborhoods that I wanted to share with someone--anyone, really--and I needed a good place to do it.  Naturally, I usually forget my camera.  I'm getting better about that, so I'm sharing two quick views from recent walks.

I first saw these gingko leaves two weeks ago, when they were still spread across the sidewalk, glowing golden in afternoon light as I hit mile four of a run.  Then I kept neglecting to go back and shoot them, and by the time I revisited them this week, they had all blown to the side, and the light wasn't as nice, but I still liked them.

This just appeals to my sense of unconventionality, and seems to continue a trend in bumper sticker battles.

o, tannenbaum

We have two Christmas trees this year.

This is Hers.

This is mine.

distance

There was a time when my running goal was "run for an hour straight."  Despite having already completed two half-marathons by then, I felt that it was a good fitness goal because I hadn't run in a long time.

I felt it was an achievable goal because I had already finished two half-marathons, so it was easier to keep going.  There was no "there's no way I can do this" moment.  This was while I still lived in Bend, and I remember being excite the day I went for 45 minutes and still felt good enough to keep going.  I knew I was close.  Before leaving Bend, I ran two 5ks, a 10k, and my third half-marathon, in no particular order.  Most of those were in the course of a year.  I know for a real runner, that's an unimpressive pile of very small potatoes, but I'm not a real runner--I'm just some shlub who runs.

This morning, without even realizing I was doing it until I finished and looked at my stopwatch, I ran for just over an hour with no trouble at all, and remembered when I considered that a lofty goal.  It felt good.

A friend (the same one who convinced me to run the first two) got me to sign up for a half-marathon in the spring.  I think I'll be ready.

Fall foliage

On one of our Old Rag hikes, I had a really funny idea.  I've been to enough Art Fairs to see the work of dozens of photographers who apparently support themselves by taking nature pictures, framing them, and selling them to people.  Nice work if you can get it, and I'd be lying if I told you I hadn't considered a similar path for myself.  I've only gone far enough to order a couple prints of my pictures and gift them to family and friends.

But if I were going to start selling pictures, I'm sure my twisted humor would work its way in somewhere.

I find a lot of visuals really interesting.  They are not always things people traditionally like to view.  Bugs are fascinating, and their coloration and widely varied shapes always catch my attention.  Dead trees and fallen leaves are good, and I once took a dozen shots of a line of pot-bellied stoves and rusted truck bodies I found in the woods near Opal Creek.

But none of those were my funny idea.

In late September, I went home to see Dad for a couple days, and took some early-morning walks at the lake.  And some afternoon walks.  I like the lakes.  I walk there a lot.  And I got lots of good pictures for my funny idea.

Toxicodendron radicans

I wanted to get some nice pictures of these bright red leaves--they actually present across the fall-leaf-spectrum, but the bright red hue is most common--because i love the idea of people buying the pictures because they're pretty, with no idea of what's actually IN the picture.

I took some other pictures, too.  I really liked that early-morning light when I could get my camera to cooperate, and the heavy dew and fog gave me some good visuals of spiderwebs (hard to photograph) and dandelions (another pretty weed).

Taraxacum oficinale

Storeria dekayi

I didn't expect to see one so late in the year, but the dog and I also met a De Kay's Snake.

The afternoons gave me much brighter light for the bright red leaves I wanted for my private joke--despite being terrified of Poison Ivy, there's a surprising number of people who wouldn't know it when they saw it.  Too bad--it can actually be very pretty.

I also like taking pictures of fungus, but I don't have a good resource to identify it yet.