the start of my day . . .
. . . was a little bit different and seems very appropriate for this particular new moon. I've been wanting to do this for a while and finally got up and dressed and with the new camera walked the mile down the street to the U of F cow pasture to hang out with our visiting sandhill cranes. It was a perfect morning to take a few pics and try out my video and zoom lens ... cloudy, albeit a bit chilly.
So let me just say straight away, I love cow paintings and cow pictures and cows in general. That the sandhill cranes hang out in this pasture every winter is just the icing on the cake. I was hoping to get at least one pretty decent cow and crane pic and, for a first time out, I think this one is not too bad.
I'm not sure how long I stayed there, walking along the fence line, alternating still shots and video, stepping in a fair amount of dog poo ... the things we do for art. Gotta say, my little camera is taking really nice video. This is the cranes cruising around, just straight off the camera, no editing. I've bought editing software (Vegas Movie Studio 11 - got it CHEAP) and anticipate a bit of a learning challenge in my future.
It pleases me to no end having this huge flock of cranes hanging out just down the road from me where I can see them every day.
The cold started seeping into my bones, so I headed home only to be presented with an equally wonderful sight ... a coopers hawk just hanging out on a fence right next to the sidewalk. I'd already been amazed that the cranes were so nonplussed by the steady stream of cars and humans and then to see this gorgeous creature ... well, talk about a gift!
I hung out a bit and chatted with this beauty, offered my thanks and mosied on down the sidewalk for another surprise, a red-bellied woodpecker.
What a lovely little creature!
And then once I got back to the apartment, I checked on our newest resident ... not really very happy about this, but we've got a nesting muscovy duck under our dining room window. I startled her off the nest yesterday and saw that she's got about a dozen eggs there. With the large number of feral cats here, not sure how much of a chance of survival I give those little guys. Time will tell. See her red eye to the left.
All in all, a pretty wonderful start to my day ... all within a mile and a half of our apartment.
That's it for now ... I've got a necklace to ship off to my first Welsh customer (thank you very much!) and another one to repair and get shipped off and then we'll see where the rest of this new moon Tuesday leads.
feeling deeply blessed . . .
l i g a - kvk
p.s. writing this post's been a challenge, image and text blocks not working, finally got everything in ... can definitely tell Mercury's getting ready to go retrograde