{"id":183,"date":"2008-12-27T11:32:54","date_gmt":"2008-12-27T15:32:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogshevik.com\/garneredimages\/?p=183"},"modified":"2008-12-27T11:32:54","modified_gmt":"2008-12-27T15:32:54","slug":"a-morning-after","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/?p=183","title":{"rendered":"A Morning After"},"content":{"rendered":"

“In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.”
\n(Ansel Adams)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a012 days of Christmas have now come and gone, and while most folks spent them hunting for stuff to put into boxes, I instead\u00a0followed my plan to get out of\u00a0my box\u00a0as much as possible and have to say now that the figurative stretching felt really good.\u00a0 Under an unusual blessing of deep snow that the more stereotypical cold\u00a0Christmas Eve rains could not\u00a0bring to a\u00a0full\u00a0surrender\u00a0of a\u00a0rare and true White Christmas, I found it both pleasingly challenging and somewhat frustrating to\u00a0try to capture the holiday spirit.\u00a0\u00a0Not only the technical challenges of shooting at night when the artic blast that overstayed its welcome like a bad guest caused\u00a0everything to\u00a0freeze within moments, but simply finding suitable subjects was hard; likely due to the horrible economic conditions\u00a0there were far\u00a0fewer displays of the seasonal\u00a0revelry than in years past.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But I think I managed to “make do” well enough.\u00a0 My first attempt was to head out for a short walk in the bitter evening air\u00a0to tackle a polar bear, one of a pair that graces the front steps of a house in the front of the Woods:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The next day the big, bad, wicked winter storm arrived in earnest and travel, even on foot, was a treacherous and foolhardy idea.\u00a0 But I was lucky enough to snag the elusive adult Cooper’s hawk right in our own backyard:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

A brief lull in the storm the next night allowed for a quick trip out to tackle one of the sights\u00a0that was, in large\u00a0part, the inspiration for\u00a0my little project:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I ended up going back the next evening in order to catch all the lights turned on.\u00a0 By this time, the single-digit temperature and a wind chill that pushed that temperature down into double negative digits required\u00a0serious bundling up for\u00a0the short walk.\u00a0\u00a0It was a hoot, for it had been years since I’d ventured out resembling one of the kids on Southpark.\u00a0 As an adult,\u00a0even when out skiing in -20\u00b0 weather my winter attire was more, shall we say, fashionably streamlined.\u00a0 (The difference being, of course, your blood circulates a lot faster to keep you warm when you’re moving, unlike the stillness required to take photographs.\u00a0 This also put a new pair of\u00a0Really Serious winter boots on my list.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We awoke the next morning to be greeted by some much-welcome sunshine.\u00a0\u00a0The morning light was thrilling, energizing and brilliant\u00a0but the wicked wind continued to blow fiercely, warning everyone to stay put.\u00a0 So it was only brief forrays into the backyard for me.\u00a0 And for the wild residents.\u00a0 I found my littlest wild\u00a0fox squirrel friend waiting patiently for me to arrive with her foodstuffs, trying her best to bravely soak in some of\u00a0the sunshine as the driving wind\u00a0beat at\u00a0her with drifting snow:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The starlings have returned en masse<\/em> and while their lack of manners at the feeders is the bane of my existence, they are beautiful birds and so one high up in the pine tree gulping snow became my daily photo:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

As hard as I try to avoid going out during the last, frenzied holiday shopping days, errands could not be postponed forever, so I took full advantage of the early darkness for\u00a0some daily shoots, using the partially-opened window of the Jeep as\u00a0a makeshift tripod.\u00a0 It is testament to\u00a0why I so\u00a0love\u00a0my\u00a0Wrangler\u00a0that\u00a0the engine runs so smoothly I could keep it on and\u00a0therefore\u00a0stay warm while shooting:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Christmas Eve morn the frigid arctic front finally\u00a0started to move on and the more normal Michigan holiday season rains finally began.\u00a0 The red-tailed hawk had been making daily appearances and, after having to be content with\u00a0mostly stick-picking, to my surprise it glided into the trees in our backyard and actually stayed put for a while.\u00a0 I had to don a rain poncho and cover Matilda, but even so, by the time I finished the shoot, I was as sodden as the hawk with jeans wet nearly to my knees from standing and then jumping around in the snow.\u00a0 (I’ll leave it to your imagination and likely one of Bob’s blogs to picture my attempts to encourage the hawk to move on when the squirrels and I had finally had\u00a0our fill\u00a0of its menacing presence.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Christmas Day I prepared a\u00a0delectable herb-crusted pork roast, Bob cleaned while I set a festive holiday table then picked up my mother, and the three of us happily ate our Selves into a very\u00a0merry little stupor.\u00a0 After I took my mother home I stopped\u00a0to take\u00a0the last\u00a0daily photograph on my list, as I’d planned it:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And so at last came the\u00a0Morning After and The End:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now that these self-made\u00a0“12 Days” are over, I look back and\u00a0am very glad I set a goal with this project.\u00a0 I feel as if I’ve accomplished something\u00a0more with my photography, and certainly there has been learning with each day’s attempts.\u00a0 Learning that will be put to good use in the days ahead.<\/p>\n

Merry, indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.” (Ansel Adams) \u00a0 The\u00a012 days of Christmas have now come and gone, and while most folks spent them hunting for stuff to put into boxes, I instead\u00a0followed my plan to get out of\u00a0my box\u00a0as much as possible and have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}