August 13th would have been my mother, Helen’s 96 birthday. In August there is an eruption of colorful flowers and as children my brothers and I would pick wild flowers for her birthday and now I photo and share them with you – for Helen!
The plans of fools and photographers
My camera was fully charged. I checked the weatherman’s forecast and confirmed it by standing out in my front yard searching for signs of severe weather. My snorkeling gear was cleaned and ready and my attitude was open and optimistic.
All the indicators pointed to it being a great day to venture out and try to become photography’s next Ansel Adams or capture a photo that gets put on the cover of National Geographic … if the photographic gods concur.
Too many influences and random happenstance’s make thinking today was that day is a fool’s errand but you learn to take what is given. Sometimes what is given to a photographer by the forces that be – whatever they may be – hard work, luck, talent, expensive equipment, divine intervention – occur only in a fraction of time in an unexpected place and your unprepared. This will be about one of those days.
10am I arrived at my snorkeling spot for the day put my camera bag and snorkeling gear on the dock and got in the water. Before I could even start getting set up I noticed something coming down the shore towards me. It was a muskrat. Excitedly but calmly I get my camera out of its case trying not to interrupt the muskrat’s mission.
The muskrat takes no notice of me passes with in a foot of my feet and just keeps on its route.
I watched as the muskrat disappears from sight. I regained my composure and gear up for what I had planned a fun day of snorkeling and photo’ing of fish and plants but with no luck of taking that one amazing photo. After 2 hours in the water I got out put away my equipment and lay in the sun on the dock to dry off. The warmth of the sun was mesmerizing and I may or may not have engaged in a slight nap.
Warmed and rested I guessed I had time for a quick swim. I swam out a 100 yards from the shore bobbed around and swam back to the dock. I had the feeling I was being watched I clambered back on the dock and as I stood up I noticed an immature bald eagle watching me from a nearby tree.
I’m not sure how long the eagle was sitting there? Was he there when I was out in the water the first time? Or did he show up while I was resting my eyes?
Camera in hand and ready I sat patiently and waited … and waited some more to see what this immature eagle was going to do. Appeared like it was just going to sit there and enjoy a sunny summer day and maybe take a nap (I may be a bad influence). I lost my focus and turned to see what else was going on around me and my movement made the eagle finally get tired of me and it jumped from its perch and I got a couple of photos as it took off and headed off across the lake.
Not the day I was expecting and no mind-blowing photos simply a day of a photographer.
Familiarity breeds contempt
My narrative if you have not experienced it you will have to believe me as I re-count my latest snorkeling adventure. The summer solstice has recently passed and the sun lazily traverses the sky, the days of norther Wisconsin seem to never want to end and the short daylight hours and cold of December never to return. The long daylight hours warm the many lakes and this brings all types of life into to the shallows of the lakes to do what the kids might say “getting busy” reproducing to continue the cycle of life.
The first thing I came across is a bass taking cover in the branches of a sunken downed tree perhaps taking a break from the obligations of being a bass?
Working my way south down the shore I find a bass aggressively defending its nest of just recently hatched fry
from being eaten by a horde of ravenous minnows.
If the bass is somewhat successful and some of its fry grow into bass-hood those same bass will have the advantage in the game of eat or be eaten taking exception to the song lyrics “summer time and the living is easy”
Pan fish excavate fields of craters in sand, gravel or just about any material in clusters of 5 to 25 or more in a group on the bottom of the lake bed that they use as nests to lay their eggs.
A male pan fish (the smaller one) bumps the belly of the female as she circles their recently dug nest so that she will lay her eggs and he can fertilize them.
Like the bass the pan fish will protect their nest of recently laid eggs
from all comers charging at them opening out its fins to look bigger and more menacing even trying to intimidate a lone photographing snorkeler who just wants to chronical there life’s struggles.
To be a witness of the things going on around us that familiarity can breed contempt for I am given the chance to show existence is not easy for anyone.
We’re Surrounded!
Living in city or hermetically sealed bubble, our own personal world or someone like me who lives in the north woods of Wisconsin we may not recognize that we’re surrounded … by life.
Animals, fish, insects, organisms and more surround us, help us, annoy us, and share the world with us if we notice it or not.
Algae forms a cotton candy like wisp on the tip of a broken tree branch that has fallen in the water and frogs hang their eggs off a different fallen branch, death and life collaborating.
A tree toppled in a formidable storm its exposed roots appear to be reaching out trying to right itself and get back on the path.
Spring and the aquatic plants are growing and in bloom so enjoy the tour along my photographic path.
The Old Man and the Hippy of fresh water.
Anthropomorphizing wildly while snorkeling the 62 degree water of Star Lake I come upon what I perceive as the Old Man and the Hippy of fresh water.
The Crayfish in my observation is the cantankerous old man with its pincers out and in your face cranky appearance of “stay off my lawn you damn kids!”
The Tadpole the exact opposite, the happy go lucky “dude it’s all good” Hippy shapeless and fluid to what is ever going on around it.
These may just be the thoughts going through a brain of a man spending 90 minutes in body and mind numbing 62 degree water speculating with which one of these he more identifies with?
The Season in Between
Spring and summer mix in the air being agitated by the warmth of the sun and zephyrs of newness fill your senses making you forget about old man winter.
Winter like weather held its control over northern Wisconsin; the weather did what it always does not concerned about what we wanted.
Free range puffy clouds roamed the vast blue sky and surreal reflections were revealed on the surface of Star Lake.
Taking my shoes off I wadded into the 56 degree lake water trying to capture colors, swirls, reflections and patterns that lasted seconds of the season in between.
Return to Stillness
“They” say that life is a circle. I took that to mean that life went in a circle like a race car on a track all life ended where it began a form of cosmic redundancy. I think I may have misinterpreted that thought after examining the growth rings of some recently cut down trees. The growth rings of the trees radiated out from the epicenter of the trunk and ended when the life the tree did.
You can see the same thing on a calm day when you toss a stone into water and watch as concentric rings of energy spread out until the momentum dissipates and events return to stillness.
Like the tree, the ripples in the water, the universe and life we start at one point and radiate out from the beginning until our energy ends and we return to stillness.
Beauty?
What does beauty look like?
Is beauty infective, reactive, subjective, defective or is it one size fits all?
Is there beauty in things we do not observe or disregard because we think it is not worth our time?
Can beauty coexist in things that scare or anger us or that we find icky?
If we have a fear of spiders can we find beauty in its geometric web?
Or can beauty happen in a snake or a slug?
Do fresh water mollusks have any beauty while they filter water or stick out their foot that looks like a tongue?
Should there be beauty in a cluster of eggs laid by what I believe to be frogs on sticks and plants in a lake?
On this divine week of April Fools/ Easter should there be more time spent as Marcus Aurelius instructs us to “dwell on the beauty of life”???
Reflective Nature
The rational and the irrational join with molecules of water on the surface of lakes, ponds, rivers even puddles in parking lots to reflect their surroundings sometimes swirled by spirits with a gust of wind.
Light and dark mingle with color and clarity reflecting the permanent and the impermanent making and ever changing mosaic of duel realms that imitate our thoughts through Mother Nature’s looking glass.
Feathers and Tails
On a recent exploration I noticed that someone had attached a six inch by six inch feeder to a random tree at a random location. The coming and going of dozens of Nuthatches and Chickadees is what drew my attention to this tiny bird feeder. The birds came in one’s and two’s to the feeder as more waited on nearby trees and branches for their turn.
Some birds worked the surrounding ground searching for any bird seed that might have been spilled.
A squirrel charged on to the feeder scattering the birds but they didn’t go very far. The squirrel ate like it was his last meal and a nuthatch or chickadee would land on one side of the feeder and take a seed. The squirrel did not want to share and would fake a lunge at the offending bird pilfering its seed.
The squirrel gorged, the birds seized at opportunity and the squirrel did its fake lunge and on it went.
With all this activity I didn’t think I would be noticed trying to take their photo but I was regarded like paparazzi in Hollywood as I tried to capture a photo the squirrel would move behind the tree to block the shot and giving me photos of just its tail.
The nuthatches and chickadees came and went so fast that I got photos of disappearing tail feathers or a blurry wing tip.
With minimal movement and waiting the nuthatches, chickadees and squirrel began to regard me as just another part of their environment and as long as I didn’t try to take any of their food they cared less about me and my camera.
Ducks, swans and “The” Groundhog … oh my?
The winter of 2020 – 21 had been an easy one with only 2 nights of low temperatures below zero into the first week of February with daytime highs in the mid 20’s to mid-30.
And then excessive bitter cold marched out of Siberia forced its way across Canada over the border and swept over my house in northern Wisconsin without a sound still on its way to Oklahoma and Texas. This is nothing new and most winters it is the norm from November to April but this year we started to believe it would never happen, so long underwear, bulky sweaters and puffy jackets stayed in the back of closets, but the groundhog knew better.
On February 2nd we have faith that groundhogs can forecast the weather for the next six weeks – this is not true. The groundhog cannot predict the weather; Groundhogs control the weather from there extensive underground layers where they are also the inventors of such things as the polar vortex, bomb cyclones, wind chill and Time Shares. Groundhogs would like you to imagine they are just cute, furry ground dwellers that we celebrate one day a year. In actuality they are a supper Marmota monax that have figured out how to influence the earth’s meteorological conditions for reasons only they know – all hail “The” Groundhog!
After rereading the first part of this essay I think this arctic blast has compelled me to spend way too much time in my house and that I should check my ever running gas furnace to make sure it’s venting outside and then head outside and Shackleton.
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was an English explorer who in 1915 while exploring in the Weddell Sea in Antarctica his ship the Endurance was crushed by pack ice. He and his crew spent nearly six months on a drifting ice flow before he and a few of his crew set out to find help, and after an arduous journey they were all saved. So that is the mind set I get myself into when I attempt to venture out into air so cold your nose could freeze, turn black and fall off in minutes. So into the back of the closet I go to dig out the long underwear, bulky sweater and puffy jacket and gear up to go Shackleton.
You may be asking “why would you do this?” Because if you didn’t Shackleton you might spend too much time in self-imposed seclusion in your warm home writing delusional ranting blogs about weather controlling groundhogs – that’s why.
Down to a small stream that the cold of winter has not frozen over and it still freely flows into a lake and at that spot ducks and swans gather to feed and rest from what life has given them like they always have.
When I arrive at the stream I am disappointed that I see no swans – I as scan the scene I notice lumps of snow in the water that are not lumps of snow but swans all curled up resting in the below zero temperatures.
As I am zooming in on the swans’ ducks fly in and land in the water right at me feet not paying any attention to me.
Just another day for swans and ducks – paddle around and eat in unfrozen water that if not moving would be frozen.
Swans in effervesces of sun and water makes me want to go for a swim – maybe tomorrow?
Rime Frost
Rime Frost: An accumulation of granular ice tufts on the windward side of exposed objects that is formed from the supercooled fog and built out directly against the wind.
Northern Wisconsin has been subjected to a circumstance of above normal temperatures and minimal accumulation of snow for the month of January. This has caused over a weeks’ worth of warm nights and foggy mornings the fog freezing and attaching itself to anything in what is called rime frost making the world around you look like it’s been sprinkled with powdered sugar.
You can look out onto herds of geometric ice crystals gathered in a blink of time waiting for sun and warmth to break the influence of reality.
Rime frost creatures can be discovered clinging to any surface frozen in a moment of time while they wait to pass from a solid to gaseous state to roam free again unnoticed.
Ice Skating
Liquid, vapor or solid water in its many forms to me are a source of fun, excitement and beauty.
I enjoy water in all its manifestations and for 50 some years when fall turns into winter, sunlight becomes scarce and temperatures drop below freezing I look forward to ice materializing on puddle’s, ponds and lakes. As far back as I can remember my 2 older brothers and I have searched for perfect skate-able ice some years with no luck.
When conditions were right and we found that the lake near our house had frozen over we tested the strength of that ice by keeping one foot on solid ground and inching the other onto the newly formed ice seeing if it would hold us.
We usually had to wait a couple of days for the ice to grow thicker and strong enough so we didn’t fall through but we skated on thin ice that moaned at our impulsive want to glide across a frozen body of water. Skates, hockey sticks and pucks at the ready we could wait no more the potential of falling though was part of the excitement. My oldest brother seemingly every year was the one who could find the weakest ice proudly exhibiting his wet and frozen skates and sometimes wet and frozen pants up to his waist.
With confidence in the ice growing we would venture further out, the sound of metal blades cutting into the ice echoing across the lake mixing with laughter as we searched for slap shot pucks that gilded on forever some never to be found.
We have never lost our love for a good frozen puddle, pond or lake and we shared that love with family and friend. We still search for newly frozen over first of the season ice and we send out the call “grab your skates I found a spot.” The spot could be ponds of less than an acre to lakes of many acres some years only small sections skate- able to some year’s nature Zamboni-ing every inch for our enjoyment.
Now with knees that ache and backs that don’t bend like they used to the call to lace up the skates is still heeded so out with a shovel to clear a spot on the ice of snow we venture out to play a game of hockey 2 brothers and a niece/daughter against 2 dogs. The skate-able ice may only last a couple of hours or a day or 2 but you learn to enjoy what is given … game on!
Happy Holidays!
The photo bellow is me wishing all of you who have checked out my blog a thank you! And have a Happy Holidays!
Ok that is not really me it’s more of a representation of me but the regards are real. This time of year as we reflect on the year that has passed … maybe we should not go there?
At this time of year in northern Wisconsin nature has decorated the trees for our enjoyment if we take the time to notice.
Nature is always ornamenting the background of our lives for every occasion, give yourself the occasion to enjoy the time and space you are in.
J. H. Arnold
Water and Ice
Dropping temperatures combined with wind driven waves splashing on the shore mold a solid snow globe effect on sticks and plants creating a temporary crystal laden shoreline.
On cold, clear, still night’s ice begins to creep out from the shorelines and banks of ponds, lakes and streams creating an edge between liquid and solid.
Ice forms intercepting crystal puzzle patterns that reach out across a body of water until it covers a puddle a pond or lake becoming thicker and stronger until one day the sun shines stronger and warmer causing the ice to retreat back to hide under the shores and banks.
Reviews & Comments
Thanks to all of you have commented on my blog, if you would like to know anything about my photos or me please feel free to leave a comment or an e-mail just click the contact button and go from there.
My favorite review so far has been - “your blog is a great time suck at work.” A. T. from Minocqua. Glad I could add something to your day.
Zen Photography
I spent part of an afternoon just standing on the bank of the Manitowish River watching water flow over and around rocks photo’ing the changes the moving sun had on colors and reflections.
The sun traveled from east to west across the horizon, I traveled down the bank no more than ten feet down and back and the water was either coming or going or waiting.
Time passed and I noticed it but I was not afflicted by its passing. Time never stops like water it goes over, around and through sometimes looking like its standing still but always transforming predictably unpredictable.
A Case of the Grey's
The days between the end of fall and the start of winter when the sun travels low in the sky casting a lingering twilight that makes the atmosphere and everything in it a color wheel so unvaried that it generates a case of the greys.
Ranging from dull white to muted blacks the greys effect your outward projection and your inner perception that changes everything from attitude to appetite to photo style.
Snow can fill the air and cover your yard and with limited sun light not melting their affects either from your sidewalk or your mind.
When old man sun decides to make an appearance from out behind the clouds it may be for only seconds or if lucky minutes that make you stop what you’re doing and take notice of something you overlooked in the height of summer.
During this time of year daylight is fleeting the shadows are long and reflections on the surface of water is elongated generating a fun house mirror effect.
Against this back drop anything with a modicum of color stands out like oak leaves and tamarack needles wanting hold onto summer like you for a little longer or the light that comes across not down illuminating the peeling back of birch bark.
So elect to notice this campaign of the seasons – I have approved this blog post I hope you approved of it? No obscure thoughts were harmed in the writing of this blog.
Wander-Fall
Semaphores of vibrant leaves hang from the trees and carpet my driveway with a message, get out and rove from home, take in the phantasmagoria nature has produced!
Fall is a great time in Northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan to drive back roads to quite picnic spots and snack on free range apples discovered on long forgotten trees on the drive.
Or ramble to a lake in the clouds and watch the passing clouds cast shadows on the ground bellow you.
Take notice of a well-worn sign that directs you to what’s left of an abandoned mining town and occupy the past and present.
Uncover the route to a covered bridge and amble through a passageway of color.
Sit on the shores of Newman Lake letting the sun fill your body with vitamin D as you observe the changes of the reflections on the surface of the lake as the sun travels across the sky.
Fall
I can hear the geese honking their way south with the warm summer air being pulled in their wake and the falling of colorful leaves pulling remorse out of me with the passing of another season.
The oak, the maple, the birch and the tamarack need rest after a summer of growth and they announce the onset of winter with a dazzling display of colors.
I ignore the future and relive the past by stomping down a trail littered with dry fallen leaves like my 8 year old self did seasons ago enjoying making as much noise with each step smiling as I go.
Like that 8 year old self I realize time is the only present not the future or the past.
Not being deliberate instead going with a feeling or a perception an expression of the ideometor phenomenon like what causes a Ouija board piece to move I roll in the leaves.
All thoughts of looking foolish or worries that my clothes will get dirty are no match for the pleasure that can be had from lying in a pile of leaves as the sun’s rays pass through my body.
The saying goes “time waits for no man” – I think it should go “no man waits for time.
