Posts Tagged ‘clouds’

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The Road to Boumalne Dades


2011
04.25

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Back to the story – on the road to Boumalne Dades

It took a long time to plan this trip to Morocco, yet I overlooked many little details.  Like the fact that we’d be driving Morocco’s three mountain ranges.  Between Marrakech and Boumalne Dades, we had to tackle the High Atlas.  This mountain range reaches a height of about 14,000 feet, but we traveled over the Tizi’n’Tichka Pass where the summit is approximately 7,000 feet.

One of the first things we saw outside of Marrakech was storks!  Lots of them flying.  Storks nest on top of minarets, but it must be unusual to see many at a time because other cars were stopped to watch.

Storks

We drove through palmeries (A palmerie is a place where there are many palm trees, a source of water, and the land under the palm trees is cultivated with different crops.)

Palmerie

and rolling hills

 

Our troublesome rental car

Note the mountains in the background.

that soon gave way to barren mountains.

Tizi’n’Tichka Pass

There was something eerily beautiful about this bleak stony mountain pass. At the lower elevations we passed abandoned Kasbahs and the occasional house.

Yet even when an area looks desolate, a person will pop up – tending sheep, harvesting bamboo, perhaps gathering plants or wood.

Berbers populate the mountains and a productive side business for them is selling fossils.  Apparently southern Morocco is a treasure trove of fossils.  We stopped at one stand and after a long while a woman came walking up a steep path.  She spoke not a word of anything we spoke, not even Arabic because Berber is a separate language.  We bought a dish and some fossils and I’m not sure she could even count the money.  Everything in her little store was so dusty that it seemed customers were few and far between.  In several places we stayed, we were the first guests since Christmas, so she was probably not expecting any business.

We could even have stopped for the pause that refreshes.

Our car didn’t seem to be sliding into gear very well, the brakes squeaked, and we were mildly worried, but it took us over the pass and down into the Draa Valley.  Most people stop for the night in Ouarzazate.  It’s not much of a town as far as tourism goes, but it’s growing quickly because a huge movie-making industry is in full growth mode.  There’s a big studio, Atlas Studios, one of the biggest in the world, and we drove by back lots with Kasbahs and other types of buildings.  The Bourne Identity is one of many movies that have been made there.

Being us, we pushed ourselves to the limit.  I figured if we could get to Boumalne Dades we could spend two nights there instead of one in Ouarzazate, then packing up to have only one in Boumalne Dades.  It’s much easier to be two nights in one place. As a result we had one of the very long days that were ahead of us.  Luckily the road system is excellent and the signage is clear.  I had printed out Google maps for everything, which turned out to be a colossal waste of time, as the roads had no names posted and highways were not marked by their numbers.  In Morocco, as in France and Italy, roads are indicated by where they lead, not what number they are, and it is usually in a roundabout when you find out if you’re still on the right track.

The Draa Valley is known for growing roses, and each year there is a huge rose festival.  Rose soaps, lotions and other rose products are sold all over this area.  Also in the valley is the incredible Road of 1,000 Kasbahs.  I had forgotten about that road but as we passed abandoned Kasbahs, one after the other, I remembered what we were supposed to be seeing.  This road is the former caravan route from the Sahara to Marrakech.  Although we didn’t get out and explore any (having done so in the past), it made the road quite exciting.

Old kasbah

Remains of old kasbah behind more modern building

We did stop at the famous Kasbah Ait Benhaddou and took a few photos.  Ait Benhaddou is really a ksar (see commentary on politics) and it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site.  Many movies have been filmed there including Gladiator and Lawrence of Arabia.

Ait Benhaddou

It was a glorious day – lots of driving, yes, but that’s the only way to see the territory sometimes, and see it we did.  The sky was gorgeous and the air was clear.

 

Next: Boumalne Dades and the gorges.

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A Thanksgiving adventure: Over the river and through ghostly woods (don’t try this at home)


2010
11.25

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Well, I don’t need another experience like yesterday’s.  Oh, no no no no no.  Mark and I headed up the hill to our cabin in Alta Sierra for Thanksgiving.  Today we have family coming but we needed a head start.  We got halfway up the hill to Glennville and stopped at Hassano’s to eat.  Doesn’t look like much but the food is top notch.  The first thing we noticed was it was COLD.  A different kind of cold than we’ve felt there before – it’s somewhere around 3,500 feet.  The waitress told us snowflakes had just been floating down.

Then – up to the cabin at 6,200 feet.  We immediately encountered the sign that said chains required in 10 miles.  And then we were in ghostly woods.

We were not in fog.  Oh no, not the thick tule fog we get in Bakersfield.  We were in clouds and it felt so still and quiet, so untouchable and even mystical.

I didn’t ask Mark to stop for photos but once or twice since it was slow-going, and even though we were the only car on the road, it was snowy and slick.

Finally, we stopped at a pull-off by Slick Rock Road One for the…you guessed it, chains.

As you read on to the meat of the adventure, keep in mind this lovely tire with chain (almost) perfectly applied.  And while Mark did this, I scoped out the surroundings.  I found a perfect tree.  Would that we could take it, snow and all, for a Christmas tree.

I noticed how much snow there had been by what had been plowed to the side.

I looked over at Slick Rock One cabin and admired the pattern on the roof.

After the snowfall, the trees gave up more of their cover, heading towards naked for winter.  But across the street, other trees were still putting up a fight, holding on to those fall leaves.

My eyes landed on leaves outlined by ice, which may be the most magical image of all.  Ice storms look like fairy castles but they can be deadly.

Back across the street, the clouds were closing in.

The road had gathered its cloak closer, as if to shut out the cars.  Maybe we should have listened.

The real adventure begins

None of this was of any consequence when compared to the real adventure.  We headed down Old State Road, which had been plowed.  Caltrans had done a good job on Highway 155.  But the road to our house was not plowed.  And I wish I had pictures to show you, but you’ll have to take my word because I was too busy shoveling snow to take photos.

Should we go up our road?  We’d driven through snow like that before – we had snow tires, 4-wheel drive and chains.  Going up the S-curve.  Made the first turn.  Didn’t make the second turn- ended up stuck.  Whoa.  What to do?  Mark maneuvered any way he could – no dice. Mark noticed that one of the tires was without chain.  We found it in the snow, mangled.  I started shoveling snow out from behind the tires – but what was that I heard? A sound much better than eight tiny reindeer.  I heard a snow plow.  Off I went to find it and luckily I had my STABILicers on – shoes with metal cleats that fit over the shoes I was wearing.  I’m not hired by STABILicers to plug these ice shoes, but they are invaluable.  We rented some in Sequoia National Park once, and when we bought our cabin I bought about 10 pair in different sizes for guests.  Better than broken bones on slippery ice.

Rescued – almost

Ah – there was Tom, my savior, clearing out the parking lot of the Greenhorn Grill.   What could he do? He could plow out behind our car and maybe we could back down the hill.  He hadn’t been able to plow there yet because too many cars had been stuck!  Tom said the snow was a different consistency than usual – very heavy and wet with ice underneath.  It had snowed and rained and I guess there was too much moisture to push on through to the other side.

Now what?

Road behind us plowed and still we couldn’t move.  I started shoveling again when two guys on snowboards zoomed by and stopped.  Hey, could you help us?  Three more snowboarders arrived.  They were young, strong, everything we could want.  So they guided Mark in how to turn the wheels since we were quite close to the edge with a nice drop off – nothing that would injure us, but it sure would injure the car to slide down there.  They all five pushed on the car to make it go the way we wanted.  And we were down.  We parked in someone else’s parking place.

Rescued, for real.

I had a brilliant idea.  We had all the stuff for Thanksgiving dinner and the car was full.  Have any of you broken a trail, uphill, through deep, soft snow?  Where you sink to your knees with each step? It is NOT fun and in no way an adventure.  I was already beat from running up and down hills to find the snowplow and then shoveling snow.  I kept thinking of all the people who die of heart attacks while shoveling snow and I am 64.  So is Mark.  How many trips would we have to make?  It was a long walk – this next photo is from the balcony of the cabin and you can’t even see where our car was!

BUT there were five young, strong guys there.  Could they help?  Yes, they carried everything, making several trips each.  I started up with my tripod, a light duffel and a snow shovel.  Pretty soon the path was littered with items as I discarded them one by one.  These guys were angels of mercy and we gave them money to have dinner at the Grill on us.  Phew.  And off they went on their snowboards, jumping over the very ditch we would have landed in.

In the house it was much warmer than outside – 48 degrees.  It was 24 outside.  But the heater would not stay on.  Not to worry, I knew just what to do because it had happened when I was at the cabin with my daughter Karen, and she figured it out.  So I gave Mark a bowl of steaming hot water and three towels and instructed him to find the pipe that went from the heater in the basement to the outdoors and thaw it. He was pretty darn impressed that Karen had figured this out – while several men stood around saying oh no, that couldn’t be it.  Why do men insist on thinking women can’t do stuff? Anyhow, three hours later we were at 65 inside which is actually quite toasty.

Visitors

We’d had visitors since our last weekend up.

Raccoons.

We made it to grandmother’s (and grandfather’s) house

We’d gone over the river and through the woods, but you can forget about the horse knowing the way to carry the sleigh through the freshly fallen snow.  Forget about ho-ho-hos and jingle bells.  Down on the driveway we heard the most wonderful sound of all, and it wasn’t Rudolph.

Happy thanksgiving, everyone.  We have so much to be grateful for, including the fact that we have a cabin in the woods, have family to share with us, have heat in the house, doors that lock, and cupboards full of food.  In other words, we have shelter, food, security, family, friends – so much more than most people in the world have.  With that knowledge always in the front of my mind, I find it impossible to seriously complain about anything anymore.

And – with blogs, the internet, Creative Every Day, twitter and Facebook, we have an extended family the world over.  Even though I suffer technology overload sometimes, I’m grateful for it, nonetheless.


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Did you see the MOON? Plus art, cell phones, and phonographs


2010
06.25

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I’m going to save the best for last – the MOON

Cell phone update

The saga of my cell phone has  gotten ridiculous.  Time for husbands New Every Two, which really means Discount Every Two unless you want a toy phone.  I used the New Every Two as my husband has a new phone.  I got the Droid Incredible which I loved to pieces until I found out I could not put my bluetooth in my ear and say “Call ____.”  Sent back.  Credit received. Got the Blackberry Bold. What a clunker! Heavy, hard to navigate the icons – shame on them!  Sent back.  Credit received.  Decided to stick with Blackberry Curve.  Ordered the lavender one.  Started to program it but I couldn’t find the keys.  Ah – the keys were lavender too!  My current phone is a pink Blackberry Curve and the keys are not pink.  They are silver and black and I can see them without my glasses.  But lavender on lavender?  Can’t see with my glasses.  Sending it back Monday.  Down to one choice – the black Blackberry Curve.  I am waiting to order however.  Can’t take anymore of this.  And they better not charge me the $35 restocking fee for the Droid or the lavender Curve.  Now I will take deep breaths and continue this post with

ANTS

I need more deep breaths.  I watered and cleaned up outside today.  There were no ants.  There are now ants swarming all over the patios and lawns and everywhere.  I must have disturbed a nest or something.  I put a call in to pest control having made a command decision to damn the frogs and hire pest control if that’s what it takes.  Seriously, I hope Adam can find a way to not made the pond toxic.  We had such a bad infestation at our old house once that we had ants coming out of switch plates, and once I found my snake Jake covered with ants!  I grabbed that snake and put him under the kitchen faucet hoping he wouldn’t have a heart attack from the sudden change of temperature.  So I’m not waiting to see ants coming out of switch plates.  I hope Adam calls back even though it’s Friday night and we haven’t hired him yet.  Let’s talk about something more pleasant that won’t raise my blood pressure, which would be

Phonographs and Memories

Do you ever wonder if things you remember about your childhood were really like that? I have fondly told the story of how I would wake up every day and put a record on my phonograph first thing – the same record every day.  My parents awoke to “The King of France had 40,000 men; they marched up the hill and then marched down again.” My phonograph was hand-cranked.  I’ve wondered lately if I made that up, however.  I didn’t.  Because in the move I looked through old photos and there I was in my bedroom with the phonograph and you can see the crank!

Nice to know I remembered that correctly.

Watercolor

Watercolor is hard. I did a watercolor up at the cabin and I have no idea what it is.  I was trying to replicate a journal page but it’s not quite the same.  I don’t even want to learn watercolor – phew! My dad got a lifetime achievement award from the National Watercolor Society.  They don’t give that out very much.  I so appreciate his skill as an artist – a lifetime of work.

So here’s what I did.  Miss Know Nothing trying to learn from the website watercolor.com.  However, I don’t even think I held the brush correctly, although I did remember from time to time to try.This is my masterpiece.  It’s colorful, I can say that, and I used water, that much is true.   However, putting the water and color together is amazingly difficult. So, someone tell me what it is so I can explain it to others as if I did it on purpose.

I’m going to take out that yellow and reddish column.  Would it make any sense to all it Windows?

Now for the MOON

Oh my goodness gracious you should have seen Bakersfield’s moon last night.  My husband, who goes to sleep at 9:00, got up to use the restroom at about 11:15 and just happened to look out his window.  He came in my room and startled the heck out of me – I was doing something on the computer.  (Yes, we each have our own rooms.  It’s called snoring.) “Look at the moon,” he said.  Clouds, almost-full moon, I stuck my camera on the tripod and took 81 photos.

I’m only going to show you nine, and I don’t need to comment.  Just look.  Wish you had been here to see it in person with me.  The third one I want to title “The Mothership has Arrived.”

Goodnight, moon.


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Confessions of a Photo Junkie


2010
05.27

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You know who you are because your camera is your fifth appendage.

You have a running battle with yourself when you consider leaving the house without it. It’d be nice just to take a quick walk through the forest without the camera around my neck.  But what if I see a bear? I’ve never seen a bear, why should I see one now? Actually, my chances are probably better without the camera.  And I leave the house with your camera around your neck.  And walk through the forest, and I don’t see a bear.

But you DO see a red-breasted nuthatch!

You decide to drive down the hill to Kernville for lunch.  You’re tired of being cooped up in the cabin working on art, which is hard work.  It’s a scenic drive, so of course you take the camera even though you’re not in a picture-taking mood.  You stop once because it’s an incomparable view, but it never looks the same out of the car.  You even know the picture won’t be any good.

Of course, you completely forget your small ladder is in the back just so you can regain the height you lost stepping out of the car.

You have the realization, which you’ve had before but you’re having it again, that all your photos are taken from the perspective of someone 5’ 2”.  You decide to recruit people of all different heights ( i.e. family) to take the same picture at the same time and then compare perspectives.  You can’t stop thinking pictures.

You stop one more time on a wide pull-out  because, be honest, it’s hard to pass a pull-out and not stop because if you don’t you’re always fighting the battle with yourself.  Maybe I should have stopped.  Should I go back? What did I miss?

This time, though, you see a dead skunk.  Yes, you actually consider whether or not to take a picture of it.  But then the skunk moves.  It’s alive, and it’s dying.  You know now that taking a picture is completely out of the question.  You watch as the skunk tries to move, raising its head and trying to pull itself forward with front paws.  You realize that its back end is injured, by a car of course (and you fervently hope it wasn’t on purpose), and you watch as that little animal valiantly tries to live while life is slowly ebbing away.

All you can think about on the rest of the drive is that skunk.

Finally you get to Cheryl’s Diner for the cheeseburger you’ve been thinking about.  You leave the camera in the car.  How could you possibly need a photo of Cheryl’s Diner?  (Except that driving home, you wish you had a picture of Cheryl’s Diner for the blog.) After lunch you walk along the Kern River, and now it’s all over.  The photo junkie takes over.

And after that first picture, that first click of the shutter, you’re doomed.  Doomed to take photo after photo of the same thing just in case one is better than the other.  You think, how many river pictures do I need, anyway, as you click away furiously.  You say I absolutely will not take a picture of the sky and clouds because I’m becoming a cloud freak. You say, there might be sky in this picture but really, it’s a picture of the river.  I know people are starting to laugh at me.  My 15-year-old granddaughter texts me when it’s a good sky day.  It’s out of hand.

But, you tell yourself, clouds are like deer.  No matter how many you see, the next one excites you.

So of course you take a picture.

And of course you take more than one.  Because you probably don’t have a picture of the clouds just so.  The shade of the blue sky might be slightly different.  That’s a different pattern.  You’ve never taken that photo that causes everyone to gasp when they see it.  Plus, you haven’t been in National Geographic yet.

You pass some yellow flowers thinking, I don’t think I’ve seen those yet this year.  But I have zillions of flower photos. You stop.

When you get home, the first thing you do is upload your photos.  You can’t wait to see them, although you just finished seeing the real thing.  You scrutinize each one, deciding which ones to discard, and you keep them all.  You just never know…

Yes, you’re a photo junkie, and for the photo junkies out there – you know exactly what I mean.


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The idea: maybe it’s enough


2010
05.17

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The Idea


I need an idea.  I want to write a poem.

To write a poem, ideas must flow like kids on waterslides,

ideas more profound than isn’t the sky beautiful?

or, it’s a good cloud year, isn’t it?

But it has been a good cloud year, a good sky year.

My town, hung over with haze in summer,

cloaked in fog for the cold months,

has skies the size of the ocean

and skies as blue as the sea.

Maybe our skies are the ocean,

our clouds the waves.

We’re living upside-down.

Because my town has skies that billow,

shapes that tease of marshmallows and cream.

My town is in the West.

The West is the best of course.

Nothing interrupts the sky.

Maybe it’s ok to write a poem

about good cloud years and beautiful skies

after all.

Because skies and clouds take you out of yourself

and toss you into nature’s power and beauty.

Maybe that’s enough.


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Elsewhere: Cloudarado, the Final Chapter (for now)


2010
05.14

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Colorado

Never did finish up on my visit.  Took photos of a few neat places in Paonia.  One is the underside of an outside awning on an old building.

The weathered wood has such great colors and textures.  Then add the brick in the next photo.

This next property you can own for $113,000.  For Harry Potter fans out there, the first thing I thought of looking at this was The Burrow.

The Burrow of course would be taller, but still – it’s the first thing I thought of.

If you want a really fine meal or the best cinnamon roll around, go to the Flying Fork.

And what artist wouldn’t want this as a studio?  I would love to be elsewhere when I work.

Remember the start of this visit? Snow, hail, the 50 mph windstorm,  freezing fog? It ended with Steve and Jackie mowing the lawn.

And it ended with dinosaurs.  Karen knows where all the best clearance sales are and I got this at the Walmart in Delta.  It’s amazing and I asked her to buy me one.  She’ll bring it next time she visits Cali.

Jack arranged his smaller dinosaurs in preparation for carnage.

We had one last walk outdoors.  Annabelle and Jackson carried on the motto the Bakersfield Six coined last year – why walk when you can run – uphill?

Cooper, however, is very determined about something.

It wouldn’t be Cloudarado without one final display.

Amazing colors.  And now – for some amazing rays

And now, I am too tired to continue. So say goodbye to Colorado for now.  Tomorrow I’ll bring you the next installment in the Case of the Damaged Toe, the pond and the frog, and my new blog design.

Now, to sleep, hit the hay, slumber, snooze, get 40 winks (why do I only get 40), and all that other sleepy stuff.  Night all.

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The theme is senses, and mine are certainly full; plus I have a studio – finally!


2010
04.22

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Remember Annie’s Song by John Denver?

You fill up my senses
Like a night in a forest
Like a mountain in springtime
Like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert
Like a sleepy blue ocean
You fill up my senses
Come fill me again.

It’s a love song, but as April wanes, so does Creative Every Day’s theme of The Senses.  Nature fills up my senses as well as love – the song is perfect.  Anyone reading these blogs knows I’ve been slightly possessed by clouds this year.  The places clouds can take you! On our drive home from L.A., there were clouds aplenty.

Look at these colors.  From the bluest of blues to the whitest of whites, with shades of gray.  Even some brown. The clouds express such turbulence, but I find them exciting and beautiful. They don’t leave me feeling turbulent, but full of possibility for the unexpected.

As we headed up Interstate 5 and over the summit, we had this view of hills with wildflowers, a cloud sitting on the mountain, and blue skies.  What could we expect?

I was hoping for storm.  I hate missing weather! And during the day, there had been a humdinger of a storm in Bakersfield.  My sister said she walked out of her hair appointment and the skies opened up, negating the effects of the beauty salon.  My daughter said she was on yard duty where she teaches and the sky was blue.  But in the blink of an eye the sky began disgorging buckets of water.  And the wind was ferocious.  So I hoped these clouds spoke of a storm in my near future.

It was looking ominous and hopeful at the same time.  Storm, yes, but driving in the rain? Not so fine.  We, however, were not in control.

Here comes the rain.  Wow.  As we got to the bottom of the hill (I say “hill” but it’s more like a very steep downgrade that has two runaway truck ramps), I saw the most stunning rainbow of my life.

Look closely and you can just see that it’s a double rainbow.  And if you click on the photo to make it bigger, you’ll see that the pot of gold for this rainbow is a patch of pink wildflowers. We pulled off the road as fast as possible so I could get a photo, but it sure doesn’t capture the brilliance of this rainbow.  Talk about filling up senses.

This is the only photo that isn’t “car” photography.  All the others I took from the car.  My husband was driving so it’s not as bad as it sounds.  I love taking photos from the car.  Have to be so fast and sometimes the pictures are better than if you’d taken plenty of time.

I really do feel rapturous when looking at scenes of such great beauty.

And then we passed the other end of the rainbow – obscured by clouds but so intense in color.

I’m thinking, if I’m not careful people are going to start calling me the Cloud Lady.  But look at these – the light on the hills, the rain streaks, a hint of white, and then the layers of gray overlaid with puffs.

Almost home, and this was the most spectacular sky yet.  Wow!!!  As an English teacher, I wouldn’t let kids use more than one exclamation mark per essay, but these clouds deserve at least three.  They look like spooks.

After we got home and unloaded the car, the heavens emptied once more.  How could all that moisture be up there? Rained hard most of the night.  And at our cabin?  Ten more inches of snow.  There’s been so much snow this year we’ve not been able to get to our street.

A new studio

My studio is operational.  Now, for the time to work.  I’m going to Colorado on Tuesday to visit my daughter and family – so will I get anything done before then? Doubtful, but it’s ready when I am.

I have my work table set up, a place for the paper cutter (always hard to devote so much space to the paper cutter but it’s necessary), and even stuff on the walls.  Ok, art, not stuff.  I’m missing the drafting table – no room – so I’ll have to learn not to spread out so much as I work.

A place for my easel.  Technically, it’s William’s easel but the chances of him reclaiming it are slim so I might as well call it mine.

And we bought this nifty bookcase at Ikea for me to store paintings and photos in.  Most of my photos are still at the other house and this’ll fill up pretty quickly, but it’s so much better than what I’d been doing – having framed photos sitting in closets all over the house.  When I needed something I’d have to think – hmm, Altered Landscapes are in the studio, I think Italy is in my bedroom closet, Alaska is in the office cupboard – it wasn’t very efficient.

I should mention in case you are a new reader, that on my web site you can see my art and photographs.  I’ll be adding some new ones soon, as well as more items to my Etsy store.

Finally, my “office” is operational too.  Enough room finally for the computer and printer, the Epson 2200 photo printer, and my flatbed scanner.

So life is good.  My senses are full and not quite as tired as they were.  The worst of the move is over.  We’re not done – still stuff at the other house – but what’s left is mostly my husband’s business:  the garage, his office, etc.  He’s helped me so much that he is much less settled.  I have a pretty special husband.  We’ve been married 41 years – I think I’ll keep him.  He fills up my senses too.


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Big Skies of Bakersfield


2010
04.11

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What do you think of when you hear big sky? Texas jumps into my mind, which would probably make Texans happy.  Texas is the land of everything big.  But this year, 2010, I call Bakersfield the land of Big Skies.  I’ve never seen anything quite like it – for February, March, and the beginning of April, we’ve had one beautiful sky after another.

Here’s one last photo of the sky from my former backyard.  I just can’t get enough of looking at these clouds.  I exclaim over them all day long, to the point that my granddaughter texted me the other day: Gramser, the sky is beautiful.  She and the others may find it amusing, but I’ll bet they take notice of the sky more often than they might have.

Right now at this very moment, it’s raining.  Our Big Sky season is over, and today we had more typical Bakersfield weather – a rip-roarin’ dust storm.  The wind blasted all day – we kept our power but I know there were power outages throughout the city.  The gale blew over my potted ficus – which is huge – and broke the container.  So tomorrow we’ll be replanting.  It needed a bigger pot anyhow.  But now, after dense dust, we have rain.  It’ll rinse out the sky and leave big blobs of dust-mud on the cars, so ironically we will have to hose everything off after the rain.

For now, however, we can feast our eyes on these whipped-cream skies.  Mashed potato skies.   Marshmallow skies.  Cotton candy skies.

I drove around one day to get the sky just outside of the city.  Over our lush farmland.

You all remember Jim Morrison of the Doors, yes?  Morrison said, “The West is the best.”  I’m sure other people have said that also, but not like Jimbo did.  Looking at these skies brought to mind how I felt when we returned to the West after six years in North Carolina and Virginia.  We loved living in those states, and everything was green, green, green.  Beautiful.  But when we came home to the West, we felt like we could breathe again.  It’s all in what you are used to.  I grew up singing, “Give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above, don’t fence me in.” We may not be able to see the stars from Bakersfield, but we have the land.

Soon we’ll have the oppressive, hot, baked days of summer. Those days that seem as if they will never end.  I’m going to try to remember how lucky we were in the Spring this year, with these beautiful skies.

I started with a photo of the sky from our “old” house on the lake.  I’ll end with a couple from our “new” house on the golf course.  We gave up the water, but we got a 180-degree view.

Clouds and blue skies.  Blue skies, smiling on me, nothing but blue skies do I see. That’ll be my motto as we continue the unpacking and arranging from the move. One week today and it’s looking more hopeful.  Life is returning to normal.


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CED2010: Conflagration! Anyone Who Takes Photos, Listen Up!


2010
01.24

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Posted in General, Photography | 8 Comments »

I have been immersed in a photo-organization project for the past week plus.  This is what I feel like I’ve been immersed in:

OK, what this photo really is, is an oil well blowout in Coalinga, CA, in November, 1998, and the reason I can tell you that and show you this photo is because I have been sorting photographs from 1985 to sometime in 2003 when I went digital.  I scanned a few, such as this one, into the computer.  Right now, I think I’ll scream if I look at another photo, and I’m not finished yet.  So listen and learn from my mistakes.  And this post will have something to do with the Creative Every Day January theme of BODY, I promise.

For years, I mean, YEARS, I’ve been thinking that I need to organize the photos, and maybe five years ago I got them into boxes labeled with the year at least.  But then we make photo boards for all kinds of occasions, and after extracting dozens of photos to copy for the boards, I’d just toss them in the closet.  This is what I mean by a photo board – my husband surprised me with this on my 60th birthday.

At Costco recently, I saw nifty containers for storing photos – a plastic case with 12 smaller cases inside.  All acid-free and all that. They look like this.

And this is how many I have filled.

Eleven.  All individual compartments labeled with contents and date, and all cases numbered, and an excel document cataloging what is in each case.  Because if I was going to do this thing, I was going to do it right.

Well.  Do you think I dated any of those photos on the back?  Or wrote what the occasion was? I had to become a detective.  I should have been wearing the Sherlock Holmes hat I bought when I was teaching and wanted to teach students how to investigate a subject.  Alas, I was hatless, but still investigating.  Bless my mother-in-law – SHE dated and labeled photos!  And occasionally she’d give some to us.  So I had to match hairstyles, clothing, etc., to try to figure out what month of what year I was in and who was who.

And do you think I ever threw the bad photos away?  Or the duplicates? There was even a time when developers were giving you triplicates whether you wanted them or not.  Wastebasket after wastebasket-full  went into the trash.

Our Christmas letters were a big help.  Since 1981 I’ve been writing a lengthy Christmas newsletter – it’s grown to 8 pages (two are all photos) in a newsletter format.  They make a great family history.  So I’ve been reading and re-reading – what year was Kim in Annie Get Your Gun?  When did we spend Christmas in Yosemite? You get the idea.

I swear there are photo gnomes rearranging these things when no one is looking.  Today I had a big stack, well, one-inch maybe, of photos in my hand from when I was in Sweet Charity and Finnian’s Rainbow.  I can’t tell you the years because I hadn’t gotten that far.  I put them down, did something else, turned back, and they had vanished.  I backtracked and they are just plain nowhere.  I really hope they aren’t in the trash.  Those gnomes have been wreaking havoc in the boxes in the closet, too.  Somehow the wrong years had gotten into the wrong boxes and the wrong photos had gotten into the wrong envelopes.  And sometimes the negatives don’t even match with the photos!

Finally, I said ENOUGH!  I’m done for now.  I have a stack of photos about 15″ long still to sort, but they are going to have to wait.  I am photoed out.  I’ll do them within the next few weeks, however, because all those plastic containers are staying on the bedroom floor until I am done.  And all I can say is my kids better appreciate this and be interested in family history some day!

LESSON: and this goes for print as well as digital – date, label, and organize. DLO. D-LO.  However you want to say it, just do it.  This has been consuming me – I haven’t journaled, read, done any art, nothing.  Well, ok, I have done some bike rides (the rainbow blog) and the Martin Luther King breakfast (the Fannie Lou Hamer blog), and the Shadow art journal page, etc. but I haven’t read other people’s blogs nor commented.  I didn’t even watch American Idol!

I’m going away.  Really, I am – going up to the cabin on Tuesday to spend five days all alone thinking and doing other things.  Writing, art, reading, guitar hero, or nothing.  They’ll be so much snow I’ll be cabin-bound but that’s ok.  I’ll miss Adam Lambert on Ellen but we’ll Tivo.  My husband is going to drive me up because try as I may, I can’t get chains on the car myself.

I wrote an article on eHow that may help you if you aren’t sure how to organize digital photos.  I almost got in trouble there too, but luckily I wised up before I had too many years to sort out.  That was its own nightmare.

Consolation:  we’ve had beautiful skies the last couple of days.  I’m sorting by the balcony so I can look out and see the lake, ducks (we had some cormorants today), and clouds.  This was yesterday.

Just mesmerizing.  I could watch clouds all day.

We get these beautiful skies in January and February – that’s all.  So I cant’ stop looking.  And today, when driving out to visit my parents, I backtracked to take a photo of this building.  It’s an old Quonset hut I pass all the time, but there’s been so much rain this week that there was a wonderful reflection.

Remember, always have your camera with you so you can take advantage of unexpected moments.

So I promised I’d relate this post to the CED January theme – Body.  It’s about your body of work.  One of the most important bodies you have.  Whether you are an artist, photographer, writer, collector, whatever it is you do – keep it in order!  I’m going to upload some new photos to my website this week so my BODY of work will be more complete.  I know what’ll happen if I wait too long.

So – happy organizing!

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#CED2010 I’ve Looked at Clouds from Both Sides Now


2010
01.18

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Posted in General, Photography | 1 Comment »

We had a storm!  In Bakersfield!  At least we had weather that qualifies as a storm here.  And more expected this week.  I was inside most of the day for the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Breakfast and then the Community Luncheon, with two former students (one my granddaughter) who were part of the program.  No windows! That’s ok since we looked through windows into the soul.

Allie and Ali – the Ali on the right is my Ali.

But when we got outside the wind was whipping and then the rain came in a deluge.  Ali, my 15-year-old granddaughter asked, “Is this a storm?” That’s how deprived we are weather-wise in Bakersfield.  Yes, it was a storm.  And the clouds were astounding.  So this post is about clouds – photos of clouds – which hint at the January theme of bodies.  Clouds are such amorphous bodies – elusive, constantly changing, mysterious.  Today, the clouds were like none I’d seen before.

I’ve got to quit doing this – taking photos when I’m driving.  But how could I pass up those puffy little scallops?  And without thinking I began to sing the Judy Collins song Both Sides Now.

Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere, I’ve looked at clouds that way.
But now they only block the sun they rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done, but clouds got in my way.

So I wondered, in this cloud are puffy little scallops drifting out into the more dispersed cloud?  Or – is the more dispersed cloud converging into puffy scallops?

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s cloud’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all.

Wow.  Again , taken while driving.  I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now…I really don’t know clouds at all.  Isn’t that a great metaphor for the futility of trying to understand certain things?  In the literal sense of clouds, it doesn’t matter what I understand.  They are just plain gorgeous to contemplate.  In the more abstract sense, maybe there are things about life that we really don’t have to understand.  They just are.  Or things about our bodies that we just have to accept.  We are who we are.  And as Martin Luther King Jr. said, it’s the content of our character that counts.

Now these are just downright amazing.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen clouds quite like these.  They make me think of being pulled into the maelstrom.  Or the tension and excitement of the unknown, like in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  Writing this reminds me that I have a college named Into the Maelstrom that isn’t on my art gallery. I have some work to do to catch the web page up!

These clouds are worth a second look.  Of course, they are being whipped around by the wind and by turbulence.  The wind had it’s way.

Trees were felled all over the city.  This is a block away from us.

This large established tree was felled on a busy street.  Luckily, because of the holiday, traffic was light.  A Kern County man was not so lucky and tragically lost his life when a tree fell on him, or his roof rather, as he was sleeping.  Mother Nature is capricious and arbitrary and there’s no way to know when you might become the victim of very bad luck.

Back home, our boat had not fared too well.  One of the biminis, or covers, was shredded by the wind.

A bimini isn’t anything compared to a life, though. How does one come to terms with a life cut short so arbitrarily by a fallen tree?

Right now, looking out from the balcony, the sky is lovely – a lull between storms.  But water in the lake is already getting high.  The end of the lake in the next photo usually has a wooden barrier visible between the lake and the little drainage area.  Not  now.

So I eagerly anticipate the weather of the next few days as I ponder the “unknowability” of clouds.  (Sometimes a made-up word works best.) And I’m still thinking of other verses of the song.

I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life at all.