Green Radiance

Blondie

Does he know his roots?

Urban tribesmen, by Mike Shell
Five Points in Jacksonville, FL

Padong Seamstress, by Phil Decocco
Northern Thailand, near Chiang Mai

Unidentified flying...uh...spoons

Waves

—A view from the Blue Ridge Parkway

Rainstorm notations

Florida is continuing to have weird weather—as is the rest of the world—but DON'T say climate change!

When Jim and I moved from SC to FL in 2000, that first winter was so cold in our beautiful yet poorly insulated 1917 duplex that we had to close off the bedroom at night and keep the cat with us to stay warm.

Now we get a few cold days of winter—and my brother in Western Massachusetts had almost no snow—almost none, that is, after the powerful nor'easter in late October in which three people died and at least 700,000 lost power.

We have also noticed in recent years that the first sign of spring in Northeast Florida is the smell of smoke. That's because GA and FL are in an ongoing drought, and the water levels in the Okefenokee Swamp and the Everglades are too low to stop Florida wildfires from lightning-strikes and other causes.

(Florida is developing itself to death...but DON'T say climate change.)

Finally, it's normal in NE Florida to have late winter through spring temperature swings from the 50s to the 80s or 90s and back, but this week is a bit late for a drop back to the 60s (comfortable as that is).

In any case, we had lots of welcome rain in the last few weeks, and there was a nice overnight storm leading up to Sunday, April 1st.

The rain left this interesting though cryptic message on the back stoop where I sometimes spend my time off.

And so it is.

Blessèd be,
Michael

---

A friend of mine who is a former Floridian sent me the following testimony:

We arrived in Florida in 1978, and I can tell you—the climate has changed indeed. It used to rain every afternoon—rain that was much needed in a subtropical area....

Florida [had] a delicate ecosystem, and really wasn't designed for human habitation..., because it originally consisted of a sultry, humid swamp. It was so hostile to human habitation that Native Americans fled to Florida to evade the white man's onslaught....

[But Florida had] a wonderful system devised by nature itself. Lake Okeechobee and that "River of Grass," the Everglades, would evaporate to a certain extent, giving off enough moisture to form rain clouds that would gather and flow up north where the rains would fill the rivers, which in turn would flow south to refill Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades.

The aquifers served as a natural filter. You couldn't get any better system of potable water than that.

Until development reared its ugly head [and] Jeb Bush took the reins, destroying this beautiful ecosystem with his massive, uncontrolled development, including highway construction.

Now a land that was once a swamp, is becoming a desert, plagued by wild fires. And potable water is so scarce, Tampa has to use desalinated water from its expensive desalination plant it built on the Gulf of Mexico.

Ah, civilization!

Approaching First Quarter

Sunday afternoon, around 2 pm, I was playing with my camera in the neighborhood and saw this:

The branches around the moon are filled with maple keys.

Yes, in January. Florida, remember?

My territory

The Selma Street cats don't usually let me photograph them, but last weekend this one—after first jumping up and walking away—turned, sat and gave me "the look."

If you take a look at my Cats collection on RedBubble, you'll see his two brothers and three of his neighbors.

A nice day for cats.

Hope...

...for the New Year.

Belly rub. Now.

No comment.

Incognito-ish

"Peek...."

First lights

Since Jim and I moved to Florida eleven years ago, we have been intrigued by the way Xmas seems to start earlier each year. By now, it seems, Xmas begins the day after Hallowe'en.

Granted, our sweet next door neighbors did, in fact, wait until December to put up their lights.

Blessèd be,
Michael

Feline thespians

Yep. These two definitely know how to project a role.

I’m so cute

I’m so grand

And so it is.

Blessèd be,
Michael

Shady cats

This is a common evening spot for both of these kids.

Blessèd Be,
Michael

Twenty-six years

JimJim rarely lets me take portrait photographs, but I managed to get this one.

Warm hands.

Did someone say "Vet"?

Shadow and Sonic become suspicious whenever both of us are home in the morning....
 

It was a false alarm.

Blessèd Be.

Photography on RedBubble

Crippled Wolf is a tyro with the camera. However, he's been taking pictures in his head for 40-50 years, so he has decided he should try showing someone else what he sees.

To do this he has created an account on RedBubble, a "marketplace, meeting place and learning place of people, art and writing from all over the place." The new slideshow under the Photography heading on the Walhydra's Porch sidebar introduces the few images Crippled Wolf has posted on RedBubble so far.

Actually, Crippled Wolf started taking pictures back in fifth grade, using a little Kodak Brownie. He still has the little wood-bound photo album, filled with carefully mounted and labeled photos like these:

When he looks at these pictures now, Crippled Wolf is first amused and then smitten by memory. So strange that one can travel in time so easily.

Ages later, in the late 1980s, using an old Nikon he bought from a friend, Crippled Wolf took a darkroom course. (You know, where you actually develop film in baths of chemicals and mess with burning and dodging?)

Here is his best image, one of a gorgeous, mysterious stranger (who happens still to be his hubby 22 years later).


Still ages later, Crippled Wolf now uses a baby Canon.

He actually bought this toy in order to take pictures of the mold which had grown on the bedroom and closet walls in the rental home he shares with JimJim. That forensic evidence successfully convinced their...how shall we say?...frugal landlady that she should actually hire a real contractor to do repairs. The bonus was the pocket-sized, digital point-and-shoot.

As he does on many birthdays, Crippled Wolf went for a day of solo hiking again this year, this time to a place he'd just learned of after eleven years in Jacksonville, the Jacksonville Arboretum and Gardens.

Lots of experimental shots of lots of plants, trees, stones, etc. Lots of duplicate shots to play around with composition and natural light. Several dozen photos—most of which he has deleted (digital is handy for that)—and a handful he feels good enough about to post to RedBubble.

Here is Crippled Wolf's favorite:

More to come.

Blessèd be.

All you can eat

Walhydra was at loose ends on Memorial Day, because Hubby Jim was (as usual) using a day off to...um...work as much as usual.

To his credit, she admits, JimJim has been pushing himself intensely for several years now in order to get the research grants and publish the research papers which will allow him—they both hope—to rise above the Slough of Despond, otherwise known as "teaching freshman statistics to root vegetables."

But, still...another long weekend of being a faculty "widow." Ah, well....

So, early that Monday afternoon, Walhydra decided that she would head out to her favorite place for grounding with nature, the Timucuan Ecological and Historical Preserve on Fort George Island.

She discovered this marvelous place about a decade ago, one summer day when she was desparately in need of...well, if you must know... someplace to be skyclad outdoors, away from people and work and the city.

This out-of-the way island of live oaks, magnolias, pines, marsh grass and hiking trails suits fairly well, though it isn't quite as imposing or remote from residents and visitors as her old South Carolina escape, the Congaree Swamp, with its giant lob lolly pines and wide, slow river and ponds.

As a plus, though, Timucuan delights Walhydra's bright naturalist nephew with its giant banana spider webs, hung from pine tree to pine tree, and its huge burrowing gopher turtles.

Actually, on this particular holiday, Walhydra did not intend to go skyclad. In fact, she wore long sleeves and cargo pants, so that she could carry her toy Canon and make a stab at doing nature photography.

Her first objective was a "hidden" pond she has found, away from the paths and through a pine woods full of—you guessed it—banana spider webs. She knew that blue herons and kingfishers and egrets often gathered there, and she hoped to try out her camera on them.

Unfortunately, by the end of May, the overgrowth around the pond was so thick that she couldn't get down to its banks before the birds had all heard her and flown away.

She did manage a few shots of those water plants who could not flee her clumsiness. A little disappointing, but at least a start.

Next Walhydra wandered among the live oaks, her favorite friends. Long before Crow and Wolf became totems for her, trees spoke powerfully to Walhydra. The dance of their branches as she walks by stirs a sympathetic rhythm within her, and embracing them is like embracing the veins of the earth.

Of course, in the mundane world of two-dimensional photography, Walhydra is still such a tyro that she doesn't yet know how to capture the visual depth and rhythms she sees. Something to aspire to, though this image gives merely a hint.

Walhydra's best luck came when she decided to sit down in the scattered oak and magnolia leaves and to focus her Canon on the details. Complex patterns in nature have always been the most fascinating to her. Again, it's partly the intricacy of visual rhythms. She loves to "read the score" as her eye moves across such patterns, feeling the music inside.

For this reason, when Walhydra sat down cross-legged on the warm forest floor, her eye was immediately drawn to the overlapping patterns of leaves and shadows on the ground.

This is what Walhydra loves and wants to share, what she longs to be able to portray more richly. The image above is at least a start...though she doesn't quite feel in it the magic of that moment when she first saw the fern shadow.

In any case, the expedition was a success, in the sense that Walhydra returned to town renewed and ready...well, not really...to return to work after the holiday weekend.

Until Tuesday afternoon. When her ankles began to itch. And her shins. And the backs of her knees. And....

A little eyeballing revealed that Walhydra was covered with dozens of what looked like bug bites.

"Oy! I don't remember feeling anything biting me," she said.

The itching wasn't uncomfortable, so she feigned Buddhist equanimity ("Damned bugs!") and went back to work. That night, calamine lotion made no difference in the itching.

By Wednesday afternoon, the spots were raised and larger and itching more, so Walhydra decided to go to the doctor...just in case....

Here's where the rant comes in.

(The faithful reader, one assumes, was wondering when the rant would come in.)

For almost a decade, Walhydra has been going to an excellent Advanced Practice Registered Nurse in her GP's office, a cheery guy named Matt. Matt is not only open to real conversation about symptoms, differential diagnosis and treatment options, he is very comfortable talking about the medically relevant aspects of a long-term gay marriage.

Unfortunately, last month Matt moved to Florida's Gulf coast. He and his wife, who both grew up on farms, recently adopted five brothers, and they wanted to give them the blessing of country life. Matt had finally found a farm and an APRN practice. Wonderful for him, of course, but it left Walhydra with....

...maybe she should just call him "Dr. X," since he ought to be ashamed to be identified.

From the start, Dr. X seemed bored.

He didn't seem interested in even looking at Walhdyra's spots. When she began sharing details—where she had been, what she had done, what it might be—Dr. X hummed and hawwed. Instead, he started running through his own checklist of symptoms and possible causes, as if she hadn't even told him anything.

This was annoying, but since Walhydra had already decided to find a different clinic now that Matt was gone, she put up with it.

Then Dr. X glanced at Walhydra's chart.

"Oh. How recently have you had an HIV test?" he asked. "Given your life style...."

Wrong!

"I don't need an HIV test. I was negative ten years ago, and neither of us have outside partners."

Unperturbed, Dr. X ploughed ahead. Before long he said life style again.

Walhydra interrupted.

"Just a moment, Doctor. You keep using that phrase 'life style.' This is not a life style. This is a twenty-six-year long gay marriage."

"Marriage. Is that what it's called? Are you sure that...?"

Walhydra became very cool.

"We've been a married couple since 1985. It's not an issue."

"Well, this sort of thing could have come from some sort of 'exposure' to STDs, maybe a hotel room you 'stayed in' for one night."

The session was over, as far as Walhydra was concerned, except that she did want medical treatment.

Things degenerated quickly. Dr. X's prescribed Prednisone and Hydroxyzine for generic "exposure dermatitis," told Walhdyra to come back in a week, and muttered something about further testing if the "rash" didn't go away.

Walhydra drove off, fuming.

"If I could write scrips, I could have picked out those two drugs myself.

"What! Does he think Kaposi's sarcoma can pop up overnight...a quarter of a century after exposure?

"What an A-hole!"

The meds worked, fortunately, and Walhydra got a lot of mileage out of ranting about Dr. X.

Then, on Friday afternoon, drinking beer in the front yard of her best buddy neighbors, the pest control guy and his wife, she rolled up her pants leg to show them the bites. Now no longer itching, but large and bright red.

"Chiggers!" Mr. Pest Control said immediately.

Walhydra slapped her forehead.

"Oh, course! I didn't think of that. I haven't dealt with chiggers since my childhood in Ohio...way back in another century."

"They love Spanish moss."

"Duh! I was sitting in dead leaves and Spanish moss for almost hour."

"Well, that explains it," Mrs. Pest Control chimed in. "They definitely made a buffet of you."

Walhydra nodded ruefully.

"Yeah, an all-you-can-eat buffet."

And so it is.

Blessèd Be.

I need this....

Art & photography

Walhydra has occasionally added links to her sidebar without really writing anything about them.

Here are a few she thinks the gentle reader might find interesting.

crackskullbob.squarespace.com

Just the name itself is worth a visit, but Ruben Fletcher does great sketches, too, like this one.

"They might be three generations, or three friends, or three strangers. I like not knowing. It brings me into the process. It makes me look harder."

Walhydra recommends exploring this site at length, including the links to Sketchers and Other Artistes. Beautiful sketch work...and a marvelous, dry sense of humor.

Keith Lanpher Photography

CrackSkullBob's site led Walhydra to Keith Lanpher's photography. A wide range of topics. Nice work.

"Yesterday I had a late afternoon shoot on Wallops Island, a beautiful little place on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. I was shooting a portrait for magazine from a tower and after I finished I couldn’t help but point the camera towards some of the winter scenery."

"Made this picture a couple years ago in Portsmouth. I get the concept, but it still seems a little odd."

"I was dog walking recently and found this foggy view in an area near my house called The Hague. Nice the duck cooperated with the composition. I know this is a bit of an idyllic post card image, but that’s what was there, and what’s there not to quietly appreciate?"

Feathers, Geodes, & Old Lace

A beautiful array of image, quotations, found objects, etc. Erica W. Adams has this quotation on her blog profile:

"We must strive moment to moment to practice a taxonomy of different forms of understanding, different forms of change, dependent perhaps upon resemblance and seeming substitutability-- figuration-- rather than on the self-identical category of truth." Gayatri Spivak, Feminism and Critical Theory

There's more...explore.

And so it is.

Blessèd Be.

Oy! Walhydra just had to conk herself on the head, because she forgot to include her best and longest-known Virgo friend, journalist, photographer and computer guru Jay Gross, and his Foto Artista site (and colleagues).

Walhydra wouldn't be Walhydra without Jay's inspiration. (Um...that's meant as a compliment, Jay, in case you were wondering.)


Walhydra and Jay also share in the ancient art of delighting in cats and yums.