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Strange Days

Strange shadows on the sidewalk during a solar eclipse

I saw crabs climbing a sandy beach in the shadow of palm trees, even though I knew, with some certainty, that I stood atop a sidewalk beneath large oak trees. And yet it seemed to me dark, though nearly mid-day, as though the sun hid behind the moon. It soon fled, my confusion, and took the darkness with it.

Every Day a Blessing

Our cat Scout sleeps on the guest bed

You never know how long the things you love will be a part of your life, so I try to count each day spent with them a blessing. I took this picture of Scout in September 2012 as she slept in front of the window of the guest bedroom, having no way of knowing that exactly five months later we’d spend the day, her last day, across the hall in the main bedroom as cancer took her from us. I’m close to all our pets but even so Scout and I had a special bond and she truly was a blessing for each day of the almost twelve years we shared together. Always loved and always missed.

Seabirds

Patterns in shadows created by the crescent shape of the sun from the 2017 solar eclipse

I expected to enjoy the solar eclipse but was surprised by just how much I enjoyed it, even though we didn’t have a total eclipse from where I work in Beaverton. I thought it would get darker than it did given the near totality, but even the little sliver of sun still left plenty of light, even if things did look a little odd. Normally when the light levels are that low, the sun is either low in the sky with warm light and long shadows, or completely out-of-sight with cool light and no shadows. But this morning everything just got dim. I hadn’t read up on the eclipse, thinking that it was just going to get dark, so I was caught off guard by the shadows. I loved both their crescent shape and their hard edges so I spent more time watching the shadows at my feet than the shrinking sun itself, looking for patterns created by the light filtering through the trees.

Thankfully I brought my camera to work even though I wasn’t planning on photographing the eclipse itself, the Sony A6500 camera and Sony Zeiss 16-70mm zoom lens are small enough that I tossed them in my laptop bag this morning just in case there was anything interesting to photograph. So you’ll have to put up with some abstracts of shadows over the coming days, some in deep shadows like this one (the combined crescents reminded me of seabirds flying above the beach) as well as some more open shadows where there is less contrast between light and dark and more warmth in the shadows.

Fish Heads, Fish Heads

A great blue heron holds a fish head in its beak

Great blue herons normally swallow their prey whole, I believe this fish head came courtesy of a family of river otters I had seen moving through shortly before. Although effective hunters themselves, I’ve seen herons shadow otters before to try for scraps from the on-the-move otters (and seen otters make feints towards the herons if they think they’re getting too close and might grab more than just leftovers).