Day 86 – Two Forests

March 5, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

“This is your gift today.” My husband, David, points out the beauty of our winter wonderland backyard—our own small forest. Although I do not like people telling me what I am seeing and what I should do, I have to admit that he has led me to some new ways of seeing, though most of them rather wacky such as riding a Sinclair station dinosaur.  

Yes, I agree that it is beautiful. We bought our house because of the wooded backyard area. There really is something magical when it is covered in snow like today, with snow clinging to every branch and twig. Each year I try to capture that magic with a lens but have been unsuccessful.  Maybe it’s like trying to photograph the Grand Canyon. There’s a feeling when you stand in awe of the Grand Canyon and the lens just does not do it justice. When I cannot define a feeling, then I cannot communicate it visually.

Today I captured a different winter wonderland with my lens, the kind that I love to explore and that is easy to miss—ice crystals on a window. That too is magic and difficult to capture. I have always loved to stop and look at tiny worlds that people pass by. In a way, the icy window resembles a tiny forest.

Two points of view, two different ways of seeing things—I’m glad that we all don’t see things in the same way. There are enough forests for millions of eyes.

My gift today is a miniature ice forest.

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> DAY 87 Hurling Stones

You can read my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 74 – Through the Glass

February 21, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

Just one minute of cold wind exposure to my hands this morning at our community beach convinced me that I would not be doing a photo safari today.  It is impossible to hold the camera and release the shutter with mittens on and my exposed fingers, even for such a brief time, quickly began to hurt from the cold. I had gone to Gray’s Creek with my camera to check how frozen it was. Around 1983, the creek had frozen solid enough for ice-skating and a VW towing a picnic table on the ice. Today the cold was brutal so I decided any photographs would be from the inside looking out.

With the television turned off, I sat in my kitchen, looking out through a mostly clean window for a nearly an hour, and watched our backyard birds vying for position on one of the feeders. They perched on the porch railing or the edge of the house roof or the top of the feeder stand. I couldn't quite figure out the pecking order but the dark-eyed juncos seemed to wield the most power.

While snowflakes dotted the landscape, I watched as a dark-eyed junco and a white-throated sparrow perched on the railing, almost like neighbors talking in a backyard. The white-throated sparrows I saw were the tan-striped variety rather than the white-striped. Interesting notes: (1) the white-striped adults tend to mate with the tan-striped birds; white- and tan-striped males and white-striped females sing, but tan-striped females do not. I guess they are the introverts of the white-throated sparrows.

My gift today was bird-a-vision.

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> DAY 75 Tire Tracks

You can read my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html

Day 28 – Opening

January 6, 2015

(This is part of a 365 project during my 70th year where I write and illustrate a blog on each day's gift.)

The forecast last night was for snow and, right on time, it came while I was deep in sleep, oblivious to the wonder that surrounded my house. As the sun rose, I am sure that inside other houses, children were shouting “No school today! Hooray!” Actually, I used to mumble these words and return to sleep when I was a middle school teacher. This morning, I did not go back to sleep because I wanted to stand at my kitchen door and experience with all my senses what was in front of me.

I opened the door to feel the cold on my warm skin…

…and I opened my eyes to the streaking snow in front of me…

…and I opened my ears to the muffled sounds of hungry birds…

…and I breathed in the scent of neighbor’s fireplaces burning oak logs…

…and I stuck out my tongue to taste a snowflake.

Then I took a picture not of the beauty of the snow on the holly trees in my yard but of the texture that whirled before me.

All of my senses wove themselves together in the morning moment, giving me an experience of being. I felt alive. When I open all my senses to feeling, I become part of the texture of life.

Today’s gift was texture.

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> DAY 29 Hands Off

You can read my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html