A Gift

A Gift

It’s amazing how much more wildlife you can see in the forest if you just sit still for a while. Yesterday while sitting watching the salmon spawn in the creek the bird life seemed to just appear out of no where. A flock of Chestnut Backed Chickadees and some other small birds began feeding on seeds and sprouts low to the ground around me. One bold Chickadee landed on a Bracken Fern right in front of me. Far too close for my camera to focus.
A few moments later a Song Sparrow began scavenging the cattails along the opposite bank of the creek from where I was sitting. This went on for about fifteen minutes before the flock moved on down the creek. Later a Sharp Shinned Hawk swept through looking for its meal. It caught me totally off guard with only the time to enjoy its swift flight forgetting all about my camera. A nice quiet moment spent in the forest.

God’s love and blessings to all,

chris

The Run is On!

While walking the creek with Lenore yesterday we discovered that the Chinook salmon Run is on. Lenore stated that she thought she heard a splash down stream. As were we walking down to the next riffle I saw a pretty good sized salmon fight its way up the riffle and into the pool. A closer inspection let us see that there were quite a few salmon in the pool. We sat and watched them for awhile. Two larger females would drift into the riffle then turn on their sides and then by splashing their tails clear out a small depression (or redd) to lay their eggs into.
This morning I went back down to the creek and sat on the bank just above the salmon. It was a lot of fun to watch them in action and try to create some interesting images of them in action. It is truly amazing to see such a large fish in such a small creek.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

St. Francis Castle or Redwoods in the Fog

This morning the Little Lake Valley was awash deep in fog. Below me appearing out of the fading fog was the huge flat topped Redwood on the old St. Francis Ranch. It is almost always the first tree to pop up out of the fading mirk. The fog would shift in and out and up and down sometimes completely covering the tree back up. I decided this morning to call that group of trees the St. Francis Castle. It has always reminded me of a castle tower so this morning I made it official.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

A Little Ice and Frost

Yesterday it spit rain and snow off and on all day. Today the dawn came clear and cold. Perfect conditions for frost and frozen puddles. Lenore and I went for a short walk along Willits Creek and there was plenty of subject matter to create images from. Afterwards I found a few more things to look at with my camera in the back yard.

God's blessings to all,

chris

Recycling

I made a dump/recycling run today. As always I had my camera along. When I was dropping off my recycling I was totally amazed at the amount of electronics being recycled. Wow! Just an incredibly huge pile of of computers,printers,fax machines and microwaves. The pile made some good stock images to add to my collection. What was even more amazing is that there is an entirely separate recycling bin for electronics with screens like monitors and televisions.( I see one television that was put in the wrong bin) I live in a small town of about five thousand people. So I can't imagine how much stuff gets tossed in a major city.

God's blessings to all,

chris

Tripping Out

We traveled to Eureka, CA before Thanksgiving to do some shopping. The drive up was a mix of rain and sunshine. Incredible fall colors beckoning around every corner. We stopped in Garberville to have lunch at the Eel River Cafe. Excellent food except it is now closed on Mondays. Ouch! We settled for the Calico Cafe. The food was decent. Afterwards we perused Brown's Sporting Goods. A great little shop that is a throwback in time. Most of the rest of the trip consisted of rain and overcast with the sun making a few appearances.

We stayed at a hotel next to the Bayshore Mall so we could make shopping forays out into the mall whenever we felt the urge. I like photographing in the marshland behind the mall but the weather was not cooperative being very cold, rainy and windy.
Not much to photograph so I created quite a few abstracts of the rain.

On our final day the sun came out for a beautiful drive home. We stopped at Piersons Hardware to check out there incredible Christmas display. Our drive home into Willits was interrupted by a massive backup. Luckily we joined the other locals in going around it through the Little Lake Valley. A propane truck hit a pick up head on on the South side of Willits causing traffic to be blocked up in both directions for hours and hours.

A nice short vacation.

God's blessings to all,

chris

From Winter White to Wine

This morning dawned bright and beautiful with about three inches of white snow on the ground around our house. It was a wonderful sight to awaken to. I had hoped for more snow so I could do a little deer and turkey photography in the snow. The key problem here is that we are one of the highest ridges around here so areas below us don't tend to get as much snow.

Lenore and I went to early church and listened to a great sermon on being thankful. Following that we headed to Redwood Valley to do some wine tasting. They were holding an event called "A Taste of Redwwod Valley". Talk about something to be thankful for!
The tasting is put on annually by nine listed wineries in Redwood valley. Wine tasting there is a lot of fun. It's how wine tasting used to be in Napa Valley before it got to big for itself. The smaller wineries set up temporary tasting rooms in their warehouses and offices. There are great snacks and no fees to pay for flights and the people are really friendly. Plus they offer a 35 percent discount during the tasting.One of the only things required of you is that you bring your own glass frowm home.

The day was really beautiful with a mixture of sun and clouds. The vineyards were in full fall color and we were constantly oooing and ahhhing at the various vineyards as we rolled on by.We saw the cutest puppy at the Graziano family winery. I was the DD for the day so I only did tasting at one winery and as it turned out it was one of the best. On our second stop we went to Robin Germain which is distillery. they make brandies,whiskeys and liquours plus a few other things. The tasting was held in the distillery itself and it was so cool to watch the still in operation as we tasted. I first tried the Grappa. Wow! That stuff will knock your socks off. My favorite was one of the last things we tasted and it was a Raspberry liquor.

Lenore and I had a wonderful time together.

God's blessings to all,

chris

Sunset Over Three Chop Ridge

Don't you just love the colloquial names that you find as you travel around the world. Locals or explorers come up with some interesting names for some of the geographic features they discover. Sometimes they are just references to female anatomy from male horomones too long without a woman. The Grande Tetons is the best example of that. Other times they are simply named after an animal they may have encountered there. Such as Skunk Hollow or Raccoon Straits. Some areas are named after events that occurred there such the Donner Pass where some members of the Donner party perished.



Locally we have a ridgetop to the west of us called "Three Chop Ridge". A bit of local lore has it that it was named for the fact that it was once covered in small trees that only took three chops of a lumberman's ax to fell them. I'm not sure if that's the case or not but the lighting at sunset over Three Chop Ridge was pretty spectacular yesterday evening. I'm sure you will agree.

God's blessings to all,

chris

Marble Meteor (View Large)

Blowtorch. Check. Safety goggles. Check. Area cleared of flammables . Check. Fire Extinguisher. Check. It sure doesn't sound like your normal photo session. Last night while lying in bed I came up with an idea for an image. I wanted to create a marble meteor using a marble and a blow torch.

This morning after dropping Jay and Annika at school I set to work. Using a boom I hung a marble on black wire in front of a black back drop. Lighting the torch I then applied the flame slowly to the marble to keep it from exploding from thermal shock. After that it was just a matter of finding the correct exposure to properly illuminate the marble being fired up by the blow torch.
Following that I combined the image with several other images of marbles that I have created. I had a lot of fun creating this image. It is beautiful and it has some whimsy to it.

Please let me know that you think of the image in the comment section below.

God's blessings to all,

chris

Mushroom Time

It is that time of year again where fungi start popping up everywhere. Typically fungi starts in the low valleys and creeks and then it moves upward in elevation as the winter progresses. That is just generality as there are a lot of species that buck that trend. This morning in my walk along the creek I also stopped and did a little fungi photography. There were many different kinds to be had. I'm no expert when it comes to fungi. I just like to photograph them. here are a few from todays outing.

God's blessings to all,

chris