Piles of Wood Chips Are Like Ant Hills

After some headway to remove all the down branches and massive hundred-year old oaks and cottonwoods that were felled by the storm on June 9th, the landscape is now more open and forever changed. What is the noticeable difference at first is the mounds of wood chips left from branches and limbs and broken branches that were left handing from some of the trees up top. That twisting where trunks were splintered and broken off completely started at about 30 feet. Never-the-less, the parks and recreation crew have done an amazing job with clean up and the park is beginning to return to normal less about 60 big majestic trees that are still around in sawdust and wood chips. Life goes on!

The National Weather Service did investigate a possible fourth location to determine if there was only straight line winds or a tornado that caused damage. And---the results were determined that indeed, a fourth tornado had touched down. Of course the difference between a funnel cloud and a tornado is  the point at which that funnel cloud in the air does, in fact, touch ground, thus making it a tornado and no longer just a funnel cloud.

And---as I still say from compass headings of tree stumps ranging from 060 to 330 degrees at the park, that a EF0 tornado could have caused some of the damage in the Old Lake Highlands, Casa Linda and Lakewood areas. I am not a weatherman, nor do I hold out to be one, but I have been raised to watch, observe and learn what weather can teach you. I would hate to tell you how many times growing up when I was pulled out of bed during the night and loaded into the car as we raced five miles to my grandfathers farm where he had a massive storm cellar. Mom was afraid of storms having lived through a couple of tornadoes herself.

I was away at college the last time she narrowly missed a Palm Sunday tornado when we lived in the  Great Lakes area. That tornado missed our house by a margin of two city blocks. Later, the duplex I lived out of school had been on that same path of the storm, I could still find shards of glass and tile stuck in some of the rafters of that house's attic 5 years later. That duplex was only a mile from mom and dad's house that was missed in that Palm Sunday tornado.  By-the-way, that same storm did hit the house of our local CBS-TV weatherman who lived on the street two blocks from mom and dad's.

The point is---you learn about weather. It can save your life. You never take weather for granted.

Swallowtail Butterfly on Dill

Beauty on the wing

Great White Egret Fishing in a Reed Bed

Mother Nature Put The Breaks On Spring.

Spring is popping out all over. Trees are blooming, daffodils are blooming, flowers are blooming and tree buds are popping, some with full green leaves open already. Yesterday was in the 80s; today was in the mid 70s. A cold front finally decided which way it was going to have forward motion after it stalled then moved south a few miles then stalled. When I came in around mid afternoon, it was warm. By dinner time it was cold with nearly a thirty degree spread in temps.That kind of spring should be expected with the off-the-wall weather we have been having this year.


It's going to slow down spring for sure but it's not enough to stop it all together. There are more spring issues to deal with. For one, towns and cities around the metroplex are in their annual  rush to shoo-off the great white egrets before the big birds nest. If communities can't get rid of the birds before they do nest, then the birds are off limits completely while they nest and cover yards, sidewalks, rooftops and streets with their smelly droppings. You see, the big birds are Federally protected once they do settle into their nest. So neighborhoods are blowing horns, whistles, watering them down when they are in the trees ( I think that one is somewhat comical because the birds are "waterfowl" folks, they fish in water, waterfalls, stand on one leg and sleep in rain storms. A water hose isn't going to get the job done.). The pelicans will soon be getting ready to leave for their nesting sites from Salt Lake all across the northern states that border with Canada. It will be interesting to see when they leave this year because the snow pack on both sides of the Rockies is massive this year.

Today, I added another new item seen at White Rock. There is always something new at the lake. That just amplifies the mystic of the lake. This Hookah was being worked on by a man who have just  had the pipe come to him from a friend that was visiting family in Iran. The glass base is absolutely awesome in craftmanship as is the woodworking on the pieces that rise above the top of the glass base. I love both glass work and hand carvings of wood, so when I saw this, I had to have an image. The man was kind to afford me the opportunity to shoot the piece.

The Pelicans Dominate the Waterfowl at the lake for a variety of reasons, the least of which is that they have the second largest wing spand at 8 feet.

The ground cover in the wetlands were totally under water two weeks ago.

Fishing Was So Good, I Went Back A Second Day

It seems amazing to watch a cormorant dive for fish, but they have been doing that for thousands of years. In Southeast Asia, fisherman train them to bring up fish to the boat. They have a cord around the cormorants neck so that a fish cannot be swallowed while they are working!

Anyway, with the heavy rains of the past, the tidal pool is full of fish that came over the dam and down the spillway into the tidal pool. And that's where the cormorants and Great Egret and Great Blues have been fishing in extraordinary numbers of late. I've got in nearly 8 hours and  hundreds of shots that tell this fish story.

Nice Fish!

And Another Fine Catch

The Old Birds Know To Get Away From The Crowds that try to steal your catch.

Ponder The Essence of Flight

Way back in the years between 1452 and 1519 A.D or as they now say C.E., a man good with a paint brush had a few radical thoughts about other things besides painting. He was even more radical to actually put his thoughts down on paper where they are now, a matter of historical data.

He stated something that I still ponder today. That was:

        " When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."

Not only was he a painter, he was a sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist and geologist.  Some might have guessed correctly that the person was none other than Leonardo da Vinci.Yes, the famous painter used his brushes to paint the ceiling of a little chapel in Rome above the catacombs that are said to hold the bones of St. Peter.

You don't have to be religious (although it does help in this case) to understand that such a connection in the mid 1400's through a couple of decades into the 1500s only had birds and angels to understand flight. And to be bold enough to say once you have tasted flight you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward---and even bolder to continue with---for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

So, know this: I do ponder his statement fairly regularly. To me, there must be some ethereal connection between his ability to paint and to not only understand the engineering of flight but that he also had a Divine connection to understand that heavenly connection to angels descending as well.

On Wednesday, I started my rounds checking on fall colors as they have already begun here (which is unusual this early). One of the spots is at the dam and spillways at White Rock. The big sycamores are there and they go through a multi- change routine from green to light green to yellow to brown to that fantastic rich brown leathery look. As I walked from the dam to the spillway to the tidal pool and finally to the lesser spillway as it drops into White Rock Creek on its way to the Trinity river then into river near the Great Trinity Forest. Then it begins the long trip down to Houston and finally into the Gulf of Mexico, I stopped  to watch the juvenile egrets vying for their fishing spots on the lesser spillway steps. Rather comical.

Suddenly, there was a swish of air that I caught out of the corner of my eye and looked  to find a great  white egret coming right at me. While I said to one of my editors that I took the shot, of a lifetime despite the fact that there was going to be some minor technical problems with the image. She agreed and published the image. So, look closely at the form of flight and overlook the technical issues with the image and Ponder with me---for there you have been and there you will always long to return.
Enjoy!

A Great White Egret

Great White Egret in Flight

The Changing of the Sycamore Leaves Has Begun