April 3, 2025

Today I experienced the perfect hour at the rookery

 All of my favorite characters were there today.  First of all eagle was in the goat feeding area when I arrived.  I couldn't figure out if she was making the goats nervous.  They were huddling together. 







She was on the ground when i came around the corner.  She opened her wings and the span was between 4 and 5 feet.  Their wings are magnificent.    She flew up into the tree above the goats.  It was about 58 degrees today and cloudy,

but the smell has changed.   
I drove around the corner and what should I see, but one great blue heron there to greet me.  
Once again I've loaded the rest of the photos backwards.   But today was a day for birds, and all my favorite ones.   Kingfishers, mergansers, titmouse, geese, and 3 large birds that flew over me that I could not identify.    At the end of my ride I found this red tailed.   It was gentle up there today and filled with the beginning of some life. 







It looks like a duck from this angle.  It's possible that it's an entirely different bird than the ones I saw flying towards me.  The others seemed to have a bigger wing span.  

I promised EJ 350 words about their father tonight.   Its an interesting request and you'd think it would be easy for me, but for some reason it isn't.   I met EJ's father about a month into his relationship with their mother.  Diane was one of my closest friends then.   I'm not sure exactly what year it was, but it was pre TLP.  I remember the first time he brought her out from Boston to visit.  Jay was with me, he must have been visiting.  We were a pretty silly group and could get intentionally competitive with others without having a lot to back us up with, except our egos.   Anyway, we challenged Chris and Diane to a game of Trivial Pursuits in a very cocky manner, which pushed Chris's buttons.  He took on the challenge with a vengeance and they won.  There is no way in hell Chris would have let us win.
I  think for the next 40 years Chris did not let go of that challenge.  He gnawed on it like a dog with a bone and wouldn't let me forget, they won.   I'm not sure I ever played another game with him.  LOL, which says more about my fragile ego than his.   

Chris was big and he was present and he was talented.  His most important gift was his ability to relate to kids.  He lead them up Mt Washington, he taught them guitar.  He taught them about space and supported them with his heart and bigness. 

One of my favorite pieces of memorabilia around Chris is the UTubes from Japan with him playing music in his friend Charles's club with EJ, Eli and others.  It was the beginning of Eli's musicianship and EJ was just beginning to find their voice and they just do a sweet job in Kyoto.  Yeah, he was good at holding them up. 


Hope everyone enjoyed the photos today.  It really was good for me to take them.  I do hope the heron does not stick around, or at least does not nest here.   I think the eagles have nested somewhere close.  Enjoy.  


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
  January 3, 2025 The Complexity (what I refer to as the texture) of Life This is a photo of Michael Whiton, eldest child of Jean O. Whiton.  If you knew our mother, you know whose eyes he inherited.  Picture was taken by Linda Boardman.        I did not take pictures today, nor was my brain very able.  So tonight you get a poem I wrote 25 years ago that is more spirited than I could write tonight. I Believe in Color   I believe in red the changing forever-ness of red.  A pure rich red: cotton tee shirt red, berries on the bushes in the dead of  New England winters, cherries in June next to a slab of ripe brie. Magenta, a little redder than wine, blood as it begins to dry, the curtains I always wanted, floor length heavy velvet. Orange red on the skins of a tangelo; blood oranges in a light blue porcelain bowl on a small table near stark white walls. Dusty rose of an old flannel duvet, the height of fashion in 1980. I believe i...
Read more
Image
January  4, 2025 Michael E. Whiton  June 30, 1944 - January 4, 2025     I always talk about patterns, it is my researcher's brain.  This morning I texted with my niece, Grace, and asked her what her 12 year old was really into. She told me math.  He plays the flute in his school band.  I had an epiphany when the 2 things got put together.  To grow up with music as a constant all through your childhood you are exposed to patterns.  You become aware of what can follow what.  My 3 year old great niece makes up little songs, repetitive musical patterns.  Her father repeats them or adds to them.  She already knows how to put notes together.  That's math.  That's what Liam does.        So what does all that have to do with Michael's leaving us on this plain today.  Well, one pattern is that we all seem to be good with babies.   When Mike was 21, Jason was born.  He was good to babies....
Read more
Image
  January 2, 2025 Time is both too soon and too late.   Just keeps slipping.     I believe it was 1996 or 7 when I flew out to Bainbridge Island to see my brother, Mike.  He was very ill and my Mom was worried and wanted me to go assess the situation, which I did, probably in not such a diplomatic way.  He really was ill.  His liver was failing and he wasn't getting put on the transplant list, yet.  I've never quite understand the whys and the wherefores of all that.  But for the next 4 or so years he maintained, so sick, sometimes optimistic, sometimes beaten, but he made it to a liver transplant in August 2000 in Worchester.       24 years ago, holy shit.  EJ's entire life, a third of mine; and again he kept living, kept listening to music and trying to be kind and never regaining any reliable health.   His story is fascinating, and I'll tell it sometime, but not tonight.  Tonight I just want to ...
Read more