Walking Near Sundown

Tonight on my walk I brought along my little Nikon coolpix885 which is what I use for all my photos now since I don't yet have a Canon Rebel. I wanted to photograph the wild places near my home which host many water birds. I saw some wood storks in the slew which runs south into the lower part of Lake Lafayette which is near my home, several days ago and I went out to see if they might still be there.

I didn't see them but I saw this great white heron. The area south of this photo was a sharply contested development for several years and of course, the developers won. All the land was once a dairy farm and when I first moved in I had only cows behind my house. They mooed alot and were nice. Then came the ostriches on the ostrich farm. I hated them. I fought the developers but the truth is anything would have been better than ostriches.

I went to the meetings and bargained with the developer but when it came right down to building, he didn't have a whole lot of input when the seven dollar an hour chainsaw guys came to clear land behind my house. I managed to yell enough to maintain a small easement between my home and the development which the developer had promised but really didn't give a flip about. Of course, they built five feet closer to the easement than they were permitted to build. They did leave a large area of wetlands undeveloped and these are photos of the area. It is a stone's throw from my home which is on the ridge south of these wetlands.

I like the quiet of wild nature the best, but since I don't have that around me I concentrate on what I can see that is wild. If I hold it in my consciousness and block out the rest, I can live in a space that is elemental and which soothes me. When it is quiet in nature I am really happy. Add a campfire and a few string instruments and it's heaven on earth.

Someday I am going to visit the Faulkland Islands and Greenland. The wind and the cold and the driving rain would suit me. I have my dad to thank for my love of wild nature. We cruised all over the North Channel in summer. And we sailed down Lake Huron in all kinds of weather.