Leaves... Strange In The Silence

"There is something strange in the silence of a winter view: Something seems to happen,

 but nothing happens,

 as if all reality is frozen."

 

~Mehmet Murat ildan

 

The bark, on the tree on the left, looks like a ghoul vomiting autumn out of it's soul, as if it is fed up with autumn's blissful intrusion into it's body. Last autumn was a little too hopeful it seems, it healed too much, and winter clearly resents that. Look at the pain of the last five days. We are barely into winter, January, and the new year, and we have already had unparalleled tragedy erase the joy of all those things, but look at the remnants of autumn and try to not smile... it's so impossible, it's so heartbreaking. Winter, is casting a deep fear stare on all of us. It's jealous eyes threaten more of it's cold burning rain and fog, but how does one accurately prepare for things that can't be fully known or imagined until they arrive? The fog of Covid-19 and the cold burning rain of insurrection strike all around but there is such refuge in strange silence of the last of the autumn leaves, or the sweet sound of a gaggle of Snow Geese, in mid-flight over a quiet San Joaquin Delta shoreline. For now. But winter is always watching, and it's beginning to burn with cold jealousy.The heart reels.

 

 

 ~Carly

Perp Walk The Fucking Horse Already!

 

"Reality is the leading cause of stress

 amongst those in touch with it."

 

~Jane Wagner

 

 

 Trump Time

 

So, what a year, am I right? Wow, the last 7 months of 2021 have been crazy! Wait... what's that? We are only on day 8? Nah... you joke! What's that? No? You're not kidding? It's only day 8 of 2021? But... when did Trump make that call to Georgia election officials, you know, when he tried to coerce them into finding votes that never existed? That was Sunday? That was last Sunday, and we found out it, gulp, last Monday? Monday of this week? We did? This week? So, that means that it's Friday, January 8th, 2021. Right?

 

Fucking KILL ME. 

 

All kidding aside, I know this shit will be over in time, if nothing else, Trump will HAVE TO LEAVE OFFICE ON JANUARY 20th WHETHER HE LIKES IT OR NOT. But the next 12 days hold the potential for a nothing but bullshit and tragedy. Who the fuck knows what he's capable of? He was kicked off Facebook for inciting violence, and he was in a 12 hour time out on Twitter, for similar reasons, although it seems he was forgiven, because he posted a hostage video last evening, where he faked sanity. Ordinarily I would link to it, but why? We all know they slipped him some anti-psychotics or something, and he will just spazz-out when they wear off, it's a long standing pattern will the Captain Psychotic. But boy, he sure does seem happy. Like he doesn't have a care in the world.

Most of us in the Resistance would kill to possess that kind of smug asshole-ish super ability. The ability to sleep at night with NO CONSCIENCE OR SENSE OF REALITY WHATSOEVER, to worry about! He no doubt tucks himself in at night, hugs his Big Mac, and drifts off to sleep plotting some wildly undemocratic, anti-American shitshow for the next day. It's his "thinking time". No waking with sweat pouring down his face. No night terror screaming, "HOLY SHIT WHO GAVE HIM A FOOTBALL?... while snoring. All we want is to be able to sleep too. Understand? See, I just want to sleep and not worry about the craven abilities and inclinations of a "horse loose in a hospital" or "toddler with a flamethrower."

12 more days until Biden Day.

 

What could happen regarding Captain Trumps?

25th Amendment? Gee, that sounds nifty.

Impeachment? For the second time? Yes please.

Arrest for launching a coup against the United States?

Is it my birthday? You don't have to ask me twice!

 

I mean he has to face some sort of consequences, right?

 

Look what he's done...

 

 

In case your wondering about my original photo at the top of this post, there is a small bird hiding in the tree. It saw me trying to take it's photo, and began teasing me. I am sure of it. It was fun. Birds get used to people with cameras in their hands. It was this past Sunday. I remember its like it was just yesterday. It was Alan, and me. We were at Woodbridge. There were a ton of small birds, of all kinds, flying in and out of trees, making a lot of noise, and playing, and I was happy. It was the beginning of the new year, and I was photographing new birds for my 2021 bird album. That pretty bird is the Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon's Warbler). It is one of the first 10 birds to make it into my album, the next day I spotted, a few in my neighbors yard. I was really enjoying that challenge. They are fast little birds. But right now, I am scared and tired and I have a headache. I am unhappy. I want someone to make it stop. Fortunately, I trust Nancy Pelosi, so I know it will eventually stop. Someone will perp walk the horse out of the hospital. Right?

 

 

Enough Is Enough. Impeach The Motherfucker Already.

 

 ~Carly

January 5th And 6th Part Two

"America is the only country

 that went from barbarism to decadence

 without civilization in between."

 

~Oscar Wilde

 

25th Amendment Now 

"In America, anyone can become president.

 That's the problem."

 

~George Carlin

 

 

What fresh HELL will January 7th bring?

 

 

January 5th And January 6th Part One

 

"A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends

 upon the character of the user."

 

~Theodore Roosevelt

 

Things aren't exactly written in stone yet, but it seems that we pulled out a real win tonight. Georgia's runoff election has turned Georgia a solid purple, and put two more democrats in the United States senate, unseating Mitch McConnell as Senate Majority Leader and making it possible for President-elect Joe Biden to get things done, like senate confirmations of his cabinet picks! So, you'd think I would be over the moon happy... right? Well, I am, but as I sit here typing this post, I am all too aware that Trump's army, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn and some assorted domestic terrorists who call themselves, "Proud Boys" are in Washington D.C. tonight, with the specific intention of starting America's second civil war later today, after Vice President presides over the Electoral College vote certification.

 

I don't know how things will play out later, and my anxiety level is off the charts. I don't think I will be doing much sleeping tonight, and I probably won't sleep much tomorrow either. Pence has already told Trump that he cannot throw the election out, and name him president, but Trump thinks of it as Pence being disloyal to him, and in a way he is right. Pence took an oath to the Constitution, not Trump, and that is something Trump doesn't, or refuses to, understand. So, will today end in violence caused by domestic terrorism? If that isn't enough to worry about, apparently there was a threat by someone, possibly Iran, to fly a plane into the Capitol later today. This one of those times when I literally have NO IDEA about how bad things could go. 

 

For right now, yesterday, January 5th, was a very good day. I am just going to concentrate on that. 2021 has gotten off to a pretty great start. January 6th might not be the best day on earth, but America won a very important battle yesterday, so despite everything, we will always have that. History will remember who, why, and how our victories have happened. So, if today, January 6th, ends badly, if Trump's coup actually happens because of the acts of sedition of those who know better, history will remember that too. Life as an American will change forever, but I just can't believe that it will happen. America has been through a lot, and we are still standing... right? Hopefully by our next Independence Day, this will all be nothing but a bad dream, and Trump will be in prison. 

 

~Carly

 

Woodbridge And The Cosumnes RIver

"In order to see birds, it is necessary to become a part of the silence."

 

Robert Lynd 

 

Northern Mockingbird

Woodbridge

Lodi, California

January 3rd 2020

I happened upon my new hobby of, watching and photographing birds, kinda by mistake. It was this past November, and it appeared that we in, San Joaquin County, were going to be asked to stay indoors as much as possible, because of the surge of Covid-19. I was also anticipating autumn ending soon, and with it my Autumn Leaf project, so I did a quick search online to see what my options were. Purely by accident I found a link to an article about delta birds, and the Sandhill Crane in particular. A bird so revered in my area, that it has it's very own festival, held annually in November, in Lodi! Well, as you might imagine, the festival for 2020 was cancelled, due to Covid-19 concerns, but the Woodbridge Ecological Reserve was open, and nothing was mentioned about it being off limits.

 

White-crowned Sparrow

Woodbridge

Lodi, California

2020 kicked my ass, and the ass of most folks I know. My nerves have felt shot. Too much Trump. Too much tragedy. Too much self whining. Too much! I wanted some peace and quiet, so it sounded like a fairly nice place to visit as a change of pace. A real chance to get out of my own head for a little while, and besides, there might be one or two new kinds of leaves to photograph! I never would have guessed how much joy that place would bring me, on that late autumn day. It was quiet, except for the sounds of the hundreds of different birds and water fowl, and the occasional human who had no clue about how successful bird watching is best done with eyes open and mouths closed. Humans! Oh well, I am happy to say, that birders and fellow photographers get alone nicely. Politics doesn't come up, when you are too busy sitting on a bench listening to a nearby bird, or watching the majestic sight of a large flock of crane returning home from wherever a crane goes for the day, or watching a sunset over Mount Diablo. 

 

 

I started keeping track on day one of the beautiful birds I was photographing, and from there I discovered the Cosumnes River Wildlife Reserve, in next door Galt, California. And as of the new year, I am now keeping a Google album which I hope to fill with at least 300 new bird sightings for the year. That's my goal anyway. Between the two different reserves, I am well on my way. Realistically, I will only be able to visit there on the weekends, but there are always a ton of different types of birds at both places, and sometimes on power poles between them, to add to my album. Just last Sunday, I photographed about 25 or so, distinct birds. It was thrilling. I like having a new subject to photograph, and new places to visit. I have read that the coastline from Point Reyes to Bodega Bay is a birders paradise. I can't wait to visit, later this year, possibly in the spring, because it's also a photographers paradise. And don't tell anyone, but you can find a lot of autumn beauty just inland, at the wineries in Napa and Sonoma Counties. 

The quiet has never been so beautiful.

And look, there is a little autumn left to make me smile!

 

Oak Tree

Cosumnes River Wildlife Reserve

Galt, California

 

 

~Carly

 

 

Happy New Year! MAKE MISTAKES!

 

"I  hope in this year to come, you make mistakes.

 

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're DOING SOMETHING.

 

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make NEW MISTAKES. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work, or family or life. 

 

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, DO IT.

 

Make mistakes, next year and forever."

 

~Neil Gaiman

 

Welcome to 2021!

 

Alan and I wish you a happy and safe New Year!

 

Note: I will be back Tuesday, with a brand new blogging schedule for 2021!

 

Whispering... It Will Be Better!

 "Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come,

 whispering, 'It will be happier'... ."

~Alfred Lord Tennyson

It's the last day of 2020... whew... I made it! Alan and I made it! We are okay, we didn't get Covid-19, despite the surging numbers in San Joaquin County, Covidiots in the wild, like the couple I spotted at Walmart, while we shopped for Thanksgiving dinner and selfish co-workers Alan has to work with! We have done all we could to keep ourselves free of the virus. We both wear a mask when we leave the house, and we wash our hands often, but there is a new mutation of Covid-19 that is 70% more transmissible than previous strains, so who knows what we can do now to avoid it. This mutation was first identified in England, and surprise, Donald Trump did not do a thing about temporarily halting travel from that part of the world! He knew this was happening, thank God Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the truth about this strain. All it took was his own diagnosis of Covid-19 earlier in 2020, to make him see the light!

Anyway, I was looking back through my image folders from 2020 to maybe do a post with my favorite photos from the year, but I decided to just post the photos that were most important. I narrowed those down to those which dealt with two main catagories... Politics and the pandemic. As important as this years politics was, especially to me, it was the pandemic that effected me the most profoundly. I have spent the better part of the last four years living in fear of Donald Trump, and what he was capable of doing with all the power he was handed in 2016, but it was Covid-19 that outdid him when it came to deadly potential. Unfortunately, Trump and Covid-19 ended up becoming codependent. They have been quite the team!

 

I wanted to make the post about my joy over the win of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, because believe me I do feel that joy, but I just couldn't! So, these are the photos that stuck with me. The signs reminding us in California that there were simple things we could do to stop the spread. Unfortunately, residents of San Joaquin county, the county I live in, still have a problem doing the simplest of things to help themselves, and those around them. Oh well, you can't fix stupid. Right? So, forward, march. 2021 will begin in less than 24 hours, and personally, I don't plan to look back. But, I do have an album on Google that will document the year in photographs, all the words worth mentioning will be documented in history. As for my personal 2020 history, there are moments good and bad I won't forget, like how I burst into tears of joy, upon learning Joe Biden had chosen Kamala Harris as his running mate. I slept so good for several nights after that. It was a relief I can't really describe, but alas it did not last, it was broken by some scary, bonehead move Trump did, that I don't even remember now. Strange how Trump moments bleed into each other like that!

2021 will be happier. I will do more photography. I will learn more about birds. I will finally fullfill a lifelong ambition of baking a Lady Baltimore cake from scratch. I will read a book that has nothing to do with politics, although it might be a historical biography. I will get my health back on track, and drop some of the Trump weight I have gained. 15 pounds might be good! I will keep a more realistic schedule. I will disengage from all the doom and gloom. I will stay informed, but I will not go back into drowning in politics. I will finish the home improvement projects we have started, and I will spend more time with Alan than I do with Trump. Trust me, my worrying over Trump killing all of us, took over a huge part of my life. I can't get that time back, but I can march into 2021 with my eyes focused on the future. These ideas are not resolutions mind you, they are just my idea of hope.

 

 My favorite Leaf Of The Day

Stockton, California

October 10th 2020

 Nikon

 

 

 

The Last Hours Of Autumn 2020

 

"The autumn twilight turned into deep and early night as they walked. Tristran could smell the distant winter on the air... a mixture of night-mist and crisp darkness and the tang of fallen leaves."

 

~Neil Gaiman

Stardust

 

December 20th 2020

The Last Full Day Of Autumn

 

It was a beautiful way to end autumn 2020. The late afternoon light at both the Woodbridge Ecological Reserve and at the Cosumnes River Preserve, was gorgeous! I will never forget it! 2020 didn't have very many happy moments in it, but this Autumn had more than all the other seasons of 2020 put together! I will always believe that Autumn is just a little bit magical! 

 

 

Roadside Ameica Attraction #1: A&W Restaurants

 

"I haven't had a very good day. I think I might still be hung over,

 and everyone's dead and my root beer's gone."

 

~Holly Black

The Coldest Girl In Coldtown

 

 

Aren't they awesome? As it turns out, I live just a hop and a skip from fast food history! In this case, A&W history! The very first A&W was opened in Lodi, California, as a roadside restaurant on June 20th 1919. And, did you know that that A&W invented the bacon cheeseburger? It's true. As it turns out, they enjoyed a lot of cool firsts! Another cool fact is that the night they opened, the entire town was partying, celebrating with a Homecoming parade, the return of local soldiers who had been serving in World War I! The very first A&W root beer was served that night at the parade. A&W has always been my favorite root beer brand, and I used to be somewhat addicted to the Mama Bear burger when I was a kid, but I never heard of, or really considered, how they got their start! I like learning the origins of products. Some have such cool backstories and origins.

Its kind of strange, my dad grew up in Lodi, but he never shared about A&W's beginnings, it's the kind of trivia he loved to share. He was only a year old when the restaurant got it's start, so perhaps it wasn't a big deal, or maybe it was one of those things one takes for granted growing up. I know there is a lot to love about Berkeley, and the East Bay in general, and I failed to photograph or share when it came to my blog. I totally took my hometown for granted, especially from a creative point of view. It's a shame I did that, so I hope to do better about featuring the cool parts about living in the San Joaquin Valley, because there is a lot here to explore. I miss dad a lot, there is so much I wish I could talk to him about, but it's the cool stuff I miss sharing with him the most.

We shared a love of politics. But things are so awful right now that I am done with that. It used to make me feel closer to him, but now it just makes every day bleed the truly awful into the next. I think he would have thrown his hands up too. He was a smart guy. He knew when things can't be fixed... you move on. Finding something cool to photograph in his hometown made me feel close to him too. He would have approved I think. And as it turns out, there is a lot out here to help me heal from the massive panic I felt over the move from the Bay Area, and I am looking forward to photographing all of it!

I found out about the A&W statues by reading the Roadside America site. If you are unfamiliar with it, it's a website that has a nice list of attractions and cool sights in each state. I have a list of places to visit in 2021, because I can do my photography, without worrying about the spread of Covid-19. I am still staying home, as directed by Governor Newsom, but when I feel the walls closing in, I have some destinations close by that don't necessitate my being in a big crowd. I have mixed feelings about it. Staying home isn't a lot to ask of us, and at the same time, getting fresh air, and some time to concentrate on something other than all the doom of a pandemic, makes it all easier to take. 

Anyway, like "Rooty", the official mascot of A&W, I have been in hibernation, but it's time to come back out of the cave. I had a ball photographing these awesome statues. They can be found at one of the franchise stores that opened up in 1963, and they are on permanent display there. Sadly, the original A&W restaurant, which was at, 13 N. Pine street, no longer exists, but there is a plaque in the cement, marking the precise spot where the restaurant once stood. I am hoping to get up to Lodi this weekend to see it. If I do, I will update this post to include it. 

Stay tuned. There is a lot more to see.

A&W's History

It All Started With A Roadside Stand...

 

Roadside America

Birthplace Of A&W Root Beer

 

 Thrillist

14 Things You Didn't Know About A&W Restaurants

 

 

 

 

There's Always The Moon

 

"You are my fantasy on a cold dark night,

 my muse during the light of day

 and the one wish my soul would make."

 

Grace Willows

 

I wanted to see the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn, but it was not meant to be. I missed it. A silly common cold got in the way. But I did get to see them fairly close together and that was fun. I wish I could have gotten a good photograph, but that wasn't meant to be either. Still, I always have the moon to keep me company. He's always there, like the most dependable friend any mere mortal could have. I love the moon, and I never get tired of taking his picture, so yes, I guess he is a friend at this point. And what could be wring with that? If you look just to the left of the palm tree, you can see two white dots, which are the two planets. So, I kinda photographed the event, right? Oh well, there will be more celestial events, and I will try then too. Never stop trying... right? Never give up! Good things are coming our way! Now, if I could just stop worrying about the lunatic in the White House. Please hurry, Joe!

 

 

~Carly

Stockton, California

December 22nd 2020

 

 

 

 

Goodnight Autumn 2020

 

"I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again."

 

~Lewis Carroll

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Through The Looking Glass

 

 ~Carly

Stockton, California

December 20th 2020

One Last Sunset But Two More Leaves

"The Harvester was the rustling of autumn leaves,

 there one minute, gone the next."

 

~Jolene Haley

Harrowed

 

The last autumn sunset of 2020. No autumn moved as fast as this one did, and yes, I know, I say that every year, but this one really did! Maybe it was the anticipation for it to get here, or maybe it was because I was distracted by the election, Hell, it might have been because of my new hobby of bird watching, I don't know which, but it went by really fast! Oh well. Goodnight, autumn. Thank you for all the peace of mind you brought me this year. I will be waiting for you!

While it might be the last sunset's of autumn, there will still be one more autumn leaf to be seen. Autumn doesn't officially end until 3:02 am Monday morning, so why short change the season, right autumn?

 

 ~Carly

Stockton, California

December 20th 2020