Posted in Nature, Photography
Tagged badger, nature, photo challenge, photography, Yellowstone National Park
The photo challenge this week is Transitions. These are more photos from the same place near the Laura Plantation in Louisiana where I took last week’s photo. I love how nature is taking over this car.
Posted in Nature, Photography, Transportation
Tagged cars, nature, photo challenge, photography, transitions
Grackles
From high on the wires
A cool rain shower of sound
sizzles on tarmac
image: cafepress.com
I consider myself to be a relatively tolerant, open-minded person. A pacifist, even. Not always in thought, but definitely in actions. I don’t hate much. It’s a toxic attitude to have. Live and let live, I usually say. But nobody’s perfect, not even yours truly. Continue reading
Posted in Nature
Tagged angst voor spinnen, arachnaphobia, huisdieren, humor, nature, Opinion, pets, spiders, spinnen, tarantulas, vogelspinnen
Do you get drunk on green in the spring? I know I do. As a teenager, commuting to school by train, I would lean my face against the window and just drink in as much as I could of the deep May-green pastures rolling by.
Posted in Austin photos
Tagged Austin, emigration, fotografie, green, groen, immigration, nature, natuur, photography, spring, Town Lake, voorjaar
Austin has had a severe drought for several years. So when it rains, we’re all elated. The creek behind our house is spring-fed and there’s always at least a trickle, but the past couple of years it’s usually not more than that. Continue reading
After Yellowstone we took a day and a half to drive around Montana and Idaho a bit more. On the way back to Salt Lake City, we stopped at the Craters of the Moon National Monument. It’s a humongous lava flow area. I’ve posted about the lava flow in Valley of Fires in New Mexico, but this is much more spectacular.
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho, lava flows, lava tubes, nature, photography, travel, vacation, volcanic rock, volcanoes
This is what I get from trying to do these vacation posts by theme. I end up with leftovers–pictures that don’t fit in any theme, or I don’t have enough pictures on a topic to merit a whole themed post. Yet I feel like showing them. So this last post about our Yellowstone do-over is pretty unorganized. Hard to accept for a former librarian, but there it is. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Vacations
Tagged Chinese tourists, nature, Opinion, photography, travel, trees, vacations, Yellowstone National Park
Like I mentioned before, the central part of Yellowstone is a caldera, a piece of land that collapsed over a volcanic hotspot. Lava heats water that seeps down through cracks in the broken earth’s surface, and the steam and water find their way back to the surface in hot springs, geysers, mudpots and fumeroles. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Vacations
Tagged bacteria, extremophiles, fotografie, fumeroles, geysers, heat-loving bacteria, hot psrings, mud pots, nature, natuur, photography, thermophiles, travel, vacations, Yellowstone National Park
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged fotografie, landscapes, landschappen, nature, natuur, photography, reizen, skies, travel, vacations, Yellowstone National Park
The bottoms of concrete structures, dead trees–whatever next? Well, the bottoms of dead trees, of course. There are a lot of them in Yellowstone. Isn’t the bottom of one dead tree much like the bottom of another, you ask? Not at all; like the bottoms of bridges, each deadfall has its own personality.
Posted in Bottoms of Bridges, Nature, Photography, Vacations
Tagged deadfall, humor, nature, photography, travel, tree roots, trees, uprooted trees, vacations, Yellowstone National Park
Last year I had intended to do a post about the trees in Yellowstone, and the wildfires, but I didn’t have enough good pictures. As we drove out of the park on only our second morning there, on our way to the hospital in Cody, I snapped photos of burnt stretches from the RV window, but of course they didn’t work out. That’s when black and white helps. Well, I felt it did, anyway.
Posted in Nature, Photography
Tagged lodgepole pines, nature, photography, travel, trees, vacations, wildfires, Yellowstone National Park
A large part of Yellowstone National Park is a caldera, land that collapsed and crumbled after volcanic activity. Water seeps through the cracks and is heated by the magma below the surface. Pressure builds and steam and water burst to the surface in geysers. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged geysers, nature, Old Faithful, photography, travel, vacations, Yellowstone National Park
The wildlife was incredible. Of course there were the buffalo–or the bison, as B kept correcting us–and this time they had calves, so we kept our distance a bit more, except when we were in or near the car. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged badgers, bison, black bears, blacktail deer, buffalo, bull snakes, elk, grizzly bears, marmots, nature, photography, pronghorns, travel, vacation, wildlife, Yellowstone National Park
Our three-week RV trip of the Rockies and Yellowstone National Park last summer (which started here), ended sadly when B’s appendix ruptured and we spent the last four days in the Cody, Wyoming hospital instead of in Yellowstone. This summer we had one week, and lots of T’s flying miles, so we went to Yellowstone for a do-over.
Posted in Nature, Photography, Vacations
Tagged Bear Lake, Idaho, Montana, nature, Rocky Mountains, Salt Lake City. Utah, travel, Yellowstone National Park
A blogging friend made me aware of this article in the New York Times about eating invasive species such as feral pigs. Feral pigs are a problem here in Texas and it makes perfect sense to eat them. They’re free-ranging, organic, with no added hormones or antibiotics. So eat them invaders, y’all!
Posted in Consumption, Eating out, Food, Nature
Tagged animals, Austin, eating out, feral pigs, food, free-range pigs, nature, organic meat, pork, restaurants, Texas, wild pigs, wilde varkens
This poem was posted by I Used to Be Indecisive.
I came across this poem by Joe Miller. It certainly is something to think about.
The view from our window this morning:
Posted in Austin photos, Nature, Photography
Tagged Austin, nature, photography, Texas Hill Country
I think I’ll do a few posts about what I’m thankful for, on our way to Thanksgiving. I’m thankful for all the green around me, here in the Texas Hill Country.
Posted in Austin, Austin photos, Nature, Photography
Tagged nature, photography, Texs Hill Country Thanksgiving, weekly photo challenge: green
Those of you who’ve been following my blog for a while know by now of my weird fascination with the underbelly of Austin’s Mopac Bridge. Every now and then I just have to spend an entire post on this butt-ugly structure that I somehow cannot get enough of.
Posted in Austin, Austin photos, Bottoms of Bridges, Nature
Tagged Austin, Austin bridges, bird poop, bottoms of bridges, bridge bottoms, bridges, bruggen, fotografie, Mopac Bridge, nature, natuur, photography, spiderwebs, swallow nests, vines, wasp nests
(Image from Wikipedia)
The lava flow of the Valley of Fires in New Mexico was formed about 5,000 years ago; it’s one of the youngest lava flows in America. The vegetation still looks like it started popping up rather recently. And in geological time it has. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged Carrizozo, lava flow, nature, New Mexico, photography, travel, Valley of Fire, weekly photo challenge
Another beautiful spot only 30 minutes from our house is Hamilton Pool. It’s a small park, with a path going along a small stream to the Pedernales River in one direction, and in the other direction it goes to the actual pool.
The path is never boring.
I thought you might like something nice, after the last post. This morning, after dropping the kids off at school early (their math teacher has office hours at 7:30 am), I went on a brief walk around Town Lake here in Austin. The sun was only just up when I started, and it was slightly misty. I only had my phone with me, but I’m always amazed that the pictures aren’t half bad.
Posted in Austin, Austin photos, Bottoms of Bridges, Nature, Photography
Tagged Austin, bottoms of bridges, bridge bottoms, bridges, fotografie, Mopac Bridge, nature, photography, Town Lake
This is the last Pedernales Falls post. Well, the last one about this spot in the state park, anyway.
Toward the left of the main stretch of rocky falls is one of my favorite spots:
Posted in Austin photos, Nature, Photography
Tagged nature, Pedernales Falls State Park, photography, Texas Hill Country
It doesn’t look like the water is very forceful, but people kept drowning around here. The water has formed big holes in the rock under water, and there are treacherous currents. So since the end of the seventies, swimming is no longer allowed. Continue reading
Posted in Austin, Nature, Photography
Tagged nature, Pedernales Falls State Park, photography, Texas Hill Country
When you get down the rocky kind-of-stairs, you come to a sandy beach. This part was a setting in the movie Sharkboy and Lavagirl by Robert Rodriguez. And that’s the only interesting titbit of information you’re going to get. Time to explore.
Posted in Austin photos, Nature, Photography
Tagged nature, Pedernales Falls State Park, photography, Texas Hill Country
The Pedernales River winds across the Texas Hill Country, and at Pedernales Falls State Park it has a wide stretch of rock falls. The word “falls” suggests water falling from a height, but it’s actually a gradual sloping stretch of rock about a mile long, that the water runs over, or slips over. So it’s not as vertically spectacular as, say, Niagara Falls, but it’s still pretty grand, in that low-key Texas Hill Country way. In short, I’m building it up, but I don’t want to set you up for disappointment, either. Because then you might voice that disappointment, and I don’t know if I could handle that, since I’m really rather fond of Pedernales Falls. Continue reading
Posted in Austin, Austin photos, Nature, Photography
Tagged nature, Pedernales Falls State Park, photography, Texas Hill Country
After driving to the parking lot nearest the falls, you have a three minute walk through a cedar forest. On an overcast day it’s always slightly claustrophobic. When the kids were younger, I insisted they stay close, because I was worried about mountain lions. T thinks that’s very funny. But just the other day a mountain lion attacked a horse closer into town than Pedernales Falls. You just never know in woods like these… Continue reading
Posted in Austin photos, Nature, Photography
Tagged nature, Pedernales Falls State Park, photography, Texas Hill Country
I’m going to be very busy with translations this coming week, and I took about 100 photos yesterday when B and I went to Pedernales Falls, so I’m going to spread them out.
Posted in Austin, Nature, Photography
Tagged nature, Pedernales Falls State Park, photography, Texas Hill Country, Texas wildflowers
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged nature, photography, Rocky Mountains, travel
So we saw bison and elk, and two wolves at the river’s edge. They were playing and taking their time, and people were taking pictures from the other side, but just when I was finally almost close enough to start taking killer photos, they decided to leave. Aaaarrrghhh! The photos of the elk in the previous post were my photography high point of the vacation, and these wolves were my biggest photography frustration. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged grizzly bear, nature, photography, travel, Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park
The other animal that we saw a lot of in Yellowstone was elk. Apart from when you’re in the car, it’s not a good idea to get too close to bison, but I got pretty close to a beautiful male elk. I think I was about eight feet away at some point. That’s also not recommended; the grammatically annoying signs everywhere say that “all wildlife are dangerous”. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged elk, nature, photography, travel, Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park
Apart from the mud volcano and the mud pots and a few fumaroles at the beginning of our day, we mainly saw animals. So many that we never got to the next geothermal feature. And mostly we saw bison. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged bison, nature, photography, travel, Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park
The next day we woke up to find ourselves in a wonderful campground, with lots of trees and little trails going off behind our site. Not that we spent any time there. We left after breakfast and didn’t come back until well after dark. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged caldera, fumaroles, mud volcano, nature, photography, sulfur pots, travel, Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park
So the last three posts were all about one day, and it still wasn’t over. We got to Jackson Hole in the evening. You can tell by the gas station that it’s a prosperous town.
Posted in Nature, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged elk antlers, Jackson Hole, nature, photography, stagecoach, travel, Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park
I drove after the stop at Big Sandy Reservoir, and being in control of the breaks meant that I could pull over a lot to take pictures.
After that reservoir we drove through the endless plains of western Wyoming. You can drive for tens of miles and not see a single structure, other than the barbed wire fencing along the road.
Well, I’ll wait with the scathing post. I was cleaning up the slides I’d scanned a while ago. I used to have slides instead of photos. So I saw them even less than photos. That’s one of the things I love about a blog. I can see my favorite pictures and share them with whoever is interested.
Anyway, I didn’t clean my slides very well before scanning them, so I was doing that in Photoshop last night. Amazing!
Posted in Nature, Neither Here Nor There, Photography, Travel, Vacations
Tagged Mount Snowdon, nature, photography, Snowdonia, travel, Wales
Finally, I managed to take a picture of the deer along the side of the road in our subdivision.
They barely look up when I drive by, but when I slow down or stop, they are all on high alert. I have tried before to take a picture through an open window, but that never works, so this time I kept the window up and just drove by really slowly, clicking my phone camera as I went.
That’s as good as it gets.Three of them are pretty clear, but there are two or three more among the trees that don’t really show. But at least it’s proof for my friends and family in the Netherlands who probably think I’m exaggerating about the deer.
I’ve got a small translation, so the coming two weeks I won’t be writing much, and I’ll probably be posting a photo every now and then at most. I’ll try to keep up with all the posts I’m following, though.
Posted in Nature
Tagged deer in the neighborhood, herten in de buurt, nature, Texas Hill Country, white-tail deer
Because of the rain we’ve been having, we had a beautiful spring with lots of wildflowers. Right now the second round is just as amazing, if not more so. Let me take you on a little 20-minute drive starting from our subdivision and heading south and back. I took these photos yesterday, and with all the stopping and walking back and forth it took me two hours. It was hot, windy, and I sprained my ankle in a ditch, but the pictures are worth it, I think. Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography
Tagged Hill Country, nature, photography, Texas, wildflowers
Texas was in a serious drought for over two years. Really serious. Ranchers had to sell off their cattle because there was no grass for them, and buying food was getting too expensive. Lake Travis, the source of most of Austin’s drinking water, was scarily low.
But it’s over, it seems. We’re not out of the woods yet, because Lake Travis still Continue reading
Posted in Nature, Photography
Tagged Hill country wildflowers, nature, photography, rain lilies, Texas wildflowers
Photo from Wikipedia
Lady Bird Johnson was the wife of president Lyndon B. Johnson, who was born in Johnson City, west of Austin. As First Lady she promoted the Highway Beautification Act, and in 1982, together with actress Helen Hayes, she founded the National Wildlife Research Center, a few miles from our home in southwest Austin. Continue reading
Posted in Austin photos, Nature
Tagged Ladybird Johnson, nature, photography, Texas Hill Country, wildflowers
We went to the swimming area of Pedernales Falls State Park for the first time this year.
Every year I think that this time the trees along the river bank really are dead. The floods really did it this time. Nothing could possibly look deader than these cypresses. And from a distance, nothing could look uglier either.
In the late 60s Richard Proenneke built his own cabin in the Alaskan wilderness with only a few simple tools. He spent most of the rest of his life there. Sam Keith fleshed out Proenneke's diary of his first 16 months, when he was making his home by a lake. I love these kinds of books!
An old Oji-Cree healer and her nephew canoe down a river in Canada, away from the world of white people. They both have to come to terms with their past. The woman has lost most of her tribe and the young man is traumatized from his recent experience in the Belgian trenches of World War One. My second book by Boyden. Can't say enough about him.
An incredibly comprehensive history of everything related to slavery in the Southern United States, from the beginning of the colonies to the end of the Civil War. Over 700 pages and I took over 30 pages of notes. I will be sharing over many posts to come!
Hamid's debut novel. I love this author. A young man in Lahore, Pakistan, is the victim of love, drugs, obsession, the class system and his complete lack of self-awareness.
A golem, created in Poland and brought to life on a ship to America, and a jinni who was trapped in a flask a thousand years ago and released in New York -- the most unusual immigrants you'll ever meet.
The only part of her life a Korean woman can control is her body, so she withdraws into it. Harrowing.
Autobiography lightly disguised as a novel about the son of Southern migrants growing up on the streets of Harlem, New York City, in the 1940s and 50s. Written like you're hearing the whole story in a bar. Quite a feat.
The story of a man struggling to make a living in Morocco. No plot, no clearly defined characters, but fascinating in its authenticity.
Pakistani man tells an American about his experience as a college student and employee of an assessment firm in America years ago. Smart, nuanced and pretty darn honest considering the unreliable narrator.
Wow! The answer to the inane platitudes about how all parents love their children and how children should always respect their parents. The protagonist must come to terms with his deeply flawed immigrant parents in order to change himself.
Seven short stories about life during the Kim Il-sung regime, by a writer who still lives and works in North Korea, were smuggled out of the country and translated. Mind-boggling stuff.
A 15-year-old autistic narrator wants to know who killed a neighbor's dog, and ends up much further out of his comfort zone than he planned. Wonderful read!
In politics, education, religion, agriculture, business--it turns out that dumbing down has been here from the start.
Fifty years of Istanbul seen through the eyes of a street vendor who migrates to the city as a young boy. It's also a window into the complicated dance between men and women in Turkey.
Hey, don't laugh, at least I'm trying.
A Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with six other people on a tiny island off the coast of Maine all winter in 1873. A woman in the present researching the Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with three other people on a tiny sailboat. What could possibly go wrong?
A man stuck between two worlds in more ways than one. Fascinating!
Historical novel about early contacts between first nations and the French in Canada. Beautifully written story that doesn't pull any punches. I bought his other two novels right away.
Beautifully written. By my children's favorite English and Creative Writing teacher! It's got rave reviews and we're all very proud of her.
Suki Kim is a Korean-American journalist. She poses as an evangelical Christian posing as an English teacher at a school for the sons of North Korea's elite. Her experience and the information she manages to get via writing assignments are incredible. Definitely a lot more eye-opening that any CNN special.
This. Explains. Everything!!!
Why has Islam not undergone a reformation like Christianity? Why is it so easy for Islamic extremist groups like IS to recruit young muslims? What would it take for Islam in fundamentalist Islamic countries to enter modernity? Does the West have a role to play?
Amazing! A man wanders endlessly through a dreamscape, becoming other people, himself in the past, everything is fluid. Kafkaesque disconnect between people and their different needs.
A multi-layered novel about the history of Libya. A fast read, but one you can repeat and find something new each time.
Twelve Americans go missing in Burma/Myanmar during a tour. Touching and hilarious, but mostly hilarious.
The most unusual murder mystery I've ever read. Incredible writing. It haunted me for days.
The quote on the front mentions that these stories are exhilerating. I couldn't disagree more. They are almost unbearably painful to read, and yet I couldn't put them down. Very well done, apart from the third story, which is written in the second tense. Please let me know if you know of ONE story that works in second tense.
Rants, essays, and diatribes.
Fascism, Nationalism and Authoritarianism in U.S. History
He was in India. I was in Ireland. Now we're in Paris. New posts every week.
Making Sense of a Vexing and Perplexing World
Cogito Ergo Sum
daily gadfly
Understanding the psychology that drives our politics
A daily selection of the best content published on WordPress, collected for you by humans who love to read.
Longreads : The best longform stories on the web
making sense of the news one week at a time
The Art and Craft of Blogging
Words by RRN
The journey of a Graphic Design graduate
Explore Scotland through my stories, photos and videos. She's a beauty!
Wanderers on two wheels!
Quintin Lake's photographic Journey walking around Britain's Coast
Adventures in the world of history
Amsterdam days and nights
196 countries, countless stories...
Postcards from afar: Immersion Travel, Cultural Travel. Currently in... Singapore!
Adventures in absurdity
navigating a world of noise as a quiet soul
Art + Photo + Words
art design & oddities
Historian, Folklorist, Writer, Re-enactor, Museum Professional. Follow me on Twitter: @stuartorme
“I have tried my best to keep my country alive by writing about it.” - Nuruddin Farah
Trimming the bush of life...
een amerikaanse schrijft over liefde, ouderschap & volwassen worden in nederland
I write books--cuz I love words. Sometimes they love me back.
the past in pop culture
a place to showcase
When will we ever learn?: Common sense and nonsense about today's public schools in America.
Rising from the ashes of domestic violence
a chronicle of recollections
There are 5 sisters. She's the middlest.
Visual Arts from Canada & Around the World
Resident Alien -- Being Dutch in America 