Hello friends,

It’s been a cloudy, gray, rainy weekend. I feel like the overall vibe of the photos above reflects that. All colors were subdued, muted greens and grays and browns. It was difficult for me to get sharp edges on any of my photos.

Two days in a row I went to an amazing wetland area called Sandy Ridge Reservation. All of the photos above were taken in those two days. It takes an hour to get to SRR, so it’s not someplace I’ve typically gone to very often. I decided this weekend that it’s well worth the investment in time when there are so many more opportunities for photographs than at my 12-minutes-from-home Beaver Marsh.

My experiment with Instagram is going well, I think. My mind is a bit blown by the photography that is out there, but in a good way. It is informing me and inspiring me. It’s showing me where the gaps in my knowledge are (Swiss cheese comes to mind). I don’t mind being at the low end of a very steep learning curve. I told Chris it’s like finishing a great book by an unfamiliar author and then finding out they’ve written 20 more books. So much more goodness to experience. I also like the fact that I am looking at my own photography with a new, critical eye. I’ve been posting one photo a day to my account, and I’m being very picky about what makes the cut.

I have some upcoming travels and won’t be posting next weekend and probably the weekend after. Take good care of yourselves while I’m away.

Love,

Michelle xoxo

Hi friends,

Last week was a good week. I’ve started going out into nature immediately after work. When it’s an office day, I bring an extra change of clothes, change and do some yoga stretches at my gym, then head to the trails. If I go straight home, I find I tend to feel too tired to get back out there again. When it’s a work from home day I’m already in my hiking clothes and very ready to get out in the fresh air come quitting time. It’s working well.

The fall migrations are underway and there are fewer birds about, so I’ve leaned into photographing the robust wood duck population that’s still hanging around my usual marsh destination. I’ve discovered that around 5:30pm about a dozen of them gather in one sunny section of the marsh and bathe/splash about for about 10 minutes. After dunking themselves, they rise up out of the water, flapping their wings to dry off. It’s an impressive spectacle, and I’ve loved capturing it.

Fun facts:

• I have not turned on my television even once since returning from New Zealand in May. I’m not entirely sure why.
• I have bought a mini-waffle maker (this one, which has, incredibly, over 240,000 reviews on Amazon) and have discovered the yumminess that is a “chaffle”.
• Coca-cola has come out with an Oreo flavored coke and I’m a little obsessed with it. I try not to drink too much cola because of my bones, but now and then – yum (and Chloe, yes, I drink the zero sugar version).
• There is an outdoor concert venue not terribly far from the marsh I frequent, and the other night I heard music and wondered who was playing. Turns out it was Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp, Alison Krauss, and Robert Plant. What a lineup, right? But I thought to myself, “Bob Dylan is still alive? He must be absolutely ancient!” So I looked up his age. Bob Dylan is 83. Willie Nelson is 91.
• If you think you’ll avoid the crowds by going to the laundromat when they open at 7am on Sunday morning, you will have woefully misjudged the situation
• There is a new book out by Richard Osman (of Thursday Murder Club fame) called “We Solve Murders” and I just might have to purchase it for reading on my upcoming trip to New Zealand, because I’m currently 120th in line for the library version.

I hope you have a wonderful week, my dears!

Love,

Michelle xoxo

Hello friends,

I’ve made a decision. No, I’m not quitting this blog. I’ve joined Instagram. I know, it was me who listed all the evils of social media in this post. And believe me, I went back and forth on this decision many times. What tipped me toward the “do it” side was the need to grow in my photography. My understanding of the craft is still nascent. And I could stay right here in this little comfort zone, posting my photos here and having my loved ones say, “I love your photos!” But I want to get better, and in order to do that I can’t hide myself away. I need to show my work to others and to learn from them. So, I started a new account on Instagram this week. Here is a link to it. I’m going to post one photo a day, many of which I’ve already posted on here, since I don’t create one share-worthy photo each day. There’s so much for me to learn, and it can be daunting in a way – but it’s also exciting to know that I have so much room for improvement and growth.

I spent some time in Massachusetts and Connecticut recently, connecting with family and getting a much needed break from work. Next month I’ll be spending a week in New Zealand. One week is a ridiculously short amount of time to spend in a destination approximately 9,000 miles away, but that’s all I have left of my paid time off this year. I’m making it easier on myself by not taking checked luggage. I am taking one carry-on bag, which will basically contain all of my camera gear, a stained-glass piece of art my sister made for me (for the new house), and some underwear. Priorities!

In my last post I spoke of struggling. I think I will always struggle through this life to a certain extent. I don’t find being human all that easy, but I work on it every single day. I try to find moments of beauty, of awe, of humor, of connection with other people and with my place in the natural world. I try to grow and learn, to get stronger in body, mind, and spirit. Let’s face it, life is an endurance sport. To quote Taylor Swift, “life is emotionally abusive.” You have to be strong to make it through. I’m hanging in there, and I hope you are too. Part of why I try to be honest about my struggles here is in case you are struggling too. To let you know you’re not alone.

Love,

Michelle xoxo

Hi friends,

Oof, I’m having a hard time of it at the moment. Nature helps. Exercise helps. Sticking to a healthy eating plan helps. Hydration helps. Let’s see, what else helps? Getting lost in a novel. Putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Trying to learn the steps to this dance. Stretching. FaceTiming with loved ones.

The bird in the top photo above is a double-crested cormorant. I saw it in a retention pond next to the parking lot of my gym one morning. I laughed because it seemed such an unlikely place to see one. The rest of the photos were taken yesterday morning and this morning in “my” marsh. It was a very quiet weekend at the marsh. I think migration has begun for a lot of species? Usually there are a ton of tree swallows, who have iridescent blue backs and heads, but yesterday there were no tree swallows and a gazillion barn swallows (dark brown head and back, light brown and buff chest). Both days there were large groups of immature cedar waxwings (6th photo from the top), when I usually see none whatsoever.

Next weekend I probably will not have time for a blog post, but I’ll be back the following weekend. Take care of yourselves!

Love,

Michelle xoxo

Hello friends,

I began this blog in February, 2020, just a few weeks before Covid hit North America and the world turned upside down. This is my 200th post. 200! I sort of can’t believe I’ve had quite this much to say, and truth be told many times along the way I felt like the well had run dry. I imagined you all saying, “We get it – you love nature! Enough already!”

I also turned 61 last week. On the day, I was feeling a bit lonely and burned out from work, so I didn’t appreciate it as much as I should have. But I am ever so grateful to still be here.

I want to thank all of you, dear friends and family, for following me from Facebook over to this blog. I also want to thank my biggest fan, Chris, for posting the link to Facebook every time I post here.

I’ve written and deleted about three posts’ worth of words over the last hour. I feel like the 200th post deserves something weighty, somehow. But nope. It’s not happening. Lol.

Have a great week!

Love,

Michelle xoxo

Hello friends,

I arrived at “my” marsh this morning around 6:30. There were already some cars in the parking lot – there are always a few people on the boardwalk around sunrise on the weekends as that’s the best time to possibly catch a glimpse of the beavers, and the birds are at their most active. Within a couple of hours the trail is packed with runners, cyclists, and walkers, but at sunrise there’s a hush over the marsh that feels sacred.

When I’m nearly alone in this place, it is so clear to me how small each of us is in relation to the natural world. Each of us is but one creature among countless others. Our needs are no more important than that of the wood duck or the green heron. Our presence on the planet is equally brief. To me, this knowledge is such a comfort.

As the trail fills up with more humans throughout the morning, the balance shifts. I hear snippets of conversations as they pass by. The marsh is just a pleasant place for most of them to exercise or visit with friends. I can feel the clarity of dawn becoming muddled with human concerns, human priorities, human importance.

I know that when I am at work this week, with the only evidence of the natural world being the occasional plant in a cubicle, in a place where petty dramas and kingdom building rule the day, I will lose a bit of my grasp on the feeling I had this morning at dawn. Against my better judgment I will start believing that these human-created scenarios and priorities are somehow worth my time and emotional response. Even when I tell myself I don’t care, I will feel my body respond to these situations – the anxiety will rise within me, unbidden. It’s insidious. And I say this as a person who, in general, feels pretty okay about my job. I don’t hate it. I don’t dread it. It’s not work per se, it’s the human condition. The more we try to improve upon things, the more we remove ourselves from our true place in the nature world, the more we treat things as important that really are not important, the more stress we create for ourselves.

I have no sweeping conclusion. I can’t tie this up with a tidy, poetic prescription for living. I only know that the more time I spend in nature, the better I feel.

Have a gentle week. Be kind to yourselves.

Love,

Michelle xoxo

Hello friends,

I was so looking forward to this morning. Yesterday was overcast and intermittently rainy all day and today’s forecast was clear and sunny. I wanted to get out there and photograph some birds! I woke up at 6, grabbed a protein bar from the fridge, stopped off at Starbucks for an iced coffee, and headed to the marsh. While it was indeed clear most of the way to the marsh, conditions turned foggy as I descended further into the valley. The fog was lovely, but just as you can’t see clearly through it, you also can’t photograph with any kind of sharpness. I was disappointed, but I decided not to lean into that feeling. I accepted the situation for what it was (and hoped that the sun would soon burn off the fog).

The little guy (gal?) in the photo above is a muskrat. The marsh has muskrats, otters, and beavers, although I’ve never seen an otter there. The beavers were active this morning, too, but they were always a little too far away to get any kind of decent photograph. The clarity of the water this morning was such that I actually saw the fish, and I was stunned at how many there were and how big some of them were. No wonder the great blue herons love to go there for a meal. I saw several snapping turtles, one of which was so huge that its head was easily the size of a man’s fist.

I had conversations with some of the other birders there. I found out about a couple of places I had never thought to go before, very close by, one of which is known for its owl population. I was nourished by the interactions.

The sun finally did burn off the fog, at about 9, but I had places to go (home, lol) and people to talk to (Beth, Sam, Mom). I realized that allowing the morning to be exactly how it was rescued me from disappointment. There’s definitely a lesson to be learned there.

Have a wonderful week.

Love,

Michelle xoxo

Hello friends,

Last week was a rough one for me. Driving 10 hours home then diving right into office life the next day, and not just any office life, but one of our busiest times of the year. And then the powers-that-be decided what the heck, what’s really important is team-building, so let’s all go bowling. Was it fun? Well, sort of – but work fun is to real fun what the palest of pink hues is to fuchsia.

Suffice it to say that I needed this weekend. Yesterday was spent changing my address on my driver’s license and making sure my address is changed for voting. After that – laundry, meal planning, grocery shopping. All the things that don’t seem like self-care, but really, really are. The best type of self-care: taking care of your future self.

This morning I woke at 6 and went to the marsh. It was cool and clear, and I got there early enough to see a beaver making its last rounds before bedtime. The water lilies are changing – the leaves are getting brown and curling up. I know it’s still July but I got that delicious back-to-school feeling, or at least a prelude to that feeling. There was a hawk making a racket and circling in the far-off sky, but it never came close enough to photograph. I was thrilled that a couple of belted kingfishers and a green heron decided to rest and feed for a while. I stayed at the marsh for two hours and the experience did what it always does for me — it made me realize again just how unimportant all of our human concerns are. Which is good, because I seem to need that reminder at least once a week.

Have a wonderful week.

Michelle xoxo

Hello my friends,

Yesterday, in preparation for my 10-hour drive back to Ohio today, I downloaded several albums from Apple music and an audiobook. The audiobook was “Wild and Precious: A Celebration of Mary Oliver.” It was four hours long and was really well done, I thought. It not only featured readings of about 30 of Oliver’s poems (by the poet and others), but also memories of Oliver from former students and friends, as well as a reflection on her works.

On the music side of things, it was a celebration of all things Jonathan Larson – “Rent” and “tick, tick…BOOM” and an album called “Jonathan Sings Larson”, which was issued by the Library of Congress and is a compilation of audio recordings of variable quality – some live performances as well as his own demo recordings of songs he wrote. I am such a huge fan of Jonathan Larson. I always listen to his music with a tinge of sadness, wondering what he would have produced had his life not been cut short. He died of an undiagnosed aortic dissection – in fact twice misdiagnosed – in the early morning hours of the day before Rent had its first Off-Broadway preview. Rent went on to open on Broadway and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Musical.

Mary Oliver’s most famous poem is “The Summer Day”, with the line most quoted being, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” In fact, many of her poems have an urgency about them regarding our brief existence on this earth, and the need to get on with our lives posthaste. In “Fourth Sign of the Zodiac” she writes, “I know you never intended to be in this world. But you’re in it all the same. So why not get started immediately” and in “When Death Comes” she writes, “When it’s over I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.”

Mary Oliver died at age 83; Jonathan Larson died at age 35. They both lived such full lives, touching so many other lives with their art. I miss them both even though of course I never met either of them. I consider today a day well lived having spent it with these two souls.

I hope you have a wonderful week.

Love,

Michelle xoxo

P.S. I dearly love that little pup Pokey.

Hello Friends,

In the last few days I have driven 650 miles, read a book, spent time with Sam, had a fun morning with my BFF Beth, taken several naps, and enjoyed many Pokey cuddles. The book I read, The Night In Question by Susan Fletcher, was a surprise. I knew that it was a murder mystery and that the protagonist was an elderly woman. I was surprised by the fact that it is much, much more than that. Tender, life-affirming, sad, joyful – it is a celebration of family, friendship, romantic love, and letting yourself be truly seen by the people who love you.

It’s 9:30 on Sunday night as I write this, and I am realizing that the last few days have been so full that I haven’t spent any time thinking about what I might write here this week, and now I’m getting very sleepy. Oops.

I will do better next week. I hope!

Love,

Michelle xoxo