Ms Em

For those of you keeping track of Ms Em

Winter Snaps

I've finally done it. I've got a digital SLR and am learing to take pictures all over again. I thought it was appropriate as I was taking all these snaps that I should "snap" the hardy snap dragons. They were planted last Spring and made it through the summer of hell, literally. Here they are still bravely blooming during the cold and damp winter. Me too guys. I'm still snapping.

The Empty Nest

I can always find something that is interesting to photograph at Mom and Dad's. This is a photograph of a now abandoned martin nest in a martin house. The houses are lowered each year after the brood has been raised. They'll remain at eye level until February when they are raised again to welcome the returning birds. What determines which pieces make it into the nest? Size, color, texture? Why that particular feather or that bit of string. I love nests.

Gardening in Fall

Fall is my favorite time of year around here. Cool nights and warm days. This is the one time of year my "yarden" gets closest to my English garden dream.

He was ensorcelled by an evil...

The flames had a mesmerizing effect. If I had seen the lurker at the time I took the photograph, I might not have left when I did. Is he an old flame? Is he trying to manifest? Who could have captured such a man and kept him for so many years bound by flame? Perhaps a story waiting to be written by you.

Scooby Doooooo!

I'll admit it. I'm a child of the 70's. I took my 1973 Scooby Doo lunch box to school every day and Scooby Doo influenced my taste in Halloween spooky ever since. Give me a good mystery, scary villans, smart heroes the Mystery Machine and a dog who triumphs in the end. "I'dve gotten away with it too if not for those pesky kids". Reality scary is just too real to be fun. Keep your slashers, your real life bad guys. I'll take my horror animated, thank you very much.

Not your average field trip

Foutains Abbey, Yorkshire. Kids get to spend day living like the monks of Fountains Abbey before the disolution of the Abbey. I can remember field trips when I was young. We went to the zoo and for a quarter you could get a "moldarama" of a zoo animal. I remember it dropping out of the machine piping hot and you had to hold it upside down so the molten plastic didn't drip onto your fingers. Or maybe the ButterKrust bakery and you could watch the loaves of bread roll by. I wonder what differences this makes in us as adults. Growing up surrounded by hundreds of years of history or in the young America. Where do we find common ground when we look at the world through two different lenses of childhood?