Sometimes messages are loud and clear and easy to read. We especially try to do this with warnings.
Getting to McCarthy is not always easy.
Sometimes they need a little interpretation.
Residents of the Wrangells really like their guns.But are generally kind, loving people.
Sometimes we read messages from the past, but can no longer understand them.
These petroglyphs are nearly a thousand years old.What does this mean?
Sometimes what might seem like a message is just a coincidence.
Truth in advertising?
But sometimes we think a clear message is just a coincidence.
Melting permafrost due to climate change is trouble for Alaska roads.
Nature sends us lots of messages. Some are easy to read.
A Kangaroo Rat came by here last night.Termination dust (snow) means it’s time for snowbirds to fly.
This message I read loud and clear every autumn.
Leaves are falling all around It’s time I was on my way
Sometimes Nature’s messages need a little interpretation. For instance, when an animal turns its back to you like this, they’re saying, “I’m pretending you’re not there. Now go away and leave me alone!”
Leave me alone!
Or when the fireweed reaches the top of its stem, it means summer is over.
Summer is ending!
We ignore some of nature’s messages at our own peril.
Be bear aware!
Here’s another one we are ignoring at our own peril. Global climate change is real. Sea levels are rising. I awoke one day last month to find that the sea had invaded the yard and the ocean was throwing logs onto the lawn. The homeowners say this has never happened before, but I’m willing to bet it won’t be long before it happens again. Mother Nature is sending us clear messages. You might even call them warnings. We need to pay attention.
Sea levels are rising.
Thanks to Wind Kisses for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Messages.
For this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, we’ve been invited to share our favorite images of 2022. I’ve been sharing this year’s favorite images in my last two posts, so I won’t be revisiting those images here. You can go back and look at those posts if you missed them!
The God rays are still one of my favorites!
But I would love to share some other favorites. A few of them I’ve published in earlier posts, but most are brand new. It seems my favorite images change weekly! Because of the scarcity of electricity and internet access during my summer months in Alaska, I have still not caught up with my image processing for the past year, and I discover new favorites every day.
This is becoming my favorite abstract image for 2022.
There are so many photos I haven’t even really looked at yet, including winter in Arches and most of my fall shots from Alaska and Washington State. It’s like Christmas every day for me as I continually find new favorite images.
I saw some amazing places in 2022. One that has been on my mind continually this week is the California Coast. Most winters I spend either January or February on the California Coast. I’m not there this year, which may be a blessing. My heart goes out to all the folks struggling with too much of a good thing, with the atmospheric river and torrential flooding.
Amethyst Tide
I spent the month of February 2022 housesitting in Pacific Grove on Monterey Bay. I was 4 blocks from the coast and made a point of doing photography nearly every day while I was there. That is also the batch of work I am currently processing, so a lot of my favorite images in this post are from that visit.
Pacific Grove
Another fantastic roadtrip was driving the Cottonwood Canyon Road in Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument. It was on my bucket list for years, but usually this is a road that requires 4-wheel drive. I called the ranger station to see if it would be safe to drive in just a couple of miles to do some dispersed camping and the ranger told me the road was in great shape and my little Toyota truck would make it end-to-end just fine! Quick change of plans for me, I could not miss that opportunity. The highlight was visiting Grosvenor Arch, and it was every bit as beautiful as I had imagined it would be.
Grosvenor Arch
I’ve also spent a lot of time in Olympic National Park this year. I haven’t processed the fall images yet, but I’ve included a spring sunset in this collection.
Rainbow sunset
My last post included a lot of my favorites from the time I spent at home in Alaska, but I am revisiting my favorite flower photo from this summer.
I love the pattern displayed by the flowers and their shadows in this image.
My best sunset/sunrise of the year was traveling south down Canada’s Cassiar Highway. Every image in the series is so rich and so different. That sunset went through every shade a sunset could possibly have. Intense. I did a series on Instagram last week with a few of these images, 7 Shades of Sunset.
This image looks like I tweaked the color in LightRoom, but honest, it was really that red. I did not saturate the color, I even used Adobe Neutral as my color profile. I published a different swatch from that evening’s palette of hues in last week’s post, ‘cuz this one looked too over the top to me. But now I think it is my favorite.
Cassiar Highway Sunset
I traveled the Mt. Baker Highway for the first time this fall. Although the conditions were less than ideal due to wildfire smoke, I was amazed at the astounding views and the easy access to hiking in the alpine. I can only imagine how stunning it must be when there’s no smoke. A new favorite place, I will definitely be checking that road out again!
Mt. Shuksan
And of course now, I’m on Orcas Island for the winter, where there are some lovely waterfalls. This image is a favorite.
Rustic Falls
I look forward to seeing what favorite images 2023 will bring. If you have been following my travels on Facebook, though, it seems that Facebook has not been circulating my posts much lately. I urge you to subscribe to my blog instead, so that you won’t miss a post.
Well, I couldn’t do it. This week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge is Last Chance, when we’re invited to show off some of our favorite 2022 images that have not been published in a post yet this year. Since I took such a long hiatus from my blog this year, I have plenty! Too many, in fact. I can’t narrow my unpublished favorites down to one post.
Oregon beach sunset
I’ve been trying, but I have lots of sweet images I’d love to share. Because I have too many, and since the Lens-Artists are taking a week off for the holidays and won’t be putting out a prompt next week, I’ve decided to divide my favorites into 2 parts. This week will be my favorites from below the 49th parallel, and next week will be my Northland favorites.
Tallest trees in the world
Last Winter’s Travels
One suggestion was to include images that would probably never be included in one of our typical posts. I pet sit in the winter but I very, very seldom include photos of my charges in my posts. Here is a favorite shot of a kitty I took care of last January.
This kitty used to chew holes in my clothes!
I spent the month of February on a housesit in Pacific Grove, California. I envisioned this shot and was so excited, especially in post-processing when I realized I’d captured exactly what I’d envisioned!
I love the layers in this sunset silhouette.
I love visiting the redwood forest, and I love capturing abstracts. This is my favorite abstract shot for 2022. Charred bark from a previous fire and living green moss and lichens contributed to hues as bright as a peacock’s tail when looked at closely in this image.
Rainbow Redwood
Check out this cool tree. It’s in Olympic National Park’s coastal forest, and with a burly head, fungus features, and a crown of fern leaves, it’s a people tree! I stop by and say Hello! and give it a hug every time I pass that way.
Tree Person
(Yawn) Another sublime Olympic sunset… The Feature is one, too. I captured this image on Rialto Beach. I love the dreamy feel of this image. The Feature shot is from First Beach. I had so many great shots from First Beach it was hard to pick just one.
Rialto Beach
This Winter’s Travels
My final image from Olympic is fall colors, maples along the Sol Duc Hot Springs Road. Olympic had by far the best fall colors I found in Washington this year.
Maples on the Sol Duc Hot Springs Road
Now I’m on Orcas Island, and I have especially enjoyed the waterfalls here. This one is called Rustic Falls.
Rustic Falls
For my final image, while hiking a local trail I saw this Big Leaf Maple leaf standing, still attached, on a tree branch – perfectly upright and all by itself, beautifully backlit. It’s getting a bit ragged, but mostly green, even though it’s December. It hasn’t let go, just keeps hanging on. This is a great inspiration for those times when I’m feeling a little raggedy! I underexposed the background because it was a bit busy and distracting. Doing this helped me to capture the way this leaf looked to me and made me feel.
Getting a little raggedy, but still hanging in there!
Hope you, too, are still hanging in there and I wish you all a Happy Holiday season!
I kept putting off my visit. Why should I seek out a place that would only depress me? The last time I was there I only saw 3 or 4, and I had to use binoculars even to find the dismal few. I heard a rumor that they were coming back. But I also heard that last year none returned at all.
Since it was my last week in Pacific Grove, and the sanctuary was close by, I decided to bite the bullet and check it out. I’m glad I did.
I had only taken a few steps into the refuge when the passion and the drama took place right before my eyes, practically at my feet. They were fluttering by, flirting, chasing each other when things suddenly got serious. He slammed her to the ground. They wrestled. They danced. Then he brought their lovemaking to an entirely new level. He clasped her close. She went limp in his arms. He carried her high into the sky, up to the very tops of the trees.
Butterfly Porn
When it comes to sexual endurance, the Monarch Butterflies put humans to shame. A pair of Monarchs will mate for up to 15 hours! They start mid-afternoon and finish shortly after sunrise. Afterwards, the female flies off to find a milkweed plant to lay her eggs on. In the two weeks or so that she has left to live, the female Monarch will repeat that act again and again.
In a week when the world situation is looking especially grim, it sure is nice to be able to share some good news. The Monarch Butterflies seem to be making a bit of a comeback.
Monarchs mating
I’ve written before about the demise of the Monarchs. The last time I visited the Pacific Grove Sanctuary, California’s Monarchs had plummeted to less than 1% of their former population. Numbers had dropped from 4.5 MILLION in the 1980s to 28,429 as of January 2019.
Last year there were no butterflies at all found in the Pacific Grove Sanctuary, and less than 2,000 counted in all of California.
Bring your binoculars
This year there were about 14,000 in Pacific Grove alone and just over 247,000 in the total count for the California coast. Good news!
Perhaps some of our actions have helped the Monarch. Pacific Grove is a town that takes safeguarding the butterflies seriously. In this town, messing with a Monarch carries a $1,000 fine! The city has planted butterfly-friendly plants in its parks and along the Coastal Trail. Many residents have also planted butterfly-friendly plants, avoided RoundUp, and eaten more organic food since hearing about the Monarch’s plight.
Monarch cluster
Action is even beginning to take place on the federal level. There were two bills for butterfly conservation included in the $1 trillion infrastructure package that passed in November. These Acts, the Monarch and Pollinator Highway Act and the Monarch Action, Recovery, and Conservation of Habitat Act, will provide grants for replacing invasive species with native pollinator-friendly plants on highway roadsides and medians. They will also charge highway crews with being mindful about when they mow, avoiding mowing during key times in the Monarch migration.
The resurgence of butterfly numbers this year is wonderful news. But it’s not really a comeback, it’s more of a reprieve. We dodged a bullet this time, but 250,000 is a drop in the bucket compared to the 4.5 million found in earlier years. Monarch Butterflies still face the looming threats of pesticides, habitat destruction and climate change. They still need our help to grow back into a healthy, thriving population.
Help the Monarchs. Eat organic. Don’t use pesticides. Please do what you can to provide sanctuary, and help the Monarch butterflies survive.
Thank you, Karina of Murtagh’s Meadow, for providing this week’s Lens-Artists Photography Challenge, A Special Place.
It’s a good year to miss winter in Alaska. The snow started early, on the last day of summer. I wasn’t lucky enough to miss that storm. It complicated my travel plans. It took me a couple of extra days to close everything up on the homestead and get out of town.
Then the snow took a brief hiatus, making way for the extreme cold. It was 40 below for weeks at a time in McCarthy, even dipping down to -60. The coldest I had ever seen was 53 below. Glad I missed the cold spell.
Pacific Coast sunset
See what I mean about a good winter to miss? It was just getting started.
It’s been snowing back home. And snowing, and snowing….. more snow than anyone can remember ever falling in McCarthy. Buildings are buried. And it’s still February. March is usually the snowiest month. Yikes!
Sunset in Pacific Grove
Which makes me super grateful for where I am spending the winter, further south on the Pacific Coast. I have really been enjoying those Pacific Coast sunsets.
I spent January at a housesit in Anacortes, Washington. The weather was generally dark, drab and dreary, with snow, rain or fog practically every day. My SAD syndrome kicked in, but I kept reminding myself about what the weather was like back home and felt pretty thankful to be someplace safe and warm where I could avoid driving on those occasions when the streets were icy.
Sunset at Rosario Beach near Anacortes, Washington
The day before I left, I did have one nice sunset.
Then my luck changed. I had clear weather for 3 days in Olympic National Park! What a rare and wonderful occurrence! The skies continued to stay mostly clear as I traveled down the coast to my February housesit, in Pacific Grove, California.
Rialto Beach, Olympic National park
Mostly clear, except every night as I passed through Oregon there was a thin band of fog on the western horizon in otherwise cloudless skies, effectively extinguishing any hints of color from the setting sun. I’ve included a photo from an Oregon sunset I took on another trip, so you can see the potential and understand my disappointment when things looked so hopeful each evening but didn’t pan out.
Bandon Beach, Oregon
Skies have been clear almost every night here in California. There has only been one day with any precipitation at all. It was just a sprinkle, but I was able to capture some fabulous God rays between storms. Check out the feature shot and you’ll see what I mean.
I feel a little like Goldilocks and the three bears. Although I am grateful for all these beautiful sunsets, we could use some rain. Although there’s too much snow in McCarthy, the drought in the West is severe. According to dendrochronology, the science of interpreting past climate through tree rings, in some places it’s the worst drought in over 1500 years. So I pray for rain, and hope that if it comes, it also brings big waves, god rays and rainbows.
I tried to keep it down to 12, but I couldn’t. Here is a baker’s dozen of my favorite photos of 2021.
It was really hard to cut it down to just a baker’s dozen. Reviewing the images I’ve captured over the last year, I realized that what I had were favorite photographic moments, not individual photos.
Purple Mountain’s Majesty, a favorite photographic moment.
You know, when you’re really in the zone, actively practicing the Art of Seeing? You might take a whole series of shots and not be able to choose one in the series as the best. That’s how I felt about a lot of these images.
I tried to disqualify images I’d already published in this blog (mostly!) So if you read my last few blog posts, you’ll find a few more favorites I wish I could include.
Knik Glacier
Despite all the darkness and cold, there are some things about winter in Alaska that are really special and that I miss when I’m not there, kind of a reward for those who tough it out. One is the aurora, of course. Another is the special pink sunset/twilight glow in the sky on certain cold, clear nights. Although I got lots of great alpenglow, I didn’t see as many pink light evenings as I have in past winters. But I did get it one evening when I photographed the Knik Glacier.
Bad Hair Day
I went to Homer to see a few birds this spring. The migration was a bit disappointing, but I did get some wonderful eagle shots!
Wild Calla Lilies
This is my favorite flower shot for 2021. I didn’t shoot nearly as many flowers as in years past, since I stayed in Alaska and didn’t follow the bloom. But I saw two brand new flowers I’d never noticed before in a few ponds along the McCarthy Road, White Water Lilies and Wild Calla.
Sunrise on the Bosque
It was October. It was not yet prime time for birds at Bosque del Apache. Due to the drought, the ponds on the edge of the refuge that are usually the go-to spots for bird photographers trying to catch the spectacle of the Bosque were dry. I wasn’t expecting much. I only had one day to spare. But the Bosque is a magical place and doesn’t disappoint. Having fewer sources of water concentrated the birds that were there. I was surprised to realize that three of my favorite photos for the entire year were taken on that day.
Even though I published the sunrise photo in a prior post, I had to include it since it was probably my second-most favorite photo for the year. Also, I processed it a little differently this time and think it does a better job of capturing the feel of sunrise on the Bosque.
Every leaf on this tree is a bird.
As I slowly drove by, I realized that all those “dead leaves” on that tree were birds. Then they took off and I was swept up by a cloud of birds. The Bosque is bird heaven!
Sunset on the beach at San Simeon
This might be my favorite photo of 2021. Except it’s one of those photographic moments, one of a series… I like the vertical images I captured of this scene a lot, too! Both this image and the feature image were taken on the beach at San Simeon in California. The island the cormorants are roosting on is part of the California Coastal National Monument. It is usually just offshore except during a very low tide, like this one.
Magical Manzanitas
I absolutely fell in love with the manzanitas and madrones of southern Oregon in November and December. I can’t choose my very favorite madrone/manzanita photo. I have about 20 favorites. But they were my favorite thing to photograph all year. So here’s one I haven’t published.
Manzanita Bark
I couldn’t choose a favorite detail shot of that forest, either. I have about a dozen favorites of bark, lichens, mushrooms… But this is definitely one of those favorites.
What is it?
This is definitely my favorite abstract of the year, though. Can you guess what it is?
Wishing you all a great 2022!
This final shot conveys my thoughts and hopes for 2022, that the light burns through the fog of the last couple of crazy years and brings us all many happy blessings. Welcome 2022!
