April 14,2018 Update:  Photos from my daily ramblings with iPhone in my pocket – well in my hand when I want to take a photo:

 

April 12, 2018 – Oh my, – Will you think of the wonderful things that are out there to see, then go see them?

I think I have 10,000 digital images stored in the iclouds of the Apple computer.  How did they get there you ask? 

Good question – Do you have a cell phone? – Do you carry the cell phone most of the time? Would you enjoy spending most of your waking hours outside the house? Is your eye trained to notice tid-bits of tell-tell signs of nature’s creatures and plants while walking/biking/horse-back riding/golfing/canoeing?

I try to answer “Yes” to each question – that way I get to see lot of wonderful facts of nature – and with the cell phone camera – That is how I have thousands of outdoor photos to enjoy over and over – and of course, at times like this, I can share them with you.

Here are just a few:

(Do not forget if you have photos that you would like to share – just send them to me at jimbrubaker@earthlink.net – I will get them posted somewhere in this web-site.)

I love Mushrooms/Toadstools – “To look at them, I mean”  – They come in all colors and sizes and shapes!

 

Oh my – Almost time for me to head outdoors on my bike – Catch you next time.

 

web-site

 

 

April 7, 2018 – Photo Page

has been updated!

April 6, 2018 – Front Page

“Look What I Found”

I have taken on a new project with the TGO Photo Club: “Encouraging you to share your summer (Spring, Winter, Fall too) experiences through this web site.”

Telling your summer story is easy. The iphone camera is with us most of  the time – use it, then send your photos to      jimbrubaker@earthlink.net  

If you have no photos but want to tell a story – send that to me. If you only have photos and no story, send them to me.  This web-site will evolve – I will find a place to post what you want to share.

After you have read this Front Page, click on the Photo Page to the left.

Here is one of my stories for the Spring of 2018. I call it  “Look what I found.”

I wondered what this was all about, so, I went to the internet and Googled “Hidden small painted stones.”  This news article popped up:

“Kids ditch technology to join global painted rock hide and seek craze”

ABC – South West WA By Michael Black – Updated Sun 11 Mar 2018, 9:14pm

“A new global craze has kids all over the world getting outdoors to play hide and seek with hand-painted rocks.

It has been praised as a cheap and easy way to get kids away from technology and outside.

The hidden rocks are typically small, flat garden stones with a simple picture or a nice message painted on either side.

The rocks are hidden in parks, with photos posted on a Facebook page so other parents can take their children to find the rocks, then re-hide them somewhere else.

The trend started in America and has spread to many different countries, including Australia.”

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So a hunting we did go and found more rocks in TGO:

Maybe you found some painted rocks that you would like to share on this web-site.

Send me photos

Bye for now!

FRONT PAGE:

  People always seem to be looking for ways to better their mood. Nature offers a simple solution to improving one’s emotional health: “FLOWERS”

“Being in the presence of flowers triggers happy emotion.”

In a study done by a team of researchers at Rutgers University, it was proven that flowers have a positive effect on people’s moods.

Flowers have a long-term positive effect also. The study showed that the presence of flowers led to increased contact with family and friends.

So, yesterday I went out on a two-hour walk in Nature around our community, The Great Outdoors, with only my iPhone camera in hand, and searched for Natures happy emotion.

At the end of the two hours, I really felt great.  I enjoyed each encounter with flowers in the wild. I will do it again, and I encourage you to give it a try.

I present here, for your enjoyment, 19 of my finds.

Again, a very Happy Easter to you.  May you think of scheduling a little time each day to study a flower.

I will catch you later, when I think of another topic to post on this website.

Oh, by the way – if you have any photos you would like to share with other readers, just send them to me (of course they must be suitable for family viewing) and I will work them into my postings.

See you next time – Bye for now

With the weakening of our five senses as we age, parts of the brain responsible for these senses become hyperactive. They fabricate sounds, sights, smells, tastes, and feelings that really are not there.

Aging is a beautiful, natural, inevitable process. We can gain new experiences, every day, from things that do not exist.  After years of getting to know the world around us we think we knew it all. But try hallucinating for a new beautiful sense.  Experts say, when adults reach 60 years and over, the incidence of hallucinations increase.

To be honest, I am way over 60, and I am not aware that I hallucinate,  and honest again,  I have never been told that I hallucinate. So, there is what I have to say to the experts.

To be honest again though, I really enjoy seeing things that are not. I enjoy forcing myself to be creative – Look at an object, the sky, or the weather and pretend I see things. Get into a situation and pretend that I am free to make new rules and have fun.

Yesterday, while walking in the Orlando airport, I saw a tree growing out of the floor with two large trunks reaching for the skylights as part of the landscape in the airplane boarding area. Of course every one walked around them (As the architects of the modern airport expected) – but I saw a walkway run right between the trunks. I thought it would be more fun to send my suitcase(on wheels) around the tree and I would walk on my make-believe walkway – of course I expected the TSA officers to put cuffs on me – but they only laughed at the old man clowning around.

I will talk more on this subject, of creatively making fun, in future posting to this web site – but for now, I hope you use the two following illustrations to help prompt you to see (create in your mind) things that are not, tell others of your thoughts, and have a good laugh.

Be confident that it is not old age hallucination.  Quite the opposite, you are teaching your mind to creatively play! – and that is a good way to start having inexpensive safe fun every day.

So there, that  is what I have to say to the experts on old age hallucination.

Famous “The Starry Night” painting by Vincent van Gogh

This morning the CBS TV show “Sunday Morning” focused on the mind – from artistic genius minds, to animal minds, to those who became creative geniuses as they lost their link to the world as the aged.

The TV show went on to say, many of history’s most celebrated creative geniuses were mentally ill, from renowned artists Vincent van Gogh, who cut off his ear,   to literary giants Virginia Woolf and Edgar Allan Poe. Today, mounting research shows these two extremes of the human mind really are linked — and scientists are beginning to understand why.

OK, parents and grandparents – You might want to have dumb kids after all.  Those straight A students may be in trouble. One study tested the intelligence of 700,000 Swedish 16-year-olds and then followed up a decade later to learn which of them had developed mental illnesses. The startling results were published in 2010. “They found that people who excelled when they were 16 years old were four times as likely to go on to develop bipolar disorder,”

I was not straight A’s.  But while watching the TV show, I did create a piece of art.  You tell me, after looking at it, if you think I have a demented mind? Now be kind.

Who are the smart people among us? I like to think that our Presidents are very creative, if not genius – regardless of their political party affiliation. To link this thought of mine to the TV show on “Mind, Madness, and Creativity,” I found many of our Presidents turned to the “hobby” of art creation.

A president recovering from a term or two in the highest seat of executive power in the United States needs some downtime and a calming hobby.

I researched to find examples of four Presidents, after retirement, turned to art. I will show you examples of their work:

1. Grant,

2. Eisenhower,

3. Carter,

4. George W. Bush.

OK, Grandparents, go tell your A student, or your B student, or what ever level they seek to accomplish in high school,  “You are Great” – Things will take care of themselves as they grow up – I think it is your job to just help them “Be active, appreciate each morning, stay out of bad habits, and stay away from bad associations.”  I bet they will thank you for your help. Maybe from the oval office.

 

Last Saturday, I unknowingly rode my bike into the land of Unicorns right here in the Great Outdoors Community’s nature trails.

HISTORY:  The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed,  horn projecting from its forehead. The unicorn was mentioned by the ancient Greeks.

In European folklore, the unicorn is often depicted as a white horse with a long horn. In the  Renaissance, it was a woodland creature, a symbol of purity and grace, which could only be captured by a virgin.

Doing research for this posting, I found there are hundreds of Children Fairy Tale books about Unicorns or using Unicorn characters. I chose one to tell you just a little about how one story might use unicorns.  I chose this on also because I needed to find a way to use my digitized  photograph.

The book I chose –  “Into Luster, the Land of the Unicorns”  by Bruce Coville 1999:

Cara Diana Hunter and her grandmother realize they were being followed on their way home from the library. They duck into a church, but their pursuer follows. Cara is terrified, but her grandmother seems to expect this. Grandmother gives Cara her special amulet and instructs her to run to the top of the church tower. She says that when she gets to the top of the building to clutch the amulet and on the stroke of 12 say “Luster take me home.”

She tells Cara to find the Old One and tell her “the Wanderer is weary.”  Cara does does as told, and ends up in a magical forest in a different world. This world is called Luster and it is the home of the unicorns. Cara makes several friends on her way to find the Old One, who is actually the Queen of the unicorns, in order to deliver her grandmother’s message.

Some of the characters are:

• Cara – A young girl whose grandmother gives her an Amulet to get into Luster. Raised on the run by her grandmother, who is a “Wanderer” between our world and Luster.
• Old One – The Queen of the Unicorns and lives in Summerhaven. She is also known as Arabella Skydancer.
• Firethroat – A dragon snake who gives Cara the gift of tongues. Wise and philosophical.
• Lightfoot – A unicorn prince who Cara meets soon after she arrives in Luster. He helps Cara get to Summerhaven to see the Queen.
•  Dimblethum – A wolf like person. The Dimblethum saves Cara from a goblin-like Delver as soon as she arrives in Luster. He also assists her on her journey to see the unicorn Queen.
• Squijum – A funny looking animal (looks a bit like a raccoon).
• And many more!