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June 3, 2018  – See the updated Photo Page featuring Linda Somers and Jim Spain

Jim Brubaker wrote:

June 3 – For Loon watching, I have been testing the 42 power lens of my old Nikon Coolpix which I have not used for a couple years – looks pretty good though:

June 1, 2018 – Who are you?  Are you an Island onto yourself? Of course you are. You are yourself!  Read on down this page just for fun.

Our photo club members are each an Island onto to themselves, in a way.  I can identify each photographer by the set of photos they send me to post on our website. Each set has it’s unique fingerprint. 

Hey, club members, you may not have thought about it, but I think that is why our sharing session at club meetings is so successful. That session is like a vacation trip. We get to see the sights – and some times – the sounds of another island, without the cost and effort to travel there. Our fellow club members bring “Their” unique island to us so that we get to enjoy their island.

Every vacation or motorhome trip I have taken for the last sixty or so years included a visit to an island.  Newfound, Iceland, Smith, Tangiers, Denmark, Scotland, and dozens more.  I have lived on two Island – one 15 miles out to sea off the coast of Rhode Island and the other is Drummond Island in the Great Lakes.  A Island girl even married me – Manhattan Island is in her soul!

I will show you a few sights and sound of my home on Drummond as I saw them in the few days since I left TGO – Of course TGO is like a gated Island – we in TGO do have a unique culture – being a culture of RV’s and associated toys and hobbies like the Outdoors, Nature, and Photography.

Below is one sight and sound from our dock on Island Drummond. It may take a few seconds for the sound to load – but it will, so be patient.

Be sure to go to the Photo Page and see photos club members sent me – see if you can find the photographers unique fingerprint of their Island.

Go to the Photo Page – Ed Swan has added 11 wild flower photos  (5/25/2018)

Go to the Photo Page – Ed Swan has added new photos today (5/22/2018)

Go to the Photo Page – Dave Cesari has added new photos today (5/19/2018)

Then come back and read my story of animals in my life.

What is that animal(s) in your life?

It could be a cracker, a wild partner, a kitty coiled up on your lap, a vulture tearing through the garbage bag, a fish in the pond, a gator scaring you half to death, a mosquito biting you, W O W animals are everywhere.

But where do you like them? I was thinking about it – I like them in my life and I like them where they choose to be – not so much where I put them.

Sure, having an animal to keep and feed is great, but putting food out for them and letting them decide when to eat, when to bring their babies with them,  and where to go after they eat is the best.  Never quite sure what their timing will be, it is better than watching a TV mystery show – looking for the animal’s arrival and their interaction with each other – or lack thereof.

My neighbors on the Island feed the deer. Some folks are not sure it is a good idea to do that – I love the idea because, that is what I do nearly every hour of the day – look at or look for animals around the neighborhood. 

When I had the ranch in Texas, you had to not only watch them, you had to watch out for them.  Snakes (Corals, Copper Heads, Water Moccasins, and Rattlers), scorpions, mosquitos, black widow spiders, brown recluse spiders, rabid fox, mad bulls, and protective momma cows and momma emus, or those papa emus that thought you may be a rival. You better watch these animals ‘cause they were watching you – some not in the most friendly way. – But I loved watching them all. Could not wait to tell any listener about my latest encounters with the animals.

Even now, I am out and about a lot. I exercise on my bike for an hour to two every day, ride my golf cart around after dark while taking out the garbage and going for the mail. I eat out on the porch, or by a picture window, three times a day. I am sitting here at my computer looking out over the lake.  I was thinking.  Every minute that I am doing these things I am looking for animals to watch. Beautiful birds over the lake looking for dinner, even as I type.

All summer I help my friends take care of horses, and after work is all done we sit on their porch and watch the animals gather a their bird/racoon/bear/squirrel feeding station. Four or five months a year I have no TV – but I never go even four days without watching animals.  I am always looking for animals – animals that I have seen many times before – I still am looking for them.

When my children were growing up, our house always had cats, dogs, gerbils, hamsters, parakeets, song birds, rabbits, turtles, snakes, and more – our lawn was home to snakes, squirrels, all kinds of birds, and more.

When I was growing up we had cows, ponies, horses, chickens, goats, sheep and of course a barn yard full of birds, mice, rats, weasels, bob cats, deer, mink, fox, bear, etc that came to eat food left by the farm animals – or perhaps to eat a not too cautious farm animal.

Maybe this little recap about animals will trigger a thought in your mind about enjoying the animal around you – they are a gift of nature – and the gift is practically free. 

Here are a few photos of my animal friends – most are snapped with my iPhone while out on my bike:

Pegasus is a mythical winged divine stallion, and one of the most recognized creatures in Greek mythology. Usually depicted as pure white, Pegasus is a child of the Olympian god Poseidon. He was foaled by the Gorgon Medusa upon her death, when the hero Perseus decapitated her.

As I was creating the painting  of Serena, the image of mythical horses popped into my brain.  Oh my, grab your sword and shield and jump on your unicorn or Pegasus and ride with me for just one nice  legend:

With a distinctive head shape and high tail carriage, the Arabian is one of the most easily recognizable horse breeds in the world. It is also one of the oldest breeds, with archaeological evidence dating back 4,500 years.

The Bloody Shoulder Arabian is a tale that has been past down for hundreds of years in the deserts of what is now the Arabian Peninsula. It is said a  warrior saddled up his most prized Arabian mare that was with foal. During the act of battle, the mare gave birth to a strong healthy filly. Struggling to keep up with the mare and with the enemy quickly gaining on them, the warrior took his lance and pieced the foal through the shoulder. The mare understood the act and realized the foal would no longer be following her. Even though she was filled with grief, the loyal mare carried her warrior rider safely to his camp.

When the warrior awake from sleep, he noticed something astounding through the tent door– a day-old filly standing by the mare’s side. This was the same foal he had killed the day before. With no injuries, the foal carried just a patch of blood-stained hair across its shoulders. Believing the foal was a treasured gift from God, the warrior vowed to raise the foal and take special care of it. The foal’s blood-stained shoulder was never lost and she passed on these special markings to her offspring.

Hey, do not forget to check out Dave’s bird photos on the Photo Page

Read below for JimsDaily of 5/10/2018 – “Digital clocks, cameras, and digital news. Oh my!”

While sitting on my porch having breakfast – digitally captured this bunny having breakfast too

The total purpose of this little story is to get you to think about and to love the digital age we are in.

My Dad dated my Mom in a Model T Ford in the 1920’s.  I doubt if it used any digital computers. – Oh my – What is a computer?  My car use digital computers, to tell me where to turn, how much gas I have left, how much air is in my tires, how fast I am going, what the speed limit is,  – some times when I do not listen to it, I swear it swears at me!

My Grandkids probably do not even know what a Model T is – but they sure know a lot of digital things.  I get digital photos from them every day – they send me digital video stories that their phone recorded. They send all those digitals along to my phone – One Thousand Five Hundred miles away – those digits come  through snow storms, tornadoes, down pours, and then into the scorching heat of Florida – Magic. 

The Model T would have taken weeks to get to me in Florida.

Are you thinking yet.  Hey, I am sitting in a Doctors waiting room  – There are 10 people in the waiting room – eight of them are playing around with digital devices,watching movies. reading mail, typing stories, sending photos, reading about President Trump talking of Iran – The news guy is talking half a world away but he is sitting right here on my knee in this doctor’s waiting room – That is the Virtual Reality that we just take for granted.

Think about it. The news man is right here for me, he is in the kitchen for my daughter a 1000 miles away, he is on the radio talking to my son as he drives to work.  When he gets to work he will send to his students digital x-rays to help them learn to handle medical emergencies. We take all this digital magic for granted.

A young quarterback will put on Virtual Reality glasses and be the quarterback in a thousand plays – learning to make the snap decisions that build a winning team – Without the digits, a quarterback in training, would need 10 seasons of experience to get that good.

How about the virtual experience a Wal-Mart manager in training can have – learning how to manage  during the Christmas rush – labor problems, shipping problems, irate customers, employees that do a no-show, or an employees found sitting in a corner smoking pot, or an employee found with his hand in the till, or a customer threatening an employee with physical harm. All of this and more could happen in one twenty-four hour period. A Wal-Mart manager must deal with all of this.  It would take many Christmas rush seasons to give this young manager the experience needed to deal with it.  But, with Virtual Reality training, a twenty year old kid could get that experience in a week or two – The digital world – we gotta love it.

Oh my – are you thinking yet?

As an old retired person, today, I get to use the digital devices to be watching movies, reading mail, typing stories, sending photos, reading about President Trump talking of Iran – Oh my, what I really like to do is study how to make fake digital pictures and paintings that move even. Here is some scraps from my digital art easel:

“The Most Wonderful Memories of Mine”  SOUNDS LIKE A SONG?  I have millions of memories  – Problem is, at my age I can not remember most of them, but you know, the joy of watching barn cats is returned so vivid in my mind every time I see a stray cat out and about in our “Great Outdoor’s” community.  Barn cats were my constant pets – fun to pet and relaxing to watch their graceful movement!

Our Nature Center hosts a beautiful Facebook page – We recently have had two “gross” images of Gators doing what we do three to ten times per day -” EAT”

It is gross to see the demise of a fawn or a large fish – that is nature.   BUT,  there is another side to nature – It is grace in movement.

Did you know, cats sacrifice efficiency for smooth moves?  I found this information on the internet. – Interesting to read.

Cats evolved to move differently than the other mammals we most commonly observe, namely humans and dogs.

Animals that need to travel long distances to find safety and food move in energy-saving ways.  Humans and dogs, for example, use gravity to their advantage when they walk and run. “Our centers of mass rise and fall when we walk.”

The movement of our furry feline friends is different. Cats slink close to the ground. They walk in a way that the movements of their front and back ends cancel each other out — not the way to use gravity to one’s advantage.

“The total movement of their bodies is even, and they flow along,”

This flowing movement has to do with putting food on the table. “Cats need to creep up on their prey,” “Most scientists think that energetic efficiency is the currency of natural selection. But here we’ve shown that cats make compromises when it comes to choosing between saving energy and getting food.”

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Now, this is a video I put together from an iPhone snapshot I took at the corner of Plantation and Oak Cove the other day. Look at the smooth moves of this non-furry friend of ours. Yes, sometimes we think of these guys as gross – but, now look at the beauty of the graceful moves – particularly look at the feet movement in the last frames.

That is my story and I am sticking to it. Oh my, I will slink on out of here. Bye for now.

Your surroundings make you happy or sad I have been told.

I say, the way you look at your surroundings is what makes you happy or sad. Quit that crying – Now!  Oh my – sounds like a parent.  Ask Heather and Jim!!!   I would add in no uncertain terms ” Be happy!”  Then, I would laugh – try to put a twinkle in my eye – and tell them I understood the severity of their problem – sometimes that would actually make them laugh.