Month: July 2013

You herd it hear.

 

Maizy had had enough.

Oh life in the pen was making her crazy.
When she was just a little goat…. she started running with the wrong Herd.  You know how kids are….. hanging out near the feed bins…. eating whole ears of corn, and chewing on tin cans with the tops still attached.

She was a good little goat at heart.  But she ended up with the wrong pack of does and bucks.  One day, Billy talked her in to getting on the hood of the pick up truck, and doing the Goat version of  The River Dance… will ALL four hooves.

That was it.  It made such a racket… with all the stomping and pounding.  Farmer McDonald came out… and…. wellllllll…….. that was the end of that.

In the Pen.  For life.  Milk Goat.

And now… Maizy couldn’t take it for another minute.  She wanted to be like her cousin… Annie the Antelope… running free in the wild.

Tomorrow she would put her plan in motion and bust out of this place.  She had eaten all the hay… so there was no hope of making bale.

So… a breakout it would be.  And with her new found freedom, she promised herself she would be an outstanding goat.  A noble goat.  A kind and generous goat.

A good goat.  Not baaaaaaaaahhhhhhdddd.

No kidding.

“Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.” – Albert Camus

“May we think of freedom, not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right.” – Peter Marshall

 

Grace. Minus the bug.

When I get a camera in my hand, I just feel different.  When I put the view finder up to my eye, and look through the lens, I get a certain “feeling” from time to time.  I can’t so much describe it… other than it feels good.

Like hearing a great piece of music, or getting a foot rub, or eating a bowl of ice cream.  It is just a nice place to be.

So for me, it doesn’t so much matter what I am shooting.  It is just the feeling I get when I make photographs.

But here is the thing.  Sometimes, when you shoot the “obscure”… people become extremely curious, and amazingly brazen.  I was taking very close up images at the fair.  I can’t tell you the number of people that came by…. leaned down by my face….. and said…. “Earl.  Look!  She must see a bug on that thing or SOMETHING.  I’ll bet ya’ any money she’s takin’ a pitcher of a bug  on that there thing…..”

Lady.  No bug.   Earl.  Honest to goodness.  No freakin’ bug.

Just me.  Seeing what I see. And doing what I do.

“Grace has been defined as the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.” – William Hazlitt

You are right, you’re wrong.

 

I think this might be true.

No matter what you have in life… whatever “thing” or subject…. person, place, or thing…. there is ALWAYS more than one way to look at it.

No matter what it is.

 

However “right” we may think we may be about something… there may be…. just maybe…. another possibility.

Another outcome.  Another way of doing.

But.  These things matter.  Sometimes we may think they are large, or at other times…. we may see them as nothing at all.  But they matter.  And they will change.

That is what I think think tonight.  But who knows… I could be right on…. , or…..  maybe I am wrong.

“There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

Dangerous Minds.

Tonight, I watched a little bit of 60 Minutes on CBS.  The segment I viewed pertained to Bill Gates.  (Yes, Microsoft Bill Gates.  But you nay-sayers…. say nay no more.  He has turned out to be quite the generous Philanthropist and Humanitarian.)

Anyway.  Like him or not, Bill is pretty smart I’ll tell you.  Yep.   They don’t come along like that every minute.   And this TV segment sparked my thinking about how those kinds of people think.  Throughout history, we have had a wealth of brilliant people.

They are phenomenal, each in their own way.  Leonardo da Vinci.  Rosa Parks.  Albert Einstein.  Martin Luther King Jr.  Marie Curie.  Socrates.  Eleanor Roosevelt.  Michelangelo.  Abraham Lincoln.  Georgia O’Keeffe.  Mahatma Gandhi.  Mother Theresa.  And on…. and on.

Each one of them Spectacular.  Ingenious. Exceptional.  Luminous.  Unusually Gifted.  They are crazy-smart in their own ways.  They figure things out.  They see something that needs to be done.

And they do it.

They could have been dangerous minds.  But instead.  They have Genius Sparkles.

I believe this phenomenon also happens in every species on earth.  The dog who rescues an entire family from a burning house.  The cat who walks 1,000 miles to get back home.

And then there is our Pool House Mouse.  Margaret, the Pool House Mouse.

Margaret apparently, wanted to build a nest.  And…… she noticed a roll of toilet paper that looked like great nesting material.  So she managed to climb the toilet paper post….. unroll the roll…. and feed it under the utility room door.

And behind that closed, protected door, Margaret reeled in that toilet paper to build her little soft and safe nook.

Smart Mouse.  Genius-Sparkly-Mouse.

Take me to the Fair….

The Preble County Fair opened today.  It is a big deal for a lot of people… in this corner of existence.  People  here get things “ready” for the Fair.  All sorts of things.  They raise animals, sew, bake, grow, paint, create, work…. and on an on.  They are members of organizations and clubs and groups.   Young and old are involved in everything from 4-H to volunteering.  It is a great “coming together of community.”

A lot of work goes in to all of this.  People do it, because they love it.

There is so much more to be had at the Fair, than carnival games, and amusement rides….. but those are fun too.  Truck pulls, and horse races…. singing concerts, and exhibits.  Oh my.  And don’t forget the food.  A great place to be… and to explore.

So yes.  The Fair opened today.  And so did the skies.

 

Things got soggy.  But the Fair played on.

And so did the People of the Fair.  I think…..  it is… because they believe in what they do.  And there is no stopping that.  Especially not a little (um… maybe A LOT) of rain.

“It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

What you see is….

Life keeps teaching me things.
Beauty is where we see it.  It truly does matter how we see something.  It could be ….. anything in life.

How we look at things makes all the difference.  Our perceptions. Our opinions.  Our estimations.

If we think something is an ugly weed, it is an ugly weed.
And if we think that same plant is a majestic thing of beauty….. it….  is.

What you see, truly is what you get.
Decide what is beautiful in life.  Then, see it.

“It does make a difference what you call things.”   –Kate Douglas Wiggin

Can you hear me?

People who have never had a “connection” with an animal…. well….. have never had a connection with an animal.   I can’t fault them for it.  They just don’t “see it” or “have it”.

But it really bothers me when I hear someone say… “Oh, it is just a dog.” or “Who cares? It is just a cat.”

There…. they seem to be barking up the wrong tree.
Those types of statements would never come from a person who has been lucky enough to figure a way past  the human/animal barriers.  We all have the potential to make connections with all beings, I think.  It is just a matter if it is important to you, or if you put energy into those types of interactions.

Folks will relay stories about their good friends with fur coatings.  I can’t tell you the number of people who have cried as they talked about a “pet” who has died.   You see….. they have lost a member of their family… a part of them has been displaced …. a piece of their lives is gone.  And an emptiness exists… where there once was companionship, joy, and love.

Tonight I talked with a friend.  She has a dog…. who happens to be the youngest son of one of my dogs.  Yep.  One of Frances’ boys.  She talked about him with fondness.  She also shared a story about their other dog who had recently passed.  She had tears in her eyes as she spoke.  She gets the connection.

Lucky her.
Lucky me too.

“A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.” – Elbert Hubbard

Your wondering eyes.

There are all sorts of things to see on this amazing planet of ours.

People travel far and wide, to see the Great Wall of China, the Grand Canyon, Victoria Falls, the Pyramids of Giza, and such, and so on.

But sometimes the greatest wonders of the world are right in our own backyards.  While they may not be as grand, or as majestic…. they are every bit as unique and spectacular.

If we just take the time to notice.

Plus…. you’ll save a bundle on airline tickets and hotel rooms.

“He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.” – Albert Einstein

Coming around the bend

Today I was with my good ol’ Mom.  She was a little down and I was a little down.  But we snapped eachother out of it.

We started singing… “She’ll be comin’ around the mountain.”  We were hitting it pretty hard.

About the third or fourth time around… Mom stopped suddenly and fell silent.  She had a deadpan look on her face.  And then.  She said in a serious voice….

“Well.   I wonder what SHE looks like.”

I laughed.  She chuckled.

Truth be told, I had never wondered about what SHE looked like.  Who’d of thought it, really?

And then I thought….. there is analogy there somewhere.

What do we look like, as we are coming around the mountain? We look like something to this universe…. at every turn.  Every move we make, good or bad.

I wonder what implications my yesterday had on things that happened in existence today.  And I wonder what my actions of today will look like to the ripple-storm of tomorrow?

She’ll be coming around the mountain…..as she comes.

“Before the effect one believes in different causes than one does after the effect. – Friedrich Nietzsche”

Oh yes. You can.

Cans can come in many shapes, forms, and sizes.
There are cans of vegetables, fruits, and evaporated milk.
Soda cans.  And then there are cans filled with beer and such.
If you drink too many of those… you will end up in the can.
Or possibly…. if you drink too many of those… you might get canned from your job.

There are watering cans. Oiling cans.  Spray cans. Tennis ball cans.

The Dance.  The Can-Can.

Oh… and don’t forget the ones filled with all sorts of complications…. but we won’t open THAT can of worms.

And then there are the best kind of cans of all.
The kind where you are able-to-do-something-cans.  You know.  The “Yes, you cans.” and the “Yes, I cans.”
It is truly a good thing when we are able to do something, either through our skill, expertise, hard work… or even our shear dumb luck.  We DO, because we can.

Perhaps sometimes we believe, and other times we doubt.  But it is an amazing feeling when we prevail… in any case. That little train that could may have said it best…..  I think I can.  I think I can.

But tonight… this is about all I can come up with.  Uncanny, really.

“If you can dream it, you can do it.” – Walt Disney

“It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it.” – Dizzy Dean

“You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.” – Jimmy Carter