Except as noted, all images copyrighted by and should be attributed to E B Hawley.
I had become many eons ago a traveling literary gnome, inquisitive about places I had and had not visited,
walking the same paths of peoples from the past, through places once grand and still grand,
photographing images that now show me the places about which I still dream . . .

Monday, August 30, 2010

While Carrying a Camera

        
Airplanes sit on the ramp at midmorning waiting for their pilots.
A Cessna 340 needs an aircraft mechanic.
Flying at 18,000 feet we may see beautiful clouds.
Midland Airport runway 16 right.
Detail of Vic Payne's sculpture at Midland's fixed base operator, Avion.
Returning to Wichita Falls, we landed on Shepard's runway 15 center, 
while alongside a T-38 landed on runway 15 right.
If you squint, you can see at right a line up of T-38s waiting for us to land.
Once we passed the T-38s, they began to mosey on to the runway behind us.

Here I show a T-38 taxiing back to the hangar, the co-pilot waving at us. 
In the background, Shepard's tower.

One Reason to Appreciate Cellphone Imaging Technology

        Cellphones document images by scanning, and so this is what they do when presented with a fast moving airplane propeller. For fun, hover your hand over a printer as you scan. It makes for funky imaging. Cellphones do the same. Here I show images I took with my iPhone as MyMrMallory flew Papa Charlie's King Air to Midland.
From the right seat, I captured the effect of the cellphone imaging technology on the blades of the propeller. As usual, I appreciate the gorgeous puffy clouds in the background. 

Over the dash I took a picture of the left engine and props with gorgeous clouds in the background. 

Hold the cellphone vertically to create a different look.

Yes, those are actually UFOs speeding ahead of us (smirk).

Peaking Over the Post at Me

As I approached him slowly, the grasshopper stepped back 
until I could see only his eyes eyes eyes and antennae.
Taken with the Gentle Giant's D2h and Nikon 105 mm lens. 

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Final on One Seven

Green Groan Growl





            And how green are you? Trucks with more than eighteen wheels transport the blades for each wind turbine, each turbine needing three. Carbon emissions from the trucks pollute the air. Massive and permanent concrete foundations hold each turbine. Gravel roads extend for miles from one turbine to the other.

Take this test: How Green Am I?

1. I love these trucks they look gorgeous. Yes (Ten points) No (Zero points).
2. I love to build things destroying grasslands and other natural environments, particularly if the construction requires massive amounts of rubber tires on highways, diesel pollutants from truck engines, huge concrete blocks that remain on the land until the Big Bang proves itself more than a theory, and kills birds and bats. Yes (Ten points.) No (Zero points.)
3. I love wind energy because my electric bills decrease a little bit. Yes (Ten points.) No (Zero points.)

Scoring: Zero points: You are a different color, whatever color, white, black, yellow, red, but not green. Ten to thirty points: You ARE green!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Dropping Off and Picking Up, Airplanes that is

           Task: Fly one airplane to the mechanic shop, return in another. I tagged along with MyMrMallory as he flew Tom's plane to Bone's and Jim's aircraft shop; then return to Kickapoo Airport in my Scissortail.
Shepard Air Force Base tower control gave us a seven-mile straight approach to 33 Center, which I show at extreme right of the photo. A T-38 lands on the wide runway, 33 Left, as I snap this shot. The fighter looks like a tiny speck just off the taxi way.

We held short at 33 L for this fella to land. 
Sometimes they wave as they boom past us along the taxi ways.
 
Landing the Scissortail on 35 at Kickapoo Airport with the skyline of Wichita Falls in the background seems a welcome sight every time I arrive there. 

Just as soon as MyMrMallory hopped out of my airplane, he hopped in the Jet Ranger, his third aircraft of the day. Gotta be fun. 

Victor pulls planes in and out of hangars for most of the day. 

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Render Me Speechless, Will Ya?


What to Eat

Eat veggies. Roots. Shoots. Green. Purple. Red. 



Season with herbs from all over the world.

And some cheeses will benefit you, too, such as mozzarella. Moooo!


Saturday, August 21, 2010

Ranches Cooking and Singing

         The Ranch Roundup, a thirty-year old fundraising effort by the North Texas Rehabilitation Center, includes almost, if not all, activities performed during the daily life of a ranch. Cowboys and other members of the ranches compete in the arena, in photography and other arts, and  . . .  cooking.
Some folks stand around in boots and spurs . . .


. . . or in boots and shorts.


In the background, a tarp protects the chuck wagon, while the cook watches his meal.


I decided that I, too, need boots, particularly jaunty boots. 


Dutch ovens sit in a row.


Taste test. 


Saddle straps fasten the barrel to the wagon.


Clint hopped underneath the tent, borrowed a fiddle, and sang, "Take Me Back to Oklahoma." (Hey!)


A handsome dog waited patiently for some of that good cooking . . . and for his master to untangle the leash. 

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

To and From Foxtrot Fourteen

I tagged along with MyMrMallory today, or rather, he tagged along with me to Marble Falls, serving as PIC (Pilot in Command). I sat in the right seat taking pictures of runways along the way.
Foxtrot 13 runway. See the amazing image Frances took here: FEK Photography
Graham (KRPH) Airport Runway 21.


Around Possum Kingdom Lake we spotted several airports, including a grass runway.


We flew over the private runway (19) at Quahadi Ranch. 


       Along the way we saw a few wind turbines. Guys, these turbines pollute our country air and damage our grasslands because they require specialized eighteen-wheelers to transport their massive parts to their location, roads to reach them, and more trucks to drive to them to maintain them. Think about that when you want of feel proud of your greeness. Plus, not only do the turbines kill birds and bats, they hurl chunks of ice at homes and people. In the meantime, when you are thinking green and feeling proud to subscribe to a wind turbine energy company, I, a country dweller, thank you a lot for making me choke in the fumes of the trucks. 

Burnett Airport (BMQ) near Marble Falls, TX.
An Air Evacuation Helicopter landed at Burnett to re-fuel. He landed so nimbly and confidently that I know think of him as the crotch-rocket of helicopter pilots. Wheelees? Sure! 


Runway 01 at Burnett and summer clouds that meant a bumpy flight returning to F14, bouncing from one thermal to another. But that's a part of flying during the summer season.


Tom Danaher Airport.


Wichita Valley Airport. (This photo would look less blurry if we hadn't bounced around so much in the thermals, but still, it shows the airport as it looks from the air.)




Let Lovely Turn of Phrase Begin

JMHawley Gave Me a Kiss to Build a Dream On

Listen, will you? I think that . . . literature, poetry, music and love make the world go round . . . while mathematics explains things; I fill my life with them, then go walking in snowy woods.
Let us go then, you and I
like two etherized patients floating
through life, together feeling prufrockian.
DDB Jr. makes my world go 'round; during his absence, Pachelbel fills it up.
One summer I sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, then through the Gulf of Finland to reach Saint Petersburg; I pursued Joseph Brodsky in its alley ways. I dream of making that two summers.
I read “Biking to Electra;” found my way in a Jaguar car, and glanced at the flashing steel grasshoppers at sunset. I’ll follow K.O.P.’s footsteps after he followed N.Scott Momaday’s; find warmth and inspiration on a rainy mountain.
Throw chinese coins for the I Ching.
Save the whales, the spotted owl, the woman in toil.
Cast a fly for trout; my memories of fly fishing under the sunny blue Colorado sky remain; I yearn to build more . . . with more trophy Browns.
Listen for the swan’s calls on the Baltic Sea. Feel KKII's joy, his arms spread wide in Yazilikaya.
Good night, Jimmy Durante, where ever you are.