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 . . .

Friday, October 21, 2011

Panhandle Plains Backdrop


At left, batteries that hold oil, and in the distance, silos that store grain serve as the background for the Sandhill Cranes.
Oil pumps work away in the background as Sandhill Cranes feast on insects in a cut wheat field.
     Driving around the countryside on business we spotted a huge flock of Sandhill Cranes noshing on Charles' wheat and corn. The fellow driving the truck MyMrMallory and I were in would annoyingly not stop for me to take pictures -- and I really did not want to slow down his business by stopping every few hundred feet to take a picture of a bird, no matter what kind of bird, an awesome Golden Eagle an awesome flock of thousands of Sandhill Cranes. This led me to exercise my skill at grabbing shots from a moving vehicle as we bumped along country roads. His job: Count water mills on a ranch; my job: grab shots. 
     Having grabbed a couple hundred shots, I had to delete too many to count because they were blurry. Not easy taking sharp pics from a bouncy truck. But what I did have in the end were some interesting views of the Panhandle Plains of Texas. Behind the cranes one can see some of the background that shows how many people earn a living from farming, ranching, and drilling. 

Sandhill Cranes fly over a wheat and corn fields. Below them in the picture, water accumulated in the wheat field deeply enough to provide a resting area for a large number of teals. 
The teals fly off as our truck approached the water. In the background part of the flock of cranes grazes Charles' wheat.
At the bottom of the picture one can see the pivot that provides water to the corn. Those are teals flying above it. 
The Sandhill Cranes stood on a nearby cut wheat field to nosh on insects. Note the vast farmland in the distance.


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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.