Some Things Unfolding

Nikon V 1, 10mm, auto, minor cropping during post processing in the digital darkroom.

The Mayor's Flight in the Jenny

   
     The Call Field Aviation Museum flies the Jenny once per month. In April, piloted by David Martin, she took up a passenger, Mayor Glen Barham. Nikon F6, 35mm, and Velvia.

Wind Sheer Plus Turbulence Plus Students in Aviation

    Hadn't felt wind sheer as I flew or experienced its effects in the Scissortail until today. Aloft at 3,500 feet, I dialed up Flight Service on 122.0 to ask them for the altimeter at Gainesville, my destination. Reason, the AWOS recording did not clearly specify the reading at Gainesville, making me unsure whether it measured at 29.85 or 29.95. This seemed important to me at the time, a stickler for my altitudes, particularly when I'm on final to land.
    The fellow at Flight Service clarified the measuring for me, and then warned me of the PIREPs in the area, that other pilots had reported turbulence. My ears perked up at the pilot reports, but I felt that I would do okay, since the wind blew right up the runway at my destination, strong as it did, and I could land safely, as I had before with the winds gusting at twenty-two knots into my nose.
    On final to Gainesville, everything seemed fine. Then, my starboard wing lifted up, my nose skidded leftward, and I amazed myself with the calm way I handled the wind sheer. I gently brought the Scissortail's nose down, turned slowly but surely back toward the runway, and said to MyMrMallory, "Honey, that was a gust," as if he did not already know.
    But the gust had lifted my plane up so that I found myself higher than I wanted as I approached the runway. The turbulence continued to toss us as I descended, much like a butterfly in the wind, and my stall light lit.
    "Ah, the stall light came on," said MyMrMallory.
    "Yeh, I'm going around," I said, as I lowered the nose, powered up the engine, and reduced flaps.
    Perhaps anyone else would have landed, but not me, not today, not in this unusual wind condition. I am a neophyte, after all, and take precautions. On another day, I would have landed nimbly.
    So up we flew back into the sky. The unusual flight did not end as we left Gainesville, for Sheppard's tower hosted students, and with them a certain unpredictability that can seem either hilarious or nerve-wracking. At thirty nautical miles from their airspace, I checked in but was summarily checked out; so I checked in the given frequency and was sent back to the first; kind of like a ping-pong ball.
    "Sheppard approach, Cherokee 47 Romeo, 30 west, inbound."
    "47 Romeo, contact 133.5."
    "Sheppard, 47 Romeo."
    "47 Romeo, contact 118.2."
    "Sheppard, 47 Romeo."
    "Cherokee 47 Romeo, state intentions."
    MyMrMallory rolled his eyes. In view of the confusion, I asked MyMrMallory to take over the radio work. And he did, testily. He has little patience for the students. Soon the controller's voice came back over the radio.
    "Piper 7 Victor, turn heading 320 degrees."
    Silence.
    He repeated, "Piper 7 Victor, turn heading 320 degrees."
    Again, no response.
    "Piper 7 Victor, do you copy?"
    "Are you calling Cherokee 47 Romeo?" asked MyMrMallory, an indignant tone in his voice.
    "Uh, affirmative, 47 Romeo turn heading 320 degrees."
    "[Deleted]," said MyMrMallory. "They never get the call signs right."
   And then, it just became too much for me to bear. All the turbulence, the memory of my right wing lifting up and turning my plane, I felt frightened, and I said, "You have the flight controls."
   "I have the flight controls," said MyMrMallory. And I rested my sweaty palms on my lap, finally looking out over North Texas and noticing for the first time during the flight how green it all looks right now after all the spring rains. Still, with all the beauty beneath me, I felt like a dog limping home with her tail between her legs, head hanging down in sadness. I don't fly enough, I recognized, and would not have flown by myself today, in this wind, and that is why I have an experienced pilot in my right seat. I can still fly an airplane, and can still remain safe by having a pro in the right seat to help me land. And there is still Sheppard and all its T-6s and T-38s to watch and avoid, and the students in the tower with as few hours as I have in aviation, or fewer. Recipe for danger. In my sadness I felt grateful that MyMrMallory would fly with me.
    "47 Romeo, cleared to land 15C."
    "Cleared 15C," and so we began our turbulent descent toward the runway.
    Just at the point where we were not quite ready to touch the wheels to the ground on account of the strong winds, the controller told us to "Turn right at Golf and hold at 15R."
    Through clenched teeth, both hands grasping the yoke, MyMrMallory, focussing hard on controlling the tossed-about plane, replied to the controller that we would "Turn right at Golf, hold 15R."
    But the controller's voice came back, "47 Romeo, read back instructions."
    "Right on Golf, hold 15R," repeated MyMrMallory, grimacing, focussing, sweat dripping into his eyes.
    At that point I began to wonder if I should take over the radio, but instead held back as the controller's voice came on again.
    "47 Romeo, did you hear instructions?"
    "I just read back," said MyMrMallory, turning the yoke windward as our wheels touched down, squeaking and gently on the runway. How impressive! I could not have landed more beautifully myself!
    "47 Romeo, read back instructions."
    "Right Golf, hold 15R," screamed MyMrMallory.
    Silence.
    "You have the flight controls," he said, as we rolled down the runway, and so I took control of the Scissortail, mainly to push the brakes with my feet and turn right on taxiway Golf and then stop short of 15R.
    Our attempts to reconnect with the student did not yield results. Mostly, we became concerned that somehow we had lost radio contact. Switching to the ground frequency, though, brought another voice, who instructed us to hold while two T-38s took off on 15C. The voice later explained that apparently we "stepped on" each other as we communicated with the tower, not surprising but slightly unusual, and just a part of a very unusual flight.
   "Let's forget about today," said MyMrMallory. "It was unusual."
   But I will not forget today, for I will remember the difficulty of it and the grateful feeling I had to have taken off with him in the right seat.
   
   
 

   

Hodge prêt a fuir

. . . as soon as I open the gate. I know that sweet look.

Asclepias viridis (Milkweed)

     Flowers have interesting histories. For instance, the white-flowered milkweed (Asclepias viridis pictured here) provided for wiks in candle-making by humans, and goldfinches employed the strands of the plant to line their nests. For more interesting histories and to enjoy further information about flowers, take a look at Geyata Ajilvsgi's book, Wildflowers of Texas, ISBN 0-940672-15-4.

Photo taken in Jack County, Texas, at the Christie's country home. Nikon F6, 50mm, Portra 400.

Huffy Hereford Bull

My Portra 400 film returned looking a bit overly saturated. 

Who needs a Holga when one can achieve lomographical results with a Nikon F6? I ask in jest.

But what a remarkable creature is the bull!

Yellow.

No, I do not feel tired of taking pictures of the flowers. I cherish seeing them. North Texas may not look this way again any time soon. And I delight in discovering the arrival of the Yellow-headed Blackbirds.

   

Upland Sandpiper in a Wheat Field

      My bird list today: Black-necked Stilts, Great White Egret, Upland Sandpiper, Horned Lark, Eastern Meadowlark, Burrowing Owls (six or seven, my record in one sitting), Blue-winged Teal, Mockingbirds, Red-winged Blackbirds, Bullock's Oriole, Great-tailed Grackles, Scissortail Flycatchers, White-crowned Sparrow, Lark Sparrow, Roadrunner, Bobwhite . . . no hawks. No hawks? Probably napping after their breakfast.

Upland Sandpiper.

Scissortail Flycatcher regurgitating a large bug. Ack. 

Jackrabbit in the abundant grass fields. 

Prairie dogs.

Carpets, Carpets of Flowers

     I may easily agree with most folks around these parts of North Texas that we may not see these luxurious carpets of flowers again any time soon. But then, I said the same thing a couple of years ago. Earth heals itself.

     Clockwise, left to right: Fields of Coreopsis basalis; in the foreground, Gaillardia pulchella, a red flower known as the Indian blanket; a small hill covered in coreopsis and Indian blanket; surrounded by coreopsis stand the Argemone albiflora, subsp. texana; stones and a gnarly oak, one of the parts I like to reach when I visit the ranch; tire tracks lead through more flowers, including soon to bloom agave plants; and finally, around a stone covered with lichen grow the coreopsis and Tradescantia occidentalis, a delicate blue flower known the prairie spiderwort.

      To add to the beauty of my experience I used a Nikon F6, a 70-200mm lens, and Portra 400 film.

Aerobat Mac

       Mac M. and David Martin flew around this afternoon. They flew around parachutists and then around themselves. They flew around to benefit the Museum of North Texas History and to the delight their audience. They left fleeting art in the sky over Kickapoo Airport.

Walk on Flowers

      Flowery views, my two doggies, and an F6 make a nice jaunt in the countryside.

Mowing around the "Texas Bluebonnets.

Texas Stork's-bill.

Dogs standing on flowering Texas Stork's-bill. 

White Bluebonnet

Or, whitebonnet?  Interesting essay at the Zanthan Gardens Web site.

Nikon F6

Timeless Moment

      My mother suffers with dementia. She remembered me, though, through that fogginess, and phoned me three times last week. We spoke sweetly to one another, tenderly, about her painting, about the flowers that cover Texas every spring. We had beautiful conversations, a mother and a daughter. We were blessed.

Open the Hangar Door!

      Stormy weather comes our way, and after it leaves, the hangar door will open, and the plane will fly!

Cherished Volunteers: In Fort Worth

        At the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens, volunteers sit to rest in between pulling weeds and raking at the "sanctuary for the senses."

Article: Radar's Eye on Wildlife

http://www.tpwmagazine.com/archive/2012/apr/ed_2_radarwildlife/

Strawberries, Cherished Volunteers in the Garden.

A fly on a strawberry leaf. Nikon D3, 105mm, f/3.3, 1/250, tethered flash unit SB 900.

Bluebonnets

      I could not stand to *not* take a picture or two (or dozens) of the bluebonnets. Feeling awed by the Lupinus texensis makes them grow more lush, more colorful, and more expansive. It tires them out and it tires us out, and it is a part of life in Texas.

Nikon D700.

Nikon F6.

Nikon F6.

      The magazine Texas Monthly published a hilarious commentary, copy/pasted below, on the effect of the bluebonnets on people.  See more about the article on their Website here.

Dan Winters.

Sarah Wilson.

Randal Ford

Kind of Blue, by Jake Silverstein

       Two framed letters hang side by side in the main conference room at the offices of TEXAS MONTHLY, both of them written and signed by the magazine’s founder and former publisher, Mike Levy. The first is a note that prefaced the inaugural issue, in February 1973. The second is a follow-up published in the next issue. Aside from the obvious foundational importance of these documents, they were chosen to hang in the magazine’s inner sanctum because they illustrate well one of the most serious challenges faced by its staff over the past four decades: how to write about bluebonnets.

       “Texas Monthly is a major effort in magazine journalism,” Mike’s initial note read. “We’re not competing with the vapid Sunday supplements with bluebonnets on their covers.” In case this message was unclear to anyone, the first issue was buttressed with a marketing campaign that posed a bold and impudent question: “Sick of Bluebonnets and Bum Steers? . . . Send us ten dollars and we’ll send you a damned good magazine about Texas. Monthly.”

       The following month, the handful of readers who picked up the March issue ofTEXAS MONTHLY found the second note, which addressed the reader response provoked by the magazine’s apparent hostility to the state flower. “We were getting what can charitably be termed ‘critical commentary’ even before our first issue was off the press,” Mike reported. “One gentleman from Dallas wrote to say that ‘we are not sick of bluebonnets, a roadside or field of which is just about the most beautiful sight in the world. Why would you think we are sick of them?’ Somebody (unidentified) from Fort Worth wrote, ‘As a native Texan, I would like to know what cave you people crawled out of. No, I for one am certainly not sick of bluebonnets.’ ” Exhibiting the moral flexibility required of any great publisher, Mike explained that the angry letters “led me to call a staff meeting where, by an eight-to-two vote (one abstention), the magazine adopted as official policy the statement that ‘We, too, love our bluebonnets, a roadside or field of which is just about the most beautiful sight in the world.’ ”

      As far as I know, that policy has never been overturned. And yet we have reckoned with the bluebonnet for decades. The problem is not Lupinus texensisitself, which is as beautiful a flower as has ever bloomed, across this or any other state. The problem is the overabundance of saccharine art and literature that exists to praise the humble blossom, the accretion of which has made it a symbol of, in Mike’s words, “nice, bland pap.” As Suzanne Winckler put it in a 1985 column, “An expanse of those blue and stalwart flowers strewn across a pasture or along a highway prompts such a welling-up of joy . . . that the bluebonnet has become the victim of profuse attempts to describe its perfection.”

    We have contributed a few attempts at such description ourselves, my favorite being Jan Reid’s 1991 analysis, which, in getting it so exactly right, proves that it’s possible to write intelligently about bluebonnets: “Their sudden abundance each spring nurtures our fascination with magnitude and reach—whole damn canvases of color, not the fine brushstroke.”

     Of course, it’s not really about the bluebonnets. It’s about the complex tension that runs through every issue of TEXAS MONTHLY—the tension between doing serious journalism about Texas that ignores mindless boosterism and finding sincere and original ways to celebrate a place we love unconditionally. In attempting to strike that balance each month, we have nobody else in mind but you, reader, who deserves a magazine that respects your capacity for both pride and stern judgment.

    As for the bluebonnets, they’re blooming again. After a droughty year in which they made a fairly poor showing, their luxurious azure curtain has been once more unfurled over our drear winter pastures (sorry, I couldn’t resist some bad bluebonnet writing myself). And we couldn’t be happier. To mark the occasion, we commissioned a photo essay (“Exercise of Flower,” page 128). Though it does contain one picture sure to enrage some readers (which we debated censoring), it is, on the whole, a clear reflection of official company policy. We, too, love our bluebonnets.

Post Rain Beauty and Growth

Rain droplets on the bird bath. Nikon V 1.

        Clusters of Nothoscordum bivalve, known as false garlic, a member of the lilly family, grew in many places of my yard, the grass providing a deep, lush, green background. Nikon F6.

After the rain. Nikon D700.

F6: Botanic Gardens in Fort Worth

       Enjoyed using my trusty Nikon F6, Provia 100, and tethered flash unit at the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens.