Not Too Old to Dream, Thanks to a Song about a Kiss

When I grow too old to dream,
I’ll have you to remember.
When I grow too old to dream,
your love will live in my heart.

So, kiss me, my sweet,

and so let us part.
And when I grow too old to dream,
that kiss will live in my heart.

 I lost a dear love during my mid-twenties. In the middle of grieving, I felt grumpy about my age back then. Mid-twenties, I thought, was much too young to become a widow; I think it is an age when we think we own the world, or can save the world, or sit on top of the world.

When I could hold my love in my arms, and we would listen to Vera Lynn cooing, “When I Grow Too Old to Dream,” I heard some sweet lyrics sung by a woman with a lovely voice. Beam back to the present, thirty years later, I hear the lyrics that reflect what I feel today.

The lyrics, I read in Wikipedia, were written by good ol’ Oscar Hammerstein II back in 1934, in between World Wars I and II, when Vera Lynn began her career. Lynn made the song significant during Great Britain’s struggles as she uplifted the spirits of civilians and soldiers.

Lynn was in her twenties when the Second World War started, and there she was, she owned the world, she stood on top of it, she saved it with her remarkable voice. She remained on top of the world, in fact, when at age 92, her collection, We’ll Meet Again: The Very Best of Vera Lynn, became the number one ranked album in the UK.

Not that I get all teary-eyed when I listen to the song these days, though I have on occasion wiped a tear from my cheeks when I sing it; the thing is that as one grows older, memories become a kind of hope to hold on to; and we hold on to them gently, lest we squeeze them to pieces.

In our older age, we recognize the timelessness of Hammerstein’s lyrics, the hope that lingers in us as we sing, “when” we grow “too old,” an age that we will not reach while the kiss of one’s love lives in our hearts.

Lynn, in her nineties, had not grown too old to dream, and certainly neither have I in my fifties. While in our mid-twenties we might believe in some things, in an older age, while we know we cannot own or save the world, we know that we can dream about it, we can dream about standing on top of it, all thanks to the memory of a kiss.

Cat

F6, 85mm, f2.8, Portra 160, tethered flash, on the floor, on my belly.

First Saturday of every Month, Jenny Flies

To learn about the JN-4D, please visit the web site or their Facebook page.

The pilot and his two gals after the flight.

Wide angle view of the Jenny's port side before her monthly flight at Kickapoo Airport.

Starting the Jenny. Note the fire extinguisher. Safety first.

Jenny in flight.

Landing. And a beautiful landing it was today.

Returning to the hangar. 

Nikon F6, 17-35mm, Portra 160, and polarizer filter, cropped in the digital darkroom.

Farrier

After leveling the hoof, the farrier nails the shoe in place.

Then shaves the shoe and hoof with a rasp.

And here is one of the horses who receives tender care from the farrier. 

D700, 230mm, f/5.3, 1/640, ISO 800, aperture priority, cropped in Aperture.

Cattle Guards, Old and New

     On land that has served as a cattle ranch for over one hundred years, expect to come upon sites that give a glimpse into the past. Here I show two cattle guards, one still serving its purpose, and one dragged aside as if its new purpose would become a decoration in the middle of the prairie.

Repaired cattle guard.

A cattle guard, oddly, in the middle of a pasture. (If things could talk.)

      Nikon D700. I subsequently suffered through a painful amount of post-processing in the digital darkroom with these images, taken the same day. I quarreled tediously with the white balance and color settings. Finally, capitulating, I slid the saturation level all the way to the left and felt slightly happier with the images. These black and white images should serve to me as a reminder to check my camera settings before making each photograph. Thanks to Aperture software and the tolerance of digital photography I can still document things I come upon in the Texan panhandle.

Cicadas for Breakfast

A scissortail flycatcher studies me as I reach for my camera.

The three nestlings wait quietly in their nest.

Cicadas, grasshoppers, crickets, and other insects are plentiful.  

One parent holds a cicada in its beak while the other hovers nearby.

Cicadas for breakfast. Yum!

D4, 80-400mm at 400mm, f5.6, 1/4,000, cropped in the digital darkroom.

Scissortail Flycatcher Family

    And what a delight to come upon a nest brimming with scissortails! Both parents and three nestlings feel the heat of the noon day sun and July temperatures of over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The slivers of leaves on the pitiable mesquite plant in which they lived provided nothing of the shade they needed.

   Cornell lab has a nice article about them, and Birds of Oklahoma displays beautiful images of the scissortails in aerobatic flight. 

    Also known as the swallow-tailed flycatcher, this species of kingbird spend their summers in North America where they nest and raise their young. By the end of the summer, old enough to fly, the young accompany the parents in their return to Central America where they will spend the winter. In the meantime, they will find a mate. 

     Scissortail flycatchers returning to Texas every year provides us with a sight of beauty.

F6, 80-200mm, Portra 160.

Peace Rose

I strive toward maintaining peace in the garden of my life.

D700, 50mm, f1.4, 1/6,400.

Calf among Flowers

Unintended double-exposure reveals a sweet face of a calf surrounded by flowers. 

Nikon F6, Portra 400.

Moth

An impressive creature of God. 

Nikon F6, 105mm, Portra 400.

Faces of Hound

      I cropped some of the photos I made of the old dog. In addition to having a handsome face, he expresses himself unabashedly and so looks photogenic.

  

D4, 10mm, f2.8, 1/250, cropped for effect and removed a blemish 

during post-processing in the digital darkroom using Aperture.

Zwanzig Jahre alt (Feed Me)

Ich liebe spielen. (Feed me.)

Ich liebe Kekse. (Feed me.)

Ich liebe dich. (Feed me.)

D4 with ultra wide lens cropped for effect.

All Bark and No Bite

For the past few days, our clouds have managed a few thunderous barks. No rain.

D4, 50mm, f3.5, 1/6400, ISO100.

Feather of a Dove

A white-winged dove's feather on a brick step.

Plowing of Fields

The farmers store the wheat in rolls, plenty to feed the cattle 

through the summer months and well into winter, thanks to a moist spring.

With the wheat harvested, Doug pulls his plows with his tractor from field to field.

On a plowed field, cattle egrets rest by a pond, and then flush by my presence.

Except for the drought, things proceed normally, which is a blessing.

Cattle Egret, Cow

Katydid on Windshield while Viewing Hogs and Coyotes

For wonderful photographs of grasshoppers, visit Bev Wigney's Pbase site.

Nikon D7000, f5.6, 1/1,250s, 100ISO.

      For the first time while on the ground and not from the air, we spotted a grouping of 25 to 30 wild hogs.  If you had asked me when we would see a group of hogs, I would have answered that they might reveal themselves at dusk or at dawn; but there they were at ten o'clock in the morning, leisurely munching on grasshoppers and sniffing around the grass, thinking hogly thoughts. They walked briskly away from our truck as we stopped near them to watch them. 

    Driving around the north Texas countryside along the wheat fields, we encountered another unusual sight: Three coyotes raced across a swathed field toward a half dozen or so turkey vultures on the ground. The vultures lifted themselves out of the way as the coyotes arrived at whatever carcass had fallen, perhaps a calf. In the background, cattle in the shade gazed warily at the coyotes. Above them roosted a large number of egrets. 

    Birdlife fascinated me today, as usual, for we spotted several great egrets, at least two little blue herons, two great blue herons, sandpipers, nighthawks, meadowlarks, stilts, and the usual gang, namely, scissortails, grackles, blackbirds, robins, and unidentifiable little gray birds. 

    After about four hours of criss-crossing the county, our friend, Jo, mused, "All the country we've seen this morning and not much wildlife." Indeed, I wish we could have spotted deer -- mule and white-tailed are somewhat prevalent everywhere -- and the beautiful, but skittish, turkey, and perhaps heard the sweet tone of the bobwhite quail.  MyMrMallory added, "There are more eyes on us than we have on them." 

Everyone Needs a Lock

       On a gate in Archer county . . . . Now for which lock do I hold the key?

       In the north Texas countryside, one often comes upon gates locked by several locks, each one belonging to a different entity. 

       There are several persons who need keys to enter the property, which may consist of a private home with several acres, or a farm, a ranch, or, just . . . open prairie owned by someone, anyone else, upon which pumps extract oil, or cows graze contentedly, or wind turbines loom, or wheat sways in the wind: 

     The pumper who works for the oil company needs a key; the trucker to transport the oil, too; the bulldozer guy who maintains the roads; the nephew of the brother of the husband of the cousin who will clean up the abandoned batteries and other oil field equipment; the foreman who works for the rancher needs a key, too; the owner would need a key for when he goes in to check on what on Earth everyone else is doing on his property; the energy company guys who maintain the power lines or the wind turbines need a key . . . the farmer and his combines and swathers . . . the crop-duster who . . . oh, wait, I take that back; crop-dusters do not need any keys.

     Have I listed everyone? Oh, the poachers. They scam a key from someone or barge through. They don't care about locks. 

       

     I've concluded that one does not really "own" land at all, unless everything underneath and above the land comes with that ownership. Minerals and now air space have become rare for a landowner to control. Instead, someone's "ownership" of a land consists of the dirt on the surface and merely gives him the right to gripe about the pumpers, the oilmen, the cowboys, and the energy companies that stomp across the prairie, some gripes of which lead to lawsuits. 

     To me, it is sad to see all the steel scattered across a land that once grew healthy; still, we have what we have now, and we do with it what we can, namely, save it. Renovate the land. Help it heal.

     As for locks, really, what function do they have? 

     

D4, f3.5, 1/2,500s, 190mm, cropped for effect during post processing in the digital darkroom.

Trees in the Prairie

    In a land where grasslands predominantly grow, small groves of trees exist, here and there, of oaks and pecans, under which a bull and his cows may rest and find respite from the noon-day sun. Archer County, Texas.

   Nikon D4, 70-200mm, f3.5, 1/1,000, HDR image cropped with enhanced contrast during post processing in the digital darkroom.

Stilts, Shovelers, and Egrets in Flight

      Amongst the usual gang of feathered wild life, MyMrMallory and I spotted two black-necked stilts and three northern shovelers, the species that to me seem exciting to spot. We saw a flock of cattle egrets, too. 

      "Would you like to take their picture?" asked MyMrMallory. He stopped the truck and I hopped out. The egrets remained by the shore of the pond for a while, looking at me, big question marks above their heads, then hopped up all at once. They flew around me a couple of times before settling down on the other side of the pond. I noted as I viewed my images in Lightroom, that at first the egrets took off clumsily, messily, and then, as they flew in the air for a while, they found their positions in some semblance of a formation; not anything like the tight formations of the geese, or the Blue Angels, mind you, but certainly tight enough to remain a handsome flock, almost pastoral-looking with the light blue sky and cumulous clouds in the background.

     The ponds in the countryside still contain water, perhaps enough to carry through to autumn. One prays. In the meantime, Penny had a good morning during her birdwatching enjoyment. Support the Texas Parks and Wildlife department by visiting the parks, donating, or by buying season passes.