Batteries and Stones

A dusty dirt road took me to an interesting site. 

I approached, noting the effects of erosion.

If I had driven up on a paved road, my wheels would have squealed as I stopped abruptly, excitedly.

           All around these old things erosion had created fascinating formations and exposed rocks worthy of a photographic exploration. 

       I wondered, how long ago did someone place the flat stone under the ladder to make it sturdy on the clay soil?

Oxidized Tube on Sandy Soil

Pre-flight at Sunrise

     I had one eye on my plane as I checked it before my flight, and one eye on the glorious sunrise.

Austin parks my plane after pulling out of the hangar. The morning felt cool and looked beautiful. 

Dredging a Pond

      When the mesquite-lined ponds dry up, the opportunity to tend to the health of the pond arises. A large mud bucket, seen lying on its side at the top right side of the pond, is pulled across the muddy bottom to remove the sludgy parts. Then the bulldozers push soil to the sides. The process looks impressive from the air. When, eventually, the rains return, the pond will fill.

Wide angle view of a pond in the middle of a wheat field. Two bulldozers push dirt to the edges of the pond. Seen at top of the pond, two white trucks, a fuel tank, and a mud bucket.

The morning sun reflects on the moisture of the soil.

Ground view of the dredged pond. 

Moonflower Drooping

Lovely moonflower as the sun rises, then, when its rays caress its petals . . . 

. . . the moonflower gathers up and droops.

Moonflower seed pod.

Swallowtail, Sulphur, Fritillary

A Giant Swallowtail, a Cloudless Sulphur, and numerous Gulf Fritillaries enjoyed a cool morning.

Below, a Gulf Fritillary caterpillar.

Fall Sunflower Pods

       In the garden, sunflowers volunteered to grow, and they now grow pods, ready to seed, to return again next year, gratefully welcomed by me.

There are Great-horned Owls at Wild Bird Rescue

       This one seems to be the "alpha" owl in the large aviary, and the older of the four owls.

During the few minutes that I remained in the aviary while Katie brought in their supper, this owl kept his eyes on me and my camera.

Particularly large in size, this one may be a female. She watches the "alpha" owl.

I look up at the southwest corner of the aviary to see this owl. 

She watches the "alpha" owl sitting on a rafter across the aviary. 

Been reading any good books, lately?

These owls were rescued, raised, and soon will be released by Wild Bird Rescue.

Rain Five Miles Away as Seen from 2,000 Feet

        Rain off the starboard side of my nose. The city of Wichita Falls lies to the left, a cluster of colorful buildings.

       My cross-country from Denton airport to Kickapoo airport as shown by the iPad and the app, Foreflight, just after we landed. 

Museum of Biblical Art

iPhone image of Lewisville Lake in Dallas on our way to land at Love Field.

Jeweled monstrance (c. 1830) and its shadow on the wall.

A beautiful building with exquisite exhibits.

The Ryrie Library holds a stunning collection of books, including a 1663 edition written in the language of Algonquin (not pictured), the first printed Bible in America.

And this is the way an image looks when you tuck your iPhone surreptitiously back into your pocket because they told you not to take pictures but you did anyway, such is your want to share your experience at a marvelous museum.

On our way home, the beautiful lighting through the clouds reminded me of Michelangelo, whose work reflects the beauty of nature. One of his bronzes of Pieta graces the Museum of Biblical Art.

Where a Tractor Turned Around

On the sandy, clayey soil of North Texas, a bulldozer turned around.

       With the ponds empty of water and become muddy or dry, bulldozers dredge the bottom to make them deeper and cleaner. When the rains come to fill up the ponds again, the water will be deeper and healthier. 

Dominick Labino

"Azurite Envy," blown hot glass by apprentices of Dominick Labino, Carrell Clinic, Dallas, Texas.

Visit Labino's Web site.

Little XC in a Little Airplane

        Ground speed: 84 knots across North Texas landscape. We had a superb flight in MyMrMallory's little aerobat, and no, no spins or rolls, Immelmanns, or whifferdills, just straight flight in smooth morning air. We flew slowly enough to admire the view from 2,500 feet. I took pictures with my iPhone.

Joe washed and buffed the aerobat all week. It looked nice and shiny for our early morning flight.

Watched an Air Tractor take off for his cross-country to Idaho Falls. 

His speed: 230 mph with a service ceiling of 25,000 feet. 

The aerobat's wheel cover as we took off with a slight crosswind from the left. 

The shadow of our wheels as the airplane gains a positive rate of climb. (By habit, at this point I think, "Gear UP," even though aerobat has a fixed gear.) 

The shadow of the plane on the grass along the runway as we climb.

Over the nose of the aerobat: Hazy day with a high ceiling and still miles and miles of visibility. 

Photograph of the view over my shoulder. 

An hour later, ah, there is the marina at our destination.

Our destination, the grassy runway at Cedar Mills, pointing downhill and into the lake. Eek. 

It is a nice and long strip, though, of 3,000 feet, and well maintained.

Small mural at the restaurant at Cedar Mills. Good coffee there. 

Dusty Riding

Oil Field Gate

      A dainty garden gate leads up to a set of batteries, and no, that is not an effect of the lens making them look as if they lean, for they really are teetering to each side. 

       In-camera black and white process by my Nikon P7700.

Good-bye, Seamus, and Thank You

 

DUBLIN (AP) — Seamus Heaney, Ireland's foremost poet who won the Nobel literature prize in 1995, died Friday after a half-century exploring the wild beauty of Ireland and the political torment within the nation's soul. He was 74.

Heaney's family and publisher, Faber & Faber, said in a statement that Heaney died in a Dublin hospital. He had been recuperating from a stroke since 2006.

The Northern Ireland-born Heaney was widely considered Ireland's greatest poet since William Butler Yeats. He wrote 13 collections of poetry, two plays, four prose works on the process of poetry, and many other works.

Heaney was the third Irishman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, joining Yeats and Samuel Beckett.

The eldest of eight children, Heaney went to Catholic boarding school in Northern Ireland's second-largest town, Londonderry.

Life in 1950s Londonderry — where Catholics outnumbered Protestants two to one but were gerrymandered from power — provided Heaney his first real taste of injustice and ambiguity Irish-style.

His early work was rooted in vivid description of rural experience, but gradually he wedded this to the frictions, deceptions and contradictions rife of his divided homeland.

In 1972, the most deadly year of Northern Ireland's conflict, Heaney left Queen's University in Belfast to settle in the Republic of Ireland. That year, he published "Wintering Out," a collection of poems that offered only oblique references to the unrest in the north.

His follow-up 1975 collection, "North," captured the Irish imagination with his pitch-perfect sense of the evils of sectarianism.

SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press 

 - See more at: Seamus Heaney

Landing, Taking Off, Dallas Love Field

Turning final to Dallas Love Field. And why, you ask, are you taking a picture during final????

Because, I respond, friskily, MyMrMallory is landing the Bonanza, not me. Ha.

And here is the view of the Dallas skyline, and I'm enjoying looking at it, and taking a picture of it with my iPhone while I wait to be cleared for takeoff.