utenzi

Yesterday after work, in the 100 degree heat, I decided to go over to Sarah Duke Garden and take some pictures of the grounds. Foolish? Hell yeah. The walking at Duke wasn't nearly as bad as sitting in the car at all the stop lights though. Going from Chapel Hill to Durham is a real pain in the patootie. How do you like that picture? I just happened to get the bee leaving the flower. Just lucky. After I got all hot and sweaty, I went to the Nasher Museum. I'd never been there before and the admission is free on Thursday. Damn good thing. That's one weenie little museum. I can't believe they charge money to go there the other days of the week. The museum is only a few hundred yards from Sarah Duke so it's an easy 2 for 1 and parking is free at the Garden after 5pm. How do you like that bridge? It used to be white and now it's BRIGHT red. It's very noticeable but I think I liked it better before. It might not be paint though. When I got closer, the bridge actu...

Today was another cold and windy day. As a result, what should have been a 2 hour paddle turned into nearly a 3 hour ordeal. But I did have a nice break in the middle. I turned my boat into a large inlet and explored the various streams that fed into that inlet. The above picture was the shoulder of the shore at one of the streams. At first I didn't see it, but something seemed off so I looked back again...and saw the heron. It's hard to see the heron in that picture above, but the two pictures below, taken a few yards further around the bend so that the heron can be seen in profile (and zoomed in considerably), make the heron a lot easier to see. In case you can't see the heron in the first picture, it's to the left side of center and right next to a pine on the shoreline and exactly the same height. When I was paddling, I passed no more than 6 feet from the bird. I'm amazed that it didn't take to flight. By the way, it was really cold out and so windy that I t...

I got another early start this morning and decided to try to get more pictures of the beaver in that tunnel. This first picture is of my kayak on the dock as I walked down to the lake to get under way. It was still a little dark but the sun was almost up. This next picture is of two beaver in that tunnel I mentioned yesterday. I was about 20 feet in, maybe 3/4 of the way, and the two beaver were warning me to stay back. I suspect their home was just on the other side of the tunnel. It was too dark to see the critters clearly and even with the flash only their eyes were lit up. It was a little spooky 'cause they would slap their tails in warning--which is very loud in a small concrete tunnel--and each time it was a complete surprise since I had no visual cues that the noise was about to occur. On the way back to my parents' house I met up with this Blue Heron. He seemed to be guarding a boathouse. As sentries go, he seemed quite serious. Maybe he was just scouting out the best f...

I took my kayak out for a 2 hour spin when I got to SC this morning. It was good to get the kinks out of my back from the 4 hour drive. While paddling, I saw this fellow. For some reason there were a lot of herons out today. Typically I'll see no more than 4 in a day. Today I saw over 15. It was weird. They were everywhere. This one stood out due to his interesting plumage. He's got long feathers, almost quill-like, emerging out from the back of his head, the base of his neck, and on either side of his back near the wings. Kinda freaky looking. Of the herons I took pictures of (5 of them) this is the only one that had plumage like this. Herons are kinda shy and fly away when approached closely. So I don't know if the other birds looked like this. I took this picture at 12X so details appear in my pictures that weren't visible to my eye. Maybe tomorrow I'll see him again.

We've gotten a little rain in the past 24 hours. According to the rain gauge on the deck it's been 0.28 inches. As you can probably guess, it's not enough to help much. I did some kayaking this morning and took a few pictures. As you can see here, it was quite overcast. There were huge rainstorms south of us but I only got caught in a few slight showers. As so often happens, the rain avoided the lake and just fell on the regions around the lake. Weird. The picture of the left illustrates the gloomy gray sky--but it also points out how low the water is. Normally the water is up to the edge of those pine trees. Now the trees are 30 feet away and over 10 feet higher than the kayak I was in. The lake level is down 10'8" from where it was 2 years ago. On the plus side though, this area--due to the huge lake--doesn't have any watering restrictions. A couple hours to the West is Atlanta which is down to a two month supply of water in Lake Lanier. And where I live in N...

My girlfriend and I went on a hike around a lake today to try to burn off a few Kcals from a large breakfast. The water was beautiful, reflecting the blues of the sky as well as the remaining fall colors on the trees. In the picture above, a lone heron was keeping watch, ensuring the peace, as winter's inexorable approach continues abated only slightly by lovely days like this.