August 7, 2021
Fifty shades of green
one no hassle parking space
farm erotica
Friday Haiku
Author: Tracy Abell
Pressing pause
Sometimes you need to press pause to let everything sink in. ~ Sebastian Vettel
Arizona Woodpecker, Cave Creek Canyon Ranch. May 16, 2019
Wordless Wednesday
Rifle Falls State Park. August 7, 2021
Revision is like a flower
This Rocky Mountain Bee Plant feels like a symbol of where I’m at with the revisions of my middle grade novel. Some aspects of the story have fully bloomed and won’t change much as I continue revising.
August 7, 2021
Other aspects are still revealing themselves to me. Slowly unfurling their blossoms to become beautiful, integral, and incredibly obvious how-did-I-not-already-know-that components of the whole.
It’s an exciting and gratifying place to be in the process.
Payback
Wait, what? You wanted this sunflower bud to blossom?
September 9, 2021
Well, maybe you shouldn’t have chased me away from the peanut feeder. What goes around, comes around.
Because she loved sunflowers
Michelle would have been 51 years-old today. Here’s one of the many sunflowers in my yard that remind me of her spirit and generous heart.
July 3, 2021
Thank you for brightening my life with your friendship, Michelle. I’ll keep tilting my face to the sky and endless possibilities.
Friday Haiku
August 22, 2021
Crowded landscaping
gardener priority
wildlife-friendly yard
They say it’s his birthday
My handsome fella and his dog. Two happy campers.
Rifle Falls State Park. August 5, 2021
Happy happy birthday to you, Zippy! 🎂 🎉
Here’s wishing for many more such outings (minus the 🦟🦟).
Love,
Tracy and Emma Jean-Jean
Wordful Wednesday
I photographed this Black-billed Magpie at the beginning of the pandemic when I escaped to the open space with a blanket, binoculars, and my camera. It’s not a particularly good photo, but it captures the elegance of a magpie’s flight feathers. I remember the emotional boost I experienced while watching and listening to this bird and the other magpies. They were so raucous that day and I felt honored when several gathered in a tree close to my blanket, squawking and carrying on.
April 1, 2020
Yesterday, I shared some sad magpie news. Today I’m filled with sorrow over that senseless death, but also gratitude for my many magpie sightings, visits, and interactions over the years. They never fail to enchant.
Need good thoughts
Right now, Zippy’s driving an hour to the Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation Center with an injured magpie. It’s the closest facility that can hopefully help this poor bird that got caught in a neighbor’s mouse glue trap. (I didn’t even know those horrible things existed.) Zippy was out in our backyard when he heard a whole lot of magpies making noise on the other side of the fence. They were gathered around the stuck bird.
Zippy put on gloves to rescue the injured bird. When he put it in a shoebox, the glove was stuck to the magpie. Zippy got glue on his arm and unsuccessfully tried getting it off before leaving. He thinks he’ll need to use gasoline later.
August 15, 2020
Please, if you can spare some good thoughts, send them to the poor magpie. May its feathers be cleansed so that it soars again.
UPDATE: Sad news. They were unable to help the magpie because there was too much glue. They would have had to remove many, many feathers which would mean it couldn’t be released back into the wild. They were, however able to put that beautiful bird out of its misery.
Workers unite!
After hours and hours of staring at my computer monitor as I organized information in preparation of handing off a major project, I was feeling like this sunflower looks. Then my phone rang.
July 3, 2021
It was Wildebeest calling as he walked home from his restaurant shift. He told me about a co-worker getting ripped off by a higher-up and how awesome it felt when another co-worker stood up to management on behalf of the slighted co-worker. Unfortunately (and predictably), nothing was done.
So, in the true spirit of Labor Day, I put a bug in Wildebeest’s ear about getting his co-workers to stand together. I said if they all refused to take shifts with this certain higher-up until the situation was rectified, management would be forced to take action. Wildebeest liked that idea.
Will he follow through? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I planted an idea and the thought of those workers someday (soon, I hope) using their collective power to force change perks me up immensely.
Solidarity with all workers around the globe!
Sunday Confessional: I wanted to shove a woman in a ditch
I went for a run on the trails this morning and, as is my routine, wore a bandana around my neck. Whenever I see someone coming my direction, I stop to pull it over my nose and mouth. I do this because running makes me breathe more heavily and I want to minimize the possibility of me infecting someone if I somehow have Covid (and am asymptomatic). Because this was a Sunday, I encountered a greater number of people on the trails (walkers, runners, and one mountain biker). I was the only one masked, but that was fine, and each encounter was friendly. (Okay, the mountain biker reactivated my animus by being an entitled trail-hog.)
Near the end of the run, I saw a person coming toward me. I stopped, masked, moved over to the right, and started running again. When I got closer I realized it was a woman who lives on my street, and I waved hello. Her reply?
She scoffed and yelled, “I’m triple vaccinated!”
As I continued running, I said some bad things out loud to myself. Mostly WTF and what kind of monster shames mask-wearers during a freaking global pandemic and then some stuff about that woman’s intelligence level plus a few choice words about our useless government and how this pandemic is only going to get worse. Whew. Then I reminded myself I was running on narrow, uneven trails with lots of rocks sticking up and that it would truly suck to trip, fall, and add to my collection of scars. So I began chanting my trail-running mantra:
Feet on the ground. Feet on the ground. Feet on the ground.
It worked. I let go of the emotions and made it home without injury. And in writing this out, I just realized that mantra is probably a good all-around reminder to help me stay in the moment during these difficult days.
Feet on the ground.
#Caturday editorial assistant
I was working on revisions in bed this morning when Marcel decided to check out the happenings. In true feline form, he chose to curl up on the very document I’d just set next to me.
As gently as possible, I removed it from beneath his vast bulk. Not to be dissuaded from his mission of chaos, Marcel began noisily licking the plastic bag containing my highlighters and post-its. I was less gentle in that removal.
A few minutes later, I relocated to the patio. Marcel is an indoor-only cat.
P.S. While they didn’t directly obscure my materials, a couple hummingbirds got into multiple dust-ups as I worked outside, distracting me with their darting aggression.
It’s pretty obvious that I deserve a medal for getting any work done today.
Friday Haiku
August 20, 2021
Natural dress code
inner peace cloaks and protects
bowler hat bonus
Three perspectives on shut-eye
An artist’s perspective: I shut my eyes in order to see. ~ Paul Gauguin
May 8, 2021
A dog’s perspective: I shut my eyes in order to better feel the breeze and smell the odors. ~ Emma Jean-Jean
A woman’s perspective: I shut my eyes in order to momentarily pretend all the horribleness in the world isn’t happening. ~ Tracy
Wordless Wednesday: equine edition
August 7, 2021
Twofer Tuesday: perching birds
We spent one night at Jackson Lake State Park in late May and were gifted with many bird sightings. This male Bullock’s Oriole patiently posed on a post while I took photos, turning this way and that, allowing a complete view of his plumage.
There were several swallow species flying about and I took many photos of them in flight, none of which turned out well. This Barn Swallow was very considerate and graciously perched on a roof.
Later, as Zippy and I walked along a trail, we spotted a flash of red up ahead. He studied the bird through the binoculars and said, “Wow, it’s some really big red bird” and then passed the binoculars to me. I also briefly thought it was some unknown big, red species, and then my brain kicked in: we were looking at a House Finch, a species we see every single day in our yard. Yes, it was an unusually red male. But was it truly a large bird? No! It only appeared that way because of the binoculars. You know, that tool we use to help see things better via magnification?
Birding. The gift that keeps on giving.
Monday mishmash
Ever since I ran on the trails Saturday, looking in vain for blooming thistles amongst all the brown and mostly-dead foliage, I keep thinking back to the thistles’ prickly displays in June. So, today I’m posting one from that beautiful day when the open space was ablaze with colors.
June 24, 2021
Yesterday evening, I met outdoors with Sunrise Movement friends whom I hadn’t seen since an action last summer outside (now Senator) Hickenlooper’s house. It was both lovely and bittersweet because another friend who was supposed to also be there had to remain in Minnesota to wait for her friend to get out of jail after being arrested (along with ~69 others) for protesting the Line 3 pipeline. We had all sorts of emotions around that because the friend who was supposed to join us AND her arrested friend had been jailed in Denver with us in January 2020 (shout-out to M for continuing to be so fierce!)
Rather than go the conventional route and post people pics from our gathering, I’ll share not-great photos of the Great Horned Owl that serenaded us as we sat in the middle of an elementary school field. (I know how that sounds, but it was actually a pretty good setting, right up until the sprinklers came on and sprayed me and my stuff.)
Not sure whether the white patch in the photo above is a mouse dangling from the owl’s beak or just part of the groovy blurring effects.
And so I don’t leave on a carnivorous note, here’s one more random image for Monday Mishmash of the dandelion puffball Zippy brought inside for me today.
Wishing everyone a good week . . .
Increasingly true
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. ~ E. B. White
On the patio. August 22, 2021
Friday Haiku
Oh Be Joyful Trail. July 15, 2021
Undue prejudice
against aerial gliding
or good policy?
Thankful Thursday: focusing on fun
A friend who knows my love of birds passed along this 500-piece puzzle after she’d put it together. I started working on it late last night. First, I turned all the pieces right-side-up on the table and took a quick pic which I texted to her with “Let the puzzling begin!”
Her reply: “I hope you don’t get addicted like I did and have a hard time stopping.” 😬
I told her not to worry, that even if I did get addicted, it was fine by me.
Welp, I spent more time today working on this puzzle than attending to most other things on my To Do list. But it felt good for my brain and mental health, so I don’t begrudge the distraction. Plus, it’s birds!
Wordless Wednesday: tumbleweed edition
August 20, 2021
Twofer Tuesday: cormorant edition
As we walked along the shore of Lake Ladora at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge last week, my friend interrupted to point and say, “Watch the water right over there. Something’s going to pop up.”
She was correct. A Double-crested Cormorant emerged and then went underwater again, only to reappear next to the lone cormorant I’d been calling The Sentinel.
August 20, 2021
The Sentinel had been perched alone on that rock while a sunning** of approximately 15 cormorants gathered on a cluster of large rocks about thirty feet away and I wondered whether the swimming cormorant was making a play for the sentinel role by loudly splashing with its flapping wings. Or, maybe the lone cormorant wasn’t keeping watch at all. Maybe that particular water bird is like me and requires time alone to recharge. Perhaps a better name would be The Introvert.
Confession: I’m taking especial delight in not only having a photo of two cormorants for this edition of Twofer Tuesday, but also the fact that they’re Double-crested. 🙂
** collective nouns for cormorants also include a “flight,” “gulp,” “rookery,” and “swim.”
Focusing on tiny miracles
A friend and I went to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge last Friday where we walked, talked, and communed with the natural world. First up is a Gray Hairstreak Butterfly on a Rocky Mountain Bee Plant.
This was one of two dragonflies that moved incredibly quickly as they darted together up-down-off-to-the-side-then-up-again as we spun around, trying to keep them in sight before they abruptly came to rest on these rushes.
Sometimes we didn’t know what we were looking at and took time to investigate. 
No matter what we saw, whether it was old or new to us, we took delight in the many tiny miracles. Even a much-maligned thistle made us pause and reach out a gentle finger to touch its wondrous beauty. 
All gratitude to Mother Nature.
The more things change
ONE. As Haiti is devastated by another earthquake, I think back to a blog post from 2010 in which I wrote:
Haiti has always struggled mightily
to survive on her own terms.
She’s strong, I know.
I just wish the universe would quit testing her.
And here the Haitian people are again, facing more death, destruction, and heartbreak.
TWO. As the Taliban moves closer to regaining control in Afghanistan, I think back to those days of feeling completely enraged/overwhelmed/defeated by how easily Bush/Cheney & Co fear-mongered the U.S. into invading and occupying Afghanistan. I distinctly remember sitting on my patio, drinking a beer, and laughing/crying as I read David Rees’s GET YOUR WAR ON.**
The one good constant in all this is that my patio table remains the same
The clip-art strips were and continue to be profane, hysterical, and spot-on in the framing of how we lost our collective minds after September 11, 2001. (**Lather. Rinse. Repeat. for the invasion/occupation of Iraq, covered in GET YOUR WAR ON II)
THREE. Once again, I’m feeling enraged, overwhelmed, and defeated. There’s so much good we could be doing for one another on a massive scale and yet, people continue to think the military is the answer to every issue, despite all evidence to the contrary.
FOUR. So here I am (again) turning to nature to soothe my soul.
August 14, 2021
Tracy Abell 