SchkReEEek

Something like that. It was loud, and it was scary, so I lay paralyzed on my floaty for about the 4 seconds it took me to decide I did want to know if a dinosaur was standing beside the pool. I threw myself off the floaty and into the water in what I hoped would be a big and frightening maneuver to behold, and I spun in the direction from whence had come the awful noise. There sat perched on the edge of the pool a red winged blackbird. I think. Or a crow. I'm not all about knowing which bird is what, but I'm just sure I saw a patch of red on that bird. None to be seen in the photos, though, so call it what you will, and if you're all about birds, you'll call it what it actually is.

I'd taken the camera and Diana Waring to the pool with me. Diana was in my CD player, talking about the canon of Scripture and Attila the Hun. Olympus was still in the bag. And I was in the water, sad to be parted from the camera when there was a bird standing on the edge of the pool, staring at me.

I watched as it hopped and flew from one point on the edge to another. Clearly, it wasn't thinking about leaving. Just as clearly, it kept turning its back on me, at which points in time I was hoping I wasn't about to get a birdseye view of it making a deposit in the pool. And it was just that thought which prompted me to climb out of the pool to get the camera: A) Just stand here and watch that bird make a deposit; B) Risk scaring it off by getting out of the pool. I chose B.

Of course, by the time I got the camera from the bag, the bird had flown into the neighbor's cornfield. Since I could see it, I decided to zoom my point-and-shoot, on the chance I'd have a reasonable focus. Sort of reasonable:


Here's a close crop.


I discovered a dragonfly when I cropped.


While pointing, shooting, and not having a clue whether or not I was actually capturing a photo of the bird, I noticed a barred rock hen beneath one of the halfapple trees. Well, I'll just take a picture of her.

Hello henny...and August.


Goodbye July.

The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him. ~Nahum 1:7