Photography, Life

Standing Stones, a Poetry Manuscript, The Wolf Moon, Turkey Vultures on the Trail, Green on the Hills After the Rain, the First Daffodils, and the Sky on Fire

A couple of weeks in photo

Well, once again, I am a tad bit late with my “week in photos,” so it has turned into “a couple of weeks in photos.” I tell myself that this just means that I am living life though, which I think is a good thing. The older I get, the less time there just seems to be in a day.

I have had a productive writing spell though. I finished a poetry manuscript and submitted it to the Rattle chapbook contest. I’m currently hard at work on a smorgasbord of new poems, which I intend to add to the collection to make a longer book. I have to say that one of the hardest things for me to do is to “not” publish all of my poems as they come to me. But I want to have more new pieces in my final manuscript, which I hope to publish (once I figure out the logistics of how to go about this somewhat daunting project) in the next few months.

I’ve been out on the mountain bike a lot lately. I’ve been listening to “Walden” while I ride. Somehow, I have never read this iconic text before. I am greatly enjoying it.

January in Southern California is a glorious month and a wonderful time to be out on the trail. We’ve had a fair amount of rain so far this winter and the hills are starting to green up.

Pretty soon we’ll have those fields of wild mustard that arch up over my head and into the blue, blue sky. For now, though, I’m just so happy to see a bit of stubble of grass after the long, very dry summer and fall. I feel like the earth is breathing a sigh of happy relief.

There’s a spot on the trail where someone has put up standing stones. It feels a bit like a druid has snuck in during the full Wolf Moon and cast a bit of magic. I’ve stopped a couple of times and added a little rock to the top of one of the towers. I was surprised to see it all still standing the other day after we had a pretty fierce wind storm.

The Wolf Moon, or the first full moon of the year floated in amongst a bank of clouds. I really wanted to get a good photo, but I wasn’t sure if I would have any success with all of the cloud cover. I set up my tripod and remote trigger for my camera and waited and waited for a clear spot to appear around the moon. When I downloaded the photos onto my computer, I decided that the clouds actually enhanced the picture.

That full moon always seems to awaken the muse (and keeps me up at night with her energy) and I wrote a poem about her:

Near the trailhead for Horseshoe Loop, which heads back into the hills behind Irvine Regional Park, I slammed on my bike brakes just in time to see these Turkey Vultures. Yes, that is a dead opossum that they are eating. I’m guessing it was roadkill and they carried it here.

They are not the most attractive of creatures, I have to say, but they are an integral part of the web of life and it was pretty cool to see them so close up.

If you follow my “week in photos,” you’ve likely seen a photo or two from this same vantage point. It has been so brittle looking for months, but the green is starting to come back.

Anne Bonfert recently issued a photo challenge to incorporate our shadow into an image. Anne, I thought of you while out on the trail the other day. Here’s me and my bike.

Our little Peter’s Canyon Reservoir has filled back up again, which makes me so happy for all of the wildlife. Even though we live in Orange County, we are in an unincorporated zone out in the hills and my neighborhood abuts a large stretch of wilderness and protected areas, which are home to coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, egrets, and all sorts of other birds and critters who rely on this water source for survival.

The first of the bulbs are starting to pop their bright little faces up. I always think the daffodils are just too early, but here they are, nodding in the breeze.

While I was out for a walk the other night, I tumbled into one of the most incredible sunsets. That is Catalina Island you can see in the distance.

By the time I got home from my walk, the stars were out. Believe it or not, this was just shot with my iPhone 13 Pro Max (as were all of the images this week, except for the full moon one, which I shot with my Nikon z7II).

My husband was out to dinner with a client that night, so I decided to dine on pretzels, hummus and wine. When I opened the hummus container, this lovely little message seemed so appropriate after photographing the sunset and the stars. Serendipity?

The kitties have all had lovely weeks. Freyja and Emerson love to lounge in their little beds right beside my desk while I am working. The fireplace was on just a couple of feet away, which makes them extra happy.

Miss Uma Zooma Angelwings let me take a “glamour shot” of her in her favorite chair, strategically placed so that she can watch the birds and squirrels.

And Bisou heads straight for the sunniest spot he can find when I let him out into the garden (we have the yard set up so that they cannot get out and they only get to be outside for a few hours each day — too many critters around here for these babies to be roaming free).

I hope you have all had lovely weeks. Thanks for coming along with me on my rambles.

Erika Burkhalter is a yogi, neurophilosopher, cat-mom, photographer, and lover of travel and nature, spreading her love and amazement for Mother Earth’s glories, one photo, poem or story at a time. (MS Neuropsychology, MA Yoga Studies).

As always, I thank you Dennett for creating this “week in photos” challenge.

It’s so fun to share about the week and to read about so many other photographers’ weeks around the world.

You might want to check out a few of the others who participate:

Dennett /Anne Bonfert /Eileen Vorbach /Lisa Bolin /Tracy Aston /David Wade Chambers/Kim Zuch /Barbara Radisavljevic /LensAfield /Barbara Dalton /Sasha Meyer /Susan Alison /Diana Lotti /Barbara Dalton /K. Barrett /June Nguyen /Juan O. Aguilera /Ellie Jacobson /Shruthi Sundaram/ Pene Hodge /Tracy Aston/ Sandra Barrett and more… (if I’ve failed to mention your name, please let me know so that I can add it in future weeks).

I hope you enjoyed my photos and musings. You might also like:

Photos and story ©Erika Burkhalter. All rights reserved.

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