Tag Archives: sky

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Sunrise

I was at an AirBnB for a few days last week. The great blue heron landed in the top of the tree in the next yard before sunrise. Then she stayed there waiting and enjoying the warmth when the sun was up. Eventually an eagle headed for the tree. The heron took off and the eagle landed.

The next two mornings I did not see an eagle or a great blue heron in the tree, perhaps because it was gray and cold and overcast both mornings.

That is why we have such big trees in the Pacific Northwest, so that eagles and great blue herons can build massive nests.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: landing.

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Matter

If something doesn’t matter, is it anti-matter?

Lily’s person moved two days ago, much closer. Supposedly to a place where Lily the cat can go, but instead of a private room, there is a roommate. It took me a month to get Lily cat to let me pat her, so the roommate won’t work. We are all very very frustrated. And next week daily treatments for Lily’s person start, thirty minutes away, without enough warning to get volunteer drivers. So it will be me. I am tired. But I suppose it’s anti-matter, right? We were given 24 hours notice by the nursing home and by the physicians about both the move and the treatment and they wanted to start the treatment the same day that she was moving. Whether we can provide all the transport seems to be irrelevant.

The stealthie is from Whidby Island. Right, I’m just an irrelevant shadow as far as the medical dysfunctional machine is concerned.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: irrelevant.

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Painted sky

I think the sky and water here are more sophisticated than I anything I can imagine.

After my mother died, I wrote a poem about her and my kids. Her part:

I keep wondering
what the art supplies are like
and if you work on sunsets
or mountains
or lakes

The rest of the poem is here https://drkottaway.com/2021/09/23/painting-angels-2/.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: sophisticated.

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Air and water

I took a wonderful limnology class at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in college. The study of inland aquatic ecosystems, lakes, reservoirs, ponds, rivers, springs, wetlands and so forth. I loved this course because it is such a generalist course. We talked about the chemistry of water, the physics, the ecology, the geography. The plants and animals, microscopic to bigger than us. And lakes that freeze, the ice floats on top, because it is most dense at 4 degrees C and less so at 0 degrees C. This oxygenates the entire lake as the water turns over until the entire lake is 4 degrees. Tropical lakes do not do this.

The photograph is of the Salish Sea, so not an inland space. The liminal space for me is the surface, the border between water and air. Sometimes swimming, if air and water are both warm, it’s hard to feel the exact liminal space, wet skin in the air and then the water.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: liminal.

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Early morning

A friend and I go down to coffee and walk out on the dock, on a fabulous sunny morning. The Northwest Maritime Center and the water are photogenic and lovely! All of the colors in the polarized light are just beautiful and it is almost warm.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: photogenic.