Posted in Nature, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged pat bean, pendleton roundup, rodeo, weeklyphotochallenge on July 7, 2012| Leave a Comment »
“Every man is a creative cause of what happens, a primum mobile with an original movement.” — Fredrich Nietzsche
Pendleton Roundup
Yeehaw! — Photo by Pat Bean
“Never confuse movement with action.” — Ernest Hemingway
I think you could call this movement. — Photo by Pat Bean
“The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble.” Blaise Pascal
Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Birds, Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, tagged antelope island state park, Idaho state parks, idenity, Lake Walcott, pat bean, postaday, red-winged blackbirds, Utah on July 5, 2012| 6 Comments »
Fall sketch of red-winged blackbird at Antelope Island State Park in Utah
“Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self, in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one’s nakedness can always be felt, and sometimes, discerned.” James Arthur Baldwin.
One Thing Is Not Like the Other
Female red-winged blackbird — Wikipedia photo
Back in my earlier days of bird watching, I came across a small flock of birds at Green River State Park in Utah that I spent an hour, field guide in hand, trying to identify. They just didn’t quite fit the description of any North American bird, or so I was coming to conclude.
And then a lone male red-winged blackbird flew past – and the light bulb came on. My flock of birds were female red-winged blackbirds. It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen them before, I had just forgotten how unlike their mates they look.
You can find red-winged blackbirds anywhere you live here in North America.
Here at Lake Walcott State Park in Idaho, the males flash their scarlet epaulets boldly, saying look at me, look at me. The females, however, mostly stay hidden in the reeds growing on the lake bank, where they build their nests, in hopes they won’t be seen.
The show-off male — Wikipedia photo
It’s a rare day here at the park that I don’t see both birds, the females because I know where to look, and the males everywhere I look. This morning one was even checking out the fresh supply of sunflower seeds I had put in my bird feeder.
Life doesn’t get much better.
Bean’s Pat: Lady Romp http://tinyurl.com/cekabj8 A message we all need to remember. Blog pick of the day from this wandering wonderer.
Posted in Adventures With Pepper, tagged dwight eisenhower, fourth of july, freedom, liberty, pat bean, postaday, winston churchill on July 4, 2012| 6 Comments »
“Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower.
A Page From My Journal
“All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.” – Winston Churchill
Bean’s Pat: Serenity Spell http://tinyurl.com/87qcugr Great great-blue heron photos. Blog pick of the day by this wandering wonderer.
Posted in Nature, Travels With Maggie, tagged chewing gum, flintstones, gooseberries, hippos, odd facts, pat bean, postaday, singapore, tidbits, toilets on July 2, 2012| 9 Comments »
“An educated person is one who has learned that information almost always turns out to be at best incomplete and very often false, misleading, fictitious, mendacious – just dead wrong.” – Russell Baker
Did You Know?
It was Fred and Wilma Flintstone who were the first television couple to be shown together in the same bed. I didn’t know that. Did you.
It’s my goal to learn something new every day, whether it is learn-worthy or not. These facts I came across either amazed me or tickled my funny bone. So I thought I would share.
1. The first toilet tank ever seen on television was on “Leave it to Beaver.” I think I missed that.
2. In Singapore, it is illegal to sell or own chewing gum. because people disposed of it in public places, like under tables or chairs. No problem, I don’t chew gum.
3. To burn off the calories from one M&M candy, you need to walk the full length of a football field. Oops. Problem here. My guess is there are not enough football fields in the world for this chocoholic.
That’s a lot of football fields to be walked.
4. But at least, a Harvard studys says chocolate eaters live longer.
5. Pepsi Cola was originally called Brad’s Drink. Interesting, but I prefer Coke — and I want to know why the Coke I drank in Africa tasted better than it does in this country. My best guess is that it was because it came in a class bottle and contained real sugar instead of corn syrup.
6. A baby has 300 bones, but an adult only has 206. Huh?
Anybody else out there think these are gooseberries? — Photo by Pat Bean
7. The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television was Fred and Wilma Flintstone. I thought it was the Bradys.
8. A hippopotamus can run faster than a human – no one told me that when I was in Africa and a hippo was roaming around our tent.
Oh, and by the way. I think my unidentified berries ( June 28 blog) are gooseberries. A reader identified them as such, and after looking at photos I agreed. Do you?
Bean’s Pat: Meat and Potatoes of Life http://tinyurl.com/bs6ckop How to catch a crab. I thought I’d keep to the theme of learning something new. And please keep laughing. I think it’s even better for your health than chocolate.
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters.” — Ursula K. Le Guin
Pat Bean is a writer, avid birder, hiker and passionate nature observer with wanderlust in her soul. She spent nine years living and traveling in a small RV. She now lives in Tucson with Scamp, a rescue who was supposed to be a Schnauzer mix but turned out to be a Siberian Husky-Shih Tzu mix who is as stubborn as his owner, her granddaughter says. She was also a journalist for 37 years, and can be reached at patbean@msn.com
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