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What We Remember

Posted in Birds, Journeys, tagged Friesian horses, memory, stork-billed kingfisher on May 26, 2013| 1 Comment »

“Always remember to slow down in life, live, breathe and learn; take a look around you whenever you have time and never forget everything and every person that has the least place within your heart.” — Unknown

Friesian Horses and Birds, But Not Birthdays

I’ve never seen a horse I thought more beautiful than the Friesian. — Wikipedia Photo

“Isn’t that a Friesian horse?” I asked my daughter as one appeared in the movie, Eragon, which we had sat down to watch together this past week.

I was pretty sure it was, but my daughter is a horse person, so I asked. I once wrote a newspaper feature on these beautiful creatures. Seeing one always brings to mind the first time I saw one, which was in the movie, “Ladyhawke.” It was shortly after that movie was released that I did the story.

During the 37 years, I was a journalist, I easily wrote over 200 articles annually, many more during some years. That adds up to well over 7,000 stories. What, I wondered, lets me remember some of them as if I wrote them yesterday, and others not at all.

What lets me remember very clearly the time I saw each of the over 700 birds on my life list, but forget my own children’s and grandchildren’s birthdays? OK, I do remember my own kids’ birthdays, I just forget what day it is.

I've never seen this bird except in photos, but since it's a bird I'll probably be seeing it in my quirky brain fro the rest of my life. --Wikipedia Photo

I’ve never seen the stork-billed kingfisher except in photos, but since it’s a bird I’ll probably be seeing it in my quirky brain for the rest of my life. –Wikipedia Photo

Why is it that names of some people, whose faces I can clearly see in my head, suddenly escape my brain?

This is not age related, at least in my case. My brain has had these quirks all my life.

One nice thing about the short-circuit in my brain is that I tend to remember the good things and forget the bad. It could be the other way around, like a couple of people I know who relive a stressful event day after day after day.

What do you remember, and what do you forget?

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat Layover in Singapore http://tinyurl.com/pvz3gu5 This is the first time I’ve seen the stork-billed kingfisher, whose awesome photo leads this blog. It’s not on my bird list, because I haven’t seen it personally, but I do think I’ll remember it.

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Yikes! I Have Nothing to Wear

Posted in Birds, Journeys, tagged clothes shopping, pat bean on May 15, 2013| 13 Comments »

“Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes.” – Henry David Thoreau

And that’s the Truth

For the past nine years, my wardrobe consisted almost entirely of cargo pants and shorts worn with a T-shirt top and a pair of tennis shoes. Occasionally I bought a dress for a granddaughter’s wedding or some other special occasion but usually gave it away because it took up too much space in my RV’s small closet.

The lower section of my ever faithful cargo pants zipped off and I had all the clothes I needed while gallivanting around in my RV Gypsy Lee in search of nice trails to hike. — Photo by Kim Perrin

For emergency situations, when T-shirts weren’t exactly appropriate, I had a nice pair of black pants and a couple of nice tops.

The one summer nice top I have, I realized this morning, is dirty because I wore it when I was taken out to breakfast by a son-in-law and three grandsons for Mother’s Day. I wore it with a pair of cotton culottes – is that term even still used? — that was barely a fashion step up from shorts. But then it was just Denny’s.

Today I’m going out to lunch with a group of women to a nicer place and they, I know, from past lunches, don’t eat lunch in shorts and a T-shirt. And summer in Tucson, which has finally arrived, is a big no-no for hot-bodied me and black pants.

I know women are always stereotyped as complaining they have nothing to wear, but that’s a fact for me this morning. I’m going to have to make an early shopping expedition as soon as I post this. I can’t think of anything more unpleasant. I truly do hate shopping for clothes.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Birding in Wellington where winter is just beginning http://tinyurl.com/b7vcrdq A New Zealand armchair travel adventure.

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Patterns Within Patterns

Posted in Birds, Nature, Weekly Photo Challenge on May 14, 2013| 2 Comments »

“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” — Edward de Bono

Weekly Photo Challenge: Patterns

The shadow in this pattern tells you what you’re looking at. Want a hint? It’s a bird.

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Standing Above the Virgin River in Zion

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Birds, Favorite Places, Journeys, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged above, Angel's Landing, peregrine falcons, weekly photo challenge, ziona national park on May 8, 2013| 6 Comments »

I rate enthusiasm even above professional skills.” – Sir Edward Appleton

To enjoy the view from above, one first has to get to the top of Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park. — Photo by Pat Bean

Weekly Photo Challenge: Above

My enthusiasm to get to the top of Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park every year on my birthday was motivated by my belief that if I could make it, I could handle anything the next year threw at me.

My immediate reward, however, was a view of the Virgin River and the winding canyon below, where birds flew below me and people were dwarfed to bug size.

It was an exhilarating experience made even more awesome one year when a pair of peregrines flew below the edge of the ridge. For the first time I got to view the back of these falcons and not just their bellies as they flew.

I suspected the pair was nesting below in the rocks, an occurrence that closes down Angel’s Landing to rock climbers every year. I also suspected that the rock climbers had an even more exhilarating enthusiasm for the view from above after their strenuous efforts to get to the top.

It’s been a few years since I stood on top of Angel’s Landing. Thankfully, since my children are grown and I’m now into the joys of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, life isn’t throwing me as many curves as it did in my earlier years.

So walking my canine companion, Pepper, up and down three flights of stairs for her four daily walks, has become my motivating challenge to keep me in shape to handle life’s more difficult moments. But who knows. These efforts might get me into good enough shape that I might once again stand on the top of Angel’s Landing for yet one more view from above.

Ahh! I made it! — Photo by Pat Bean

Bean’s Pat: Wild Junket: http://tinyurl.com/buy5x2e Take an armchair exploration of St. Vincent

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Morning Walk with Pepper

Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Birds, Dogs, Nature, tagged dogs, pat bean, walking, white-winged dove on May 2, 2013| 5 Comments »

“Adventure is not outside man; it is within.” — George Eliot

Think all doves do are coo? This white-winged species has a nest in a tree that I walk beneath and screeches loudly at me every time I walk past. — Photo y Pat Bean

Letting my Mind Wonder as My Legs Wander

I’m recovering nicely from my broken ankle, but still not up to the adventure of a trail hike. Instead I have to get my kicks from walking on level ground. Mostly, on the four daily 15-20 minute walks I take with Pepper around the apartment complex, she and I retrace the same territory over and over.

Pepper off on one of her scent trails. — Photo by Pat Bean

But each walk is different because of the people we meet along the way, a suddenly blooming plant, an old sight seen in a new way, the variety and activity of birds at the time, and always the varying thoughts in my head.

My best and brightest or most absurd and ridiculous ideas bounce through my brain like a ball in a pinball machine when I’m walking.

Pepper, who sniffs every twig, every new flower and urine bulletin board messages left behind by her doggie colleagues, always adds a layer of fun to the walks.

This one little flower in a big pot seems awfully lonely/ == Photo by Pat Bean

So far she’s never met another canine or human whom she didn’t like, although thankfully she’s come to know which four-footed and two-footed beings don’t want anything to do with her, and has learned to sit quietly by my side while they pass.

Dogs, I’ve come to believe, have much better instincts than we humans

But a smile or a tail wag from any of our apartment neighbors is enough to make her deliriously happy and playful. She is forever bringing smiles to my face.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Like a moment from Midsomer Murders: http://tinyurl.com/d2rrved A First of May sunrise. I suspect the reference to Midsomer Murders is because there is always one village celebration or another taking place in the English TV mystery series, which is one of my favorite shows. The blog’s title is what caught my attention, but the photo is awesome.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Culture

Posted in Birds, Books, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged A Big Year, Austin, Birds, Chinese, culture, pat bean, week;y photo challenge on April 30, 2013| 2 Comments »

“If we are to achieve a richer culture rich in contrasting value we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.” – Margaret Mead

Clearly these figures located at the Chinatown Center in Austin, Texas. — Photo by Pat Bean

What Culture? Who’s Culture?

I found this week’s topic confusing. Culture has many meanings, and some of those I think depend on personal interpretations.

A doctor might think of cultivating a bacteria, while a farmer thinks of cultivated land. Are we talking about culture as being educated, or as how it relates to an ethnic group. Or simply an everyday existence shared by people who live close together and share the same values?

The culture of people who live by the sea and make their living fishing would be quite different from a group of apartment dwellers who take the train into work every morning.

Since I couldn’t decide what would best exemplify culture, I just picked a couple of photos to share that I liked and that I think represent two diverse cultures.

Bean’s Pat: A Record-Breaking Birding Day http://tinyurl.com/bv7s7sv 294 Texas species in 24 hours. This one is for the birders among my readers. It’s from the Cornell University Ornithological blog. Anybody here ever seen or read “A Big Year? Great book, good movie!.

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What Makes a Perfect Day

Posted in Birds, Books, Journeys, Nature, tagged birding, pat bean, perfect day, rafting on April 26, 2013| 1 Comment »

“If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.” — Jim Valvano

The Difference a Half Century Makes

It’s got to be a perfect day if I get to go out birding with old friends. — Photo by Pat Bean

A perfect day at 24 and at 74 is like two different worlds. In one I would be rafting down the Colorado, and making mad, passionate love under the stars with a soul mate that night.

In the other, I would be happy to have just met my writing goal for the day and to have learned or seen something new.

Watching an awesome pink and purple sunrise and a fiery orange and red sunset would be included in both worlds, however, as would be a good book to read, a nice stiff Jack and Coke (well it would have been a Virgin Coke in the first world because I didn’t drink until I was 37) before a gourmet dinner that someone else cooked.

And seeing birds, like this California quail only makes the day more perfect — is that even possible? — Photo by Pat Bean

A perfect day would also include feeling loved, which is easy at 74 but was nigh impossible at 24.

The truth is I’ve had many days I would consider perfect – and the closer to 74 I became the more abundant they’ve become. Hmmmmm?

Sure it would be grand to tackle the Mighty Colorado through the Grand Canyon as the lead paddler in a six-person raft once again, but that’s something I’ve had to accept my 74-year-old body isn’t up to doing.

The end of all my days on the river were all perfect days, but for some odd reason I find today’s mellower activities have a way of leaving me content and satisfied with my life in a way that I never was at 24.

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Bright and Bold and Brassy

Posted in Art, Birds, Journeys, tagged illustrated journals, Northern Cardinal, pat bean on April 26, 2013| 7 Comments »

” Live Life as an exclamation, not an explanation!” — Unknown

Life as an exclamation is how I saw this northern cardinal.

Today’s Illustrated Journal Page

I came across the above quote early this morning and immediately jotted it down in my newly started art journal. Ideas for illustrating it flowed through my head all morning, and then I thought of the beautiful, cheery northern cardinal.

The two just seemed to fit.

It was a quick draw and watercolor job — 15 minutes — in which I went for boldness and not perfection. I think the fellow is a little humpbacked.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Red Rock Hike http://tinyurl.com/a63twt2 My broken ankle is still not up to trails, so for now I’ll just have to do them from an armchair. But then this also brought back memories because I’ve taken a few hikes in the Sedona area. Catch one if you can.

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Morning Walk With Birds and Words

Posted in Birds, Journeys, Writing, tagged Birds, gambel's quail, gila woodpecker, Maya Angelou, mourning dove, pat bean on April 3, 2013| 7 Comments »

Mourning dove — Photo by Pat Bean

If I had things my way, all birds would fly free.

Gambel’s quail — Photo by Pat Bean

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

By Maya Angelou

“A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
and floats downstream till the current ends
and dips his wing in the orange suns rays and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
can seldom see through his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own.

Gila woodpecker — Photo by Pat Bean

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.”

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Mother Nature Lives in Tucson

Posted in Birds, Favorite Places, Journeys, Nature, tagged bobcats, desert, home, pat bean, tucson on March 17, 2013| 12 Comments »

“We are born again each morning. What matters most is this day.” Buddha

Gambel quail skitter about in this landscape. — Photo by Pat Bean

And Makes Me Feel at Home

My apartment has all the conveniences of a city just two blocks away, yet it’s sheltered from traffic noise by trees and a landscaped courtyard, and is bordered on two sides by a natural desert landscape filled with wildlife.

Seed pods against the desert sky.

I see Gambel’s quail skittering between the saguaro and ocotillo cacti and am serenaded by mourning doves, song birds and a great horned owl on a daily basis. A pair of Cooper’s hawks are nesting in a nearby near tree and yesterday morning I spied a bobcat on the edge of the apartment’s parking lot.

Tucson, I’ve discovered, is a place where civilization and Mother Nature coexist better than any other place I’ve ever lived. And here in the city’s Catalina Foothills that I now call home, most buildings have been designed to look like they belong to the landscape.

I truly am falling in love with Tucson.

The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.

Bean’s Pat: Life in the Bogs http://tinyurl.com/bwlykyh And speaking of Mother Nature, she lives in Robin’s bog, too.

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