Posted in Birds, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged roseate spoonbills on September 7, 2016| 2 Comments »
Weekly Photo Challenge
“There’s an unseen force which lets birds know when you’ve just washed your car.” — Denis Norden
Roseate spoonbill at Brazos Bend National Park — Photo by Pat Bean
And for good measure, since I do so enjoy watching these pink-winged birds with the funny bill, here is another photo I snapped of roseate spoonbills.
Roseate spoonbills nesting in the World Fair’s Aviary at the St. Louis Zoo. — Photo by Pat Bean
Posted in Art, Journeys, Nature, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged nature on April 25, 2016| 5 Comments »
Mother Nature Does it Best
Looking down at a small pond filled with reeds and stuff at Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge. — Photo by Pat Bean
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but Nature’s sources never fail.” — John Muir, Our National Parks
Blog pick of the Day. Check it out.
Bean Pat: The National Parks: America’s Best Idea http://www.pbs.org/ Don’t miss this Ken Burns film that begins tonight on PBS
Posted in Birds, Favorite Places, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged aviary, great egret, st. louis zoo, the grid on September 20, 2015| 1 Comment »
The Grid
Roseate spoonbill nest. — Photo by Pat Bean
These photos were take in the aviary at the St. Louis Zoo in Missouri that was specially built for the 1904 World Fair.
Cloud reflections through the grid and a great egret. — Photo by Pat Bean
Posted in Journeys, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged colors, hue, loud, pat bean, personality on October 19, 2013| 4 Comments »
“Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Me, in 2009 — Photo by Kim Perrin
Bright, Loud and Hopefully a Bit Sassy
When I was growing up, somebody was always shushing me. I had, still have, a high-pitched voice, and when I get excited about something I get loud. I got excited a lot – and thankfully I still do; and although I’ve learned to moderately moderate my voice, I still get shushed.
It used to hurt to be told that. These days I simply try to tone myself down. For one thing, I have learned that the people who would be my friends accept me despite my flaw. And for another, I’ve learned there is only so much that I can turn down the volume without being so conscious of this flaw that I become a voiceless shell sitting in a corner somewhere.
I think that last part is what made me become a writer. I can be as loud as I want on paper and offend no one’s ears – of course there are other ways to offend and I’ve done those – and still do.
That’s probably why, when faced with the question of what hue describes me, I immediately thought of my tie-dyed T-shirts. And the one I’ve pictured here is the one I wore on my 70th birthday when I jumped out of an airplane for the first time in my life.
I like being me, even though, like the many-hued T-shirts, I’m a bit on the loud side. Still, if I ever make it back to this earth, I have to admit I want a voice that sounds more like Lauren Bacall’s or Terry Tempest Williams’ than the one I was born with in this life.
Bean Pat: NaNoWriMo http://tinyurl.com/k6oze99 A good blog for anyone thinking about doing NaNo, which I am.
Posted in Journeys, Nature, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged henry david thoreau, infinite, sunrises, sunsets on October 16, 2013| 9 Comments »
Tucson sunset — Photo by Pat Bean
“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of dawn.” Henry David Thoreau
Can you feel the passion in this sunset? I can. — Photo by Pat Bean
Sunrises and Sunsets Come in Infinite Colors
An Arkansas pink and purple morning. — Photo by Pat Bean
A Texas dawn. — Photo by Pat Bean
And I love them all — infinitely.
Posted in Nature, Quote for the Day, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged aquariums, fish, photo challenge on September 16, 2013| 2 Comments »
Weekly Photo Challenge
“When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out — because that’s what’s inside. When your are squeezed what comes out is what is inside.” — Wayne Dyer “
Who’s looking at who? — Photo by Pat Bean
Inside an Aquarium
Yellow is the color of these school uniforms, — Photo by Pat Bean
“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” – Groucho Marx.
Just passing by. — Photo by Pat Bean
“Death is not the greatest loss. The greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live.” – Norman Cousins.
Bean’s Pat: Summer Fun: http://tinyurl.com/mm3jckm The world as seen through the eyes of youth is always more fun. I liked this blog because it reminds us to stay young at heart.
Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Art, Journeys, Nature, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged morning walks, nature on September 9, 2013| 3 Comments »
“Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain.” – Henry David Thoreau
Mother Nature used the rain to paint this canvas of wet and dry gravel pattrns. My apartment is at the top of the stairs you see in the background. — Photo by Pat Bean
Morning Walk with Pepper
It was lightly drizzling this morning when Pepper and I took a walk while dawn made her presence known. This is my favorite time of day, and as usual, Pepper and I had the apartment complex courtyards to ourselves.
This is a close-up of the lavender blossoms on the bush next to the tree, which a gardener neatly trimmed. I can’t help but wonder how many blossoms were lost to the trimming tool. — Photo by Pat Bean
Some mornings we leave the manicured grounds and take the short trail beyond the parking lot ,so as to glimpse a view of the unfettered desert in its many moods. But not this morning.
Today, we simply walked the path we walk several times a day, keeping our eyes open to the world around us. Well, I keep my eyes open and Pepper keeps her nose open. Like most dogs, she sees more through smell than I see through my eyes.
Her nose lets her know there is a lizard hiding beneath that rock over yonder, and that Ellie, a favorite German shepherd playmate, peed beside this tree. Of course she pees on top of the spot to let Ellie know she’s been here, too.
My eyes, meanwhile, take in a canvas painted by the rain. It’s the pattern of wet and dry gravel beneath a tree just outside my apartment. I don’t have my camera with me, but after our walk I retrieve it and go back down from my third-floor apartment to capture Mother Nature’s whimsical drawing – well that’s how I see it.
And then I realize that it can serve as my point of view for the week’s photo challenge.
Bean’s Pat: Hoof Beats and Foot Prints http://tinyurl.com/nz6fu4o This is a blogger who also takes time to capture the simple things that can be found in a day, when you take the time to look.
Posted in Birds, Journeys, Nature, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged black-crowned night heron, bunnies, eyes, pat bean, weekly photo challenge on June 24, 2013| 3 Comments »
Weekly Photo Challenge
Free roaming bunny — Photo by Pat Bean
“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.” T.E. Lawrence
Black-crowned night heron — Photo by Pat Bean
If you look at the world through my eyes, you’re going to see bunnies frolicking at campgrounds, like the one above near Mount Rushmore.
You’re going to see lots of birds, like this black-crowned night heron, which I snapped eating a bug in a Texas pond.
And you’re going to take time to visit art galleries and museums, and notice architectural details, like these fish handles on an aquarium, whose class walls reflect the trees near its Albuquerque, New Mexico location.
Fishy handles. — Photo by Pat Bean
The Wondering Wanderer’s blog pick of the day.
Bean’s Pat: Two for today. Somewhere Over the Rainbow http://tinyurl.com/l6ducht Music to calm the mind; and When the Ants Attack http://tinyurl.com/n8kkdrh The kind of blog that lets you into the crazy world of thought – so that you know you’re in good company
Posted in African Safari, Birds, Nature, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged barn swallows, curves, pat bean, wood ducks on June 18, 2013| 3 Comments »
Weekly Photo Challenge: Curves
“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.” Aristotle
Barn swallow nests with a curved opening. — Photo by Pat Bean.
They Abound in Nature
I’ve flow across America many times, always if possible in a window seat, where I spent much time staring at the earth below. I found that the land was almost always sectioned off into an endless array of squares. We North American humans, it seems, like our boundaries straight and neat.
I realized just how true that was hen I flew in a plane over Kenya and Tanzania, where a landscape square was a rare thing.. Here the land retained much of its natural curves.
It was more picturesque, and I liked it better.
Bean’s Pat: http://tinyurl.com/lez6u6y Follow along as a historic Lonely Planet Journey is recreated. It’s a fantastic armchair travel adventure for those of us who can’t afford to take the trip for real.
Posted in Journeys, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged fleeting, grandhildren, pat bean, time on June 8, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Even at a young age, it’s easy to see how eager Junior is to accomplish all those firsts.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Fleeting
First attempt to feed himself, which I was there to see and capture in this photo. — Photo by Pat Bean
I missed his first birthday, but isn’t he cute.
While I rejoiced at seeing my children grow up, taking their first step, getting out of diapers, speaking their first understandable word, feeding themselves without more food ending on the floor than in them, attending their first day of school and endless other firsts until they walked out the door to start their own independent lives, I find the way my grandchildren, and now great-grandchildren, advance in life way too fleeting.
Perhaps it’s because I don’t get to see them often.
I wish they would grow more slowly. But I’m so glad for the digital world of pictures so I can see the progress of Junior’s fleeting moments, even if I wasn’t there to take them.
Did you ever see a cuter kid dressed up for Halloween? Junior will be four next month.
“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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