Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged green, pat bean, postaday, red-eared slider, Rowlett, Texas, turtles on November 17, 2012| 4 Comments »
“I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and
respecting her seniority.” — Elwyn Brooks White, Essays of E.B. White, 1977
This red-eared slider turtle lives in a green world in the creek that runs through Springfield Park in Rowlett, Texas. — Photo by Pat Bean
Posted in Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged ducks, mallard hybrids, pat bean, postaday, Rowlett, Springfield Park, texas parks, weekly photo challenge on November 10, 2012| 4 Comments »
A Ducky Family
Half-breed ducks at Springfield Park in Rowlett, Texas. — Photo by Pat Bean
When I first began bird watching, a flock of ducks like this had me scrambling through my guidebooks over and over in my efforts to identify them. A seasoned birder finally took pity on me and explained that they were hybrids, half mallard-and half something else, usually the white domestic ducks that hang about in civilized ponds.
“You won’t find them in any birding field guide, and the AOU (American Ornithological Union) discounts them as a legitimate bird species,” he said. “And they can’t reproduce,” he said.
These days I recognize such hybrids immediately. And in my crazy mind, they speak to me about how life, in all of its forms, is constantly trying to renew itself.
Posted in Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged big, grandchildren, weekly photo challenge, winston churchill on October 13, 2012| 2 Comments »
Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. — Winston Churchill
That’s one big hat my grandson J.J. is wearing. But this young rodeo man has the attitude to carry it off. — Photo by Pat Bean
“Grandchildren are the reward for having children.” — Nana
Posted in Birds, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged happy, sandhill cranes, weekly photo challenge on October 7, 2012| 4 Comments »
I could list a jillion things that make me happy, and coming upon a pair of sandhill cranes would be in there someplace. — Photo by Pat Bean
Happiness is a Pair of Sandhill Cranes
“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it. — Grocho Marks”
Posted in Art, Favorite Places, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged color, downtown dallas, pat bean, postaday, Thanksgiving Square, weekly photo challenge on September 30, 2012| 10 Comments »
“Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world. Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak. Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor, and your picture begins to lighten up.” — Allen Klein
Downtown Dallas
Ceiling of the chapel in Thanksgiving Square in downtown Dallas. — Photo by Pat Bean
Posted in Birds, Favorite Places, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged aransas pass, brown pelicans, matagorda island, mustang island, pat bean, postaday, solitary, weekly photo challenge, whooping cranes on September 23, 2012| 13 Comments »
“Being solitary is being alone well: being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice, are of the fullness of your presence rather than the absence of others. Because solitude is an achievement.” — Alice Koller
One Brown Pelican
A lone brown pelican photographed in Aransas Bay during a trip out to see whooping cranes on Matagorda Island. It was a cool day and I had the choice of standing alone on deck or enjoying the camaraderie of other mothers inside the boat’s cabin. I did both. — Photograph by Pat Bean
I daily count my blessings, and one of them is that I enjoy my own company. That’s not to say I don’t like people. I do, and I need them.
Just not all the time.
Posted in Favorite Places, Journeys, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged everyday, grandmothers, john lennon, memories, postaday, robert frost, weekly photo challenge on September 15, 2012| 11 Comments »
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.” – Robert Frost
Part of my everyday Sunday life was sitting on the back steps of my grandmother’s home early in the morning watching her wring a chicken’s neck so we could have the best fried chicken in the world for dinner. It spooked me the way the headless body of the chicken would flop around. My grandmother’s house on the outskirts of Dallas is now condemned. — Photo by Pat Bean
Mine from the Ages of 3 to 11
These are the steps I ran up every week day to catch the school bus. I tripped on them once and chipped a tooth, which the dentist said was why it finally fell out when I was in my 60s. — Photo by Pat Bean
When I was 11 years old my grandmother, the only person I thought loved me – of course I was wrong – died. My whole world then changed, and it wasn’t for the better.
I recently searched out my grandmother’s old home. As Robert Frost said, life had moved on. But the memories of my everyday life as it was back then are still etched into my soul.
“Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” – John Lennon
This is the tree in the next door neighbor’s yard that I climbed most everyday. I loved this old tree, which back then was young and perfect. The house on the right was a corn field. — Photo by Pat Bean
“Any idiot can face a crisis – it’s day to day living that wears you out.” – Anton Chekhov .
Posted in Adventures With Pepper, Dogs, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged dogs, free spirit, postaday, weekly photo challenge on September 1, 2012| 6 Comments »
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable” – Helen Keller
Always up for adventure, Pepper is telling me to hurry my lazy butt along — Photo by Pat Bean
I Live With One
Pepper! Did you do this?
“Properly trained, man can be a dog’s best friend.” — Corey Ford
In March I lost my beloved canine traveling companion, Maggie, a black cocker spaniel that I had rescued from a life of abuse when she was a year old. She went from being scared of her shadow to a spoiled diva queen after I promised her no one would ever hurt her again.
Maggie’s replacement was a four-month-old Scotty-mix puppy that turned out to be as different from Maggie as a spoiled regal queen is from an exuberant pig-tailed tomboy. Of course I’ve come to love her every bit as much as I loved Maggie.
Pepper, who is now about nine months old, is a rowdy thing who enjoys nothing more than rough-housing with dogs twice her size. While there’s not a hair of aggression in her, she’s usually a bit too rambunctious for smaller dogs.
“Me?” Yes, you. “The cat did it.” We don’t have a cat.
She is truly a free spirit, although she prefers accomplishing her hijinks within my sight. She bonded to me the first second she saw me. It took me at least two seconds before I knew I had a new traveling companion.
Posted in Art, Favorite Places, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged chicago, postaday, sara peretsky, urban, weekly photo challenge on August 25, 2012| 7 Comments »
“I adore Chicago. It is the Pulse of America.” Sarah Bernharndt
Chicago
I prefer Mother Nature over big cities, but every time I’ve visited Chicago over the years, I’ve always had a great time. –Photo by Pat Bean
“Maybe we can show government how to operate better as a result of better architecture. Eventually, I think Chicago will be the most beautiful great city left in the world.” Frank Lloyd Wright
This photo was taken shortly after exiting the Chicago Museum of Art, which I had spent the afternoon exploring earlier this year during a visit with a son who lives in Chicago.
“I live and die with the Chicago Cubs.” – Sara Paretsky
Paretsky is the author of the V.I. Warshawski mysteries that are set in Chicago. She’s one of my favorite authors. I love her tough-gal PI, and her descriptive images of Chicago. Perhaps her books should be displayed in the travel section of a book store and well as in the mystery section.
Posted in Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged animal sculptures, pat bean weeklyphotochallenge, postaday, wrong on August 11, 2012| 3 Comments »
“Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.” –Peter T. Mcintyre
I never saw a purple cow — or a blue bear. Did you. Garden sculpture at a Chama, New Mexico, art gallery. — Photo by Pat Bean
Mixed Up Animals
There’s just something wrong about a hula-dancing ape. Sculpture at an RV park in Virginia Beach. — Photo by Pat Bean
“Whenever people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong.” – Oscar Wilde
“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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