New Life Spring Time in North Dakota

Spring is in full bloom here in ND.   I have talked a lot in the past blogs about how I really love the newness of spring.   It really is my favorite part the year.   This year here in ND has been a really nice experience even though it is so far behind SC and the east coast I’m used too.   

This spring what has made a big impact was seeing process of baby geese being brought into the world.   It was so fun to watch the geese making their nests and then seeing that they laid eggs in them.   How the spouses were so protective on the mother goose and nest.   I was able to interact with this pair in a really unexpected way.   The pair were friendly enough that I was able to sit right next to the nest.  Up until her babies hatched I visited her often.   She would show off her eggs like a proud mother. 

When the babies hatched they were so adorable.  I had a great time taking photos of them.   It is just cool seeing new life making its way in the world!

One of the other things I really enjoy is the tree in bloom.   The pink colors are just so wonderful.  It just makes me smile.   One of the thing I miss from my old job was the traveling up and down the east coast.   It always seemed to give a extended spring time.   So this year I tried to take full advantage of spring, well and after the winter I was ready to see some green too.

Here is a few photos that I have captured over the last weeks.

Can we afford to be judgmental?

It seems in today’s times it’s fashionable to be so judgmental and to pick a radical political side.   Not too long ago in the past that we as people could come to a common agreements and meet in the middle on subjects.    We really see this in politics and religion today and it makes me sad.   

As one of the great countries we still are knowingly discriminating on all kinds of citizen’s.    If you’re gay people are not serving them food all in the name of religious freedom.   The homeless in your community that you walk by and look down on in disgust and think horrible things about because they don’t have a place to call home..    What about the immigrant worker just trying to make a new life for their family living in fear of being deported.    

I is heartbreaking that North Dakota were I am currently living just voted down the bill SB2279 which would have amended the law to add sexual orientation to the law of things to you can’t discriminate against   North Dakota is one of the states that is growing the fastest and yet they choose to stay in the dark ages.  .  It is sad in today’s age I can be terminated from my job or not rented a house because of who my life partner is here in North Dakota and the legislators are okay with that.  How is that serving all the people in the community?

That brings me back to the just treating people in a kind and respectful way because it’s just the right thing to do.

Spurred Butterfly Pea

Wednesday I was driving up our long driveway and I saw this cool flower out of my corner on my eye.   Christa and I got out of the car and went to take a look and see.   Not being a South Carolina native I had to take a stroll through the internet to find what it was.  Centrosema Virginianum or Spurred Butterfly Pea the common name it goes by.Not being a flower expert by any means it was fun to read about it.   This particular flower interesting because it  is a hermaphrodite.  It is also a perennial so we will get to enjoy it next year as well!

Connections

I have been trying to gain control of my photographs that I have been taking and saving on the computer.   I have been saving them but not going through them and putting some sort of order, so the last few days I have been going through all of them.   I came across this photo yesterday, I think it is a  Northern Mockingbird that I had the pleasure of coming across in late spring.  

It was one of those stressful days and I thought a walk with the camera would do me some good.   It was about a mile into the walk and I heard this bird singing.   As I walk closer I thought I would snap a few shots of it.   It took notice of me and seemed like it was posing for me.   We eyed each other up for a bit as I caught a few more shots.    As I started to move on down the road to continue the walk it flew in front of me and landed on a phone line and waited for me to catch up.   It looked down and me and just started to chatter at me like I was its new best friend.   I looked up and our eyes connected and it was like we had this instant connection even though we couldn't understand each other’s language.    We enjoyed each other’s company for about 5 minutes before parting ways.

Re Birthday

 My favorite day is here again, Yay!   Rebirth day as I call it, really is just a marker of a point in my life.   It is point in life to mark the growth that has come over the years.   Yet a few years back it was a goal that seemed so out of reach and unobtainable and now it is reality.  

I don’t always talk about this part of my life much because it really personal and close to my heart.   For the non transgender people though they seem to like to focus on this part of life and really ask the most pressing and personal questions they can think of.   Many articles as of late have been written about what NOT to as a transgender person.    

Yesterday a good friend of mine posted on Facebook  OK - for those who are Trans*, it's Write 1 Line of your Story Today. If you had to sum up in one line something you would want to say to the entire world - what would it be.

So today in my reflection of over the last few years I was trying to think of what my one line is to sum up my experience.   Being a person of not many word I thought this should be easy to do.   It is 10pm now and I just couldn't get it down to one line,   here is a few words that come to mind though.

Inter peace ,  Freedom,  overwhelming happiness,  Joy  calmness, gratitude,  quietness of the heart,  genuine , normal,   set fee,   Serenity, blessed   authentic.

I really have a hard time summing up how I feel in words but I can always do that in my photography.   This photo I took the other day says it all for me.

     

Missing Dog

Happy 4^th !

I had a interesting thing happen today, I was gardening and a gentlemen pulled up our long driveway.   He was looking for his dog Scooter.   The dog had jumped out of his car when he was buying some produce at a stand up the road.  Some people had seen the dog running in the woods behind our house. 

The name reminded me of our dog that we had growing up.  Kind of a funny thing was my brother and I named our dog before knowing the gender.   We thought Scooter was a cool name for a dog and later found out that she was a girl.  But Scooter stuck with her though.  

I really have fond memories of her though; she was a constant through my childhood that was such a great thing as I think back on it.   We moved several times growing up and she would always be there wagging her tail to give some love!   She was always there to be my friend to play with until I made some new friends in the neighborhoods we would move to.

We would go to trips to the Oregon coast and she would just love the coast.   When we would get 20 miles or so to the coast she would always perk up and get all excited.  Somehow she could smell the ocean, we would crack the window a bit and she would stick her nose out and just love the smell.    When we would take walk on the beach she would just run and run and run.   She love running in the water and chasing the birds.   She would be so wore out from the walks on the beach for sure.

I normally don’t think about my childhood and hardly ever talk about it either.

It is interesting how things can trigger happy memories from childhood.   It did make me smile as I finish working in my garden.  

Scooter at the beach 

Scooter in her older years

Relentless Reality of the past year

  

It is interesting how reality of life can be relentless it seems at times.   Over the last few months for me it seems like life has just been piling on problem after problem.   I find that a good way for me to sometimes unwind and get out of myself and reflect on life is to take a trip to New Hope Pa.   It is a special place for me and represents many beginning and ending parts of my life over the last few years. 

 

I got to into New Hope and had a late breakfast.   I’m not really a breakfast person but it really hit the spot.   I continued the day by talking a walk on the tow paths there in town.   I like to walk over on the NJ side of the river because there is this abandon old train car that I love to read the graffiti on.   I have written about this train car in the past in August 2012.   I find it so interesting to see the new things that people have written.    I also looked at the phrase that someone had written a while back that I found so meaningful to my life, it is fading pretty bad.  I suspect that it may not be there the next time that I get back to see it.    It is kind of how life is for me though, something that is meaningful and good seem to fade out as new things if life come in.   Just how this train car is people are always putting on new graffiti covering the old or filling in were things are fading out. 

After looking at the train car I continued on my walk pondering life and taking photos of the world.   I really find that I can just lose myself of all my problems when I’m out taking photos.   I don’t get to do this as much as I would like to, funny how work gets in the way of things.

I got to spend the last part of the day meeting up with Sara at my 2nd Home..   As usual we had a great time and great conversation.    It was a great way to end the day and a great way to start the new year out as well.