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.

Bittersweet day

Today was a bittersweet day for me.   I went to pick up a few remaining things in my old car and get the license plate.   I really felt like I was saying goodbye to a great friend, Tina says that I'm just a sappy old lady and too sentimental.

About 2 weeks ago the insurance company totaled out my Jetta L   A little over a month ago while driving home from work in Baltimore I hit a deer about 125 miles from home at 2am.   This deer was pretty big (10 point) and it hit so hard that the airbag went off.  The car did all the safety things that Volkswagen say it will do.   It shut off the engine, unlocked the doors, turned on the 4 way flashers, turned on the dome lights and cracked open the windows.   It is one of those things you really don’t think about all the safety features until you need them.   I was lucky and didn’t get injured in the accident, the deer wasn’t so lucky though.  

I normally don’t get to attached to things but I had really grown fond of my Jetta,  it got great fuel economy and in the 107,000 miles I put on it in 3 years I only had to replace 2 tires and a battery.   The reliability has just been great!  It is funny too when I first got it I really didn’t care for the color, and solely got it for the fuel economy.  The sales person said that after driving it a while you will really come to love it and in the end I did.

I was talking with my youngest today and we were talking about some of the interesting things that the car has seen and done.    One of her cool memories was last year for the last day of school I picked her up from school and I had brought Pat (my chicken) for meet her.   Pat road to and from that day on the emergency brake handle happy as could be.  Christa thought that it was the coolest thing too.

In my former job my Jetta was a working office.   I had a inverter wired up on the back trunk and had a laser printer in the trunk where I would print up paperwork for the aircraft that I would be handling that day.   I used to drive her out on the ramp next to the airplane on many different air force bases.   With the big trunk I carried everything I needed to be able to do my job and still have room.   I can't count how many hours I sat in it awaiting the plane to depart.  She transported many crew as well to and from the aircraft.

She was there through 2 major surgeries that I had; I still to this day remember each trip back from the hospital and home.   At that time we were living in Summerville and both trips were 12 hour rides and they were the 2 most painful drives home I have done. 

Over the last 5 months I have been traveling back and forth between Rock Hill and Baltimore and she has kept me safe when I have taken naps in rest areas in my travels as well.

So today I said goodbye to my old Jetta as the tears of sadness came out.   I wanted s something to remember her by and all the good time I had with her.   As I was leaving the wrecking yard I pried off the VW emblem off the trunk.  I hung it from the rear view mirror today of  her replacement.  I got a 2011 red Jetta with the exact same package as the last one and it too has the same diesel engine.   I am looking forward to all the new memories that this car and I will get to share.   If she is anything like the last one I am not going to be disappointed at all!

   

The passing of Henrietta

We had a sad day yesterday.   Tina got off work and came home and was tending to the babies, feeding and watering them.   They do the usual when she opens the door the all jump out and graze in the yard.   They just love it and the dogs love to play with them too.   When Tina went to put the back in their pen she noticed that she didn't see one of hers Henrietta.   The searched all over and didn’t find her, she finally looked in their roost and found her in the corner dead.  It just broke Tina's heart!   She was such a nice chicken and very affectionate.   She will be missed!   Here is a few photos of her over her fairly short life.