The hot day post

Here in Grand Island, the current temperature is 90 degrees. It feels even hotter. I am back at home from a very toasty walk to the library to pick up a book. It is about a five-mile round trip, mainly because I take the "scenic route."

It's nice to see the busy bees and the blooming flowers, despite the terrible drought that we've been experiencing here. The lawns are brown and look as if they are nearly dead. Apparently, not completely dead because people are still mowing their lawns.

Here are some pictures from my toasty walk.

Rose of Sharon blooms and buds.

This group of bees is busy with the flowering thistle. For a plant that I dislike as much as a thistle, it does produce a lovely flower. Needless to say, I dig them out of every garden that I tend to.

Bridge to Veterans Park.

One horse in a back yard. Busily grazing.

On my way home, I passed these very tall sunflowers. It was interesting to watch the busy-ness of the bees, who congregate at the center of the sunflowers. 

I love sunflowers and am excited about photographing them. I'm thinking about using one of these photographs as reference material for a painting. A sunflower and bee painting. 

I could fill up the entire page with a larger than life sunflower and pretend that I am Georgia O'Keeffe. That will be a future blog post. Stay tuned!

fun with a photo editor

Yesterday evening, I went to the river to take pictures of the moon, just one day past the full moon. The reflection of the moon in the water is beautiful. At some point,I will use this picture as a reference photograph for a painting.

Today, though, I decided to play a little with the photograph, to see how I could make the image change by using an online photo editor. By using the filter function of the photo editor, I was able to get a variety of different images of the same photograph. Here is a link to the photo editor that I used:

pixlr editor

This one is called "art poster." The colors are more dramatic and the contrast is much stronger than in the top photograph. The dock is less visible and your eye is drawn to the big, bright moon and its very bright reflection in the water.

This one is called "night vision." It is very green, but all of the elements (the moon, the reflection, the dock, and the other shore) really stand out. I get a sensation of being in an underwater universe with this one, just because of the dominance of the green.

This one is called "heat map." The moon and its reflection show the hottest colors. As you move out, the colors become cooler, until you have a very cool blue at the edges. The sky is varied shades of green, while the image above depicted a sky and water in almost a uniform shade of green.

This filter is called "hope." I really like it. It is the least realistic-looking of all of the filters that I had tried with this one photograph. The moon is very large and very dominant in this picture. The colors are vivid: two shades of blue, white, and red. The two shades of blue gives the image depth. The darker blue makes the dock and the background trees pop out from the page. The lighter blue is a relaxing color that does not compete with the strong colors on the page.

I would definitely suggest testing out the photo editor with any one of your images. It's a lot of fun and you'll enjoy the results.

The moon and the sky

Yesterday and today, I took some pictures of the sky and of the moon, which will be full today. The sky looks different every day. When I was a kid, I liked lying on my back on the ground and watching the movement of the clouds. It was very relaxing. Here are some images of the sky and the moon, with a few "tanka" poems. A tanka is basically a longer version of a haiku. Its five lines are: five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables, seven syllables, and seven syllables.

The face of the moon
glows in the darkening sky
above the tall trees
Over the entire earth
One moon, which everyone shares.

Higher and higher
moon rises like a beacon
of lovely bright light
to guide sailors and travelers
to the place where they belong

Great big puffy clouds
like whipped cream atop blue cake
served after a meal
of Seuss' green eggs and ham
Will you eat it, Sam I Am?

Blue and gray and white
So fluffy are the dark clouds
during the bright day
a promise of lovely rain
to soften the dry, cracked earth.

Meet the authors, part two: Brian Castner

Note: In May, two local writers came to speak at the Grand Island Memorial Library. Sandra Block, the author of Little Black Lies and The Girl without a Name, was the guest speaker at the annual meeting of the Friends of the Grand Island Memorial Library. Her story is here: link to yesterday's blog post
Later in May, Brian Castner, author of The Long Walk, came to speak to the Grand Island Memorial Library Book Club. Today, I'm sharing some of the things that Brian Castner said during his presentation.

This is Brian Castner. He wrote a memoir titled, The Long Walk. When I first heard the title of the book, I thought that it was about the Appalachian Trail. Well, not quite. It wasn't that sort of book. Actually, it's a war story.

Brian told us his story. He grew up in a Buffalo, New York, suburb. His dream was to become an astronaut. He said that the high school that he attended, Saint Joseph's Collegiate Institute, was very formative for him. He said that he grew up with a strong Catholic faith.  "I grew up very Catholic," he said. "My father was going to be a Jesuit." When he complained to his German Catholic grandparent about his knees hurting from kneeling too much, he was told, "When you're in purgatory and you're kneeling on nails for 1,000 years, it will feel worse."

"Social justice has always been very important to me. 'Here I am, Lord. Send me.'"

Brian said that joining the military was his choice of how he wanted to be sent and how he wanted to serve. He joined the Air Force and became an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Officer. That meant that he disarmed bombs. He served three terms in Iraq and he left the Air Force in 2007. He said that his work had meaning to him because it gave him a sense of purpose.

Brian never became an astronaut because his eyesight disqualified him.

Brian came home and he said that he was not the same person that he was before he went to war. He said that his wife did not recognize him as the man that he had been before he went to Iraq. How would he reclaim the old Brian? He said that he felt compelled to write a memoir because of the loss that he suffered, including the death of a close friend. "What is this war that killed my friend? I had to make sense of it."

 "There was a lot of survivor's guilt in the first draft," Brian said. He added that many of his friends stayed in the military and went to fight in Afghanistan, where he never served. "I chose to come home, and my buddies went back."

"I had felt a responsibility to remember" (what had happened). Writing gave me space to forget." He said that he did his best writing while running outside. He said that running was part of his writing process. He said that he runs fifteen miles a week.

"I wrote this book to make sense of the world. I get lucidity from writing."

Writing the book was "painful and cathartic," Brian said. "When I came home from the war, I thought that I was fine. I was not."

 He said that he was still struggling with the thing that he called the Crazy when he wrote the book. The Crazy was formed by the experience that he had in the ruined, desolate land and with the constant terror associated with disarming the bombs. Brian said that he was diagnosed with "anxiety disorder, not otherwise specified." He was not diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, a common diagnosis for people returning from intense war situations. He found healing in running and in yoga.

When asked, "How are you now?" he said, "The me talking to you now is not the me who wrote the book. I was afraid that I would go to a book event and I would not be Crazy enough."

Brian said that he was not angry about the horrors that he experienced in Iraq. "I'm not angry. It would come from being a victim." He said that he volunteered to serve in the Air Force. "I did this all to myself."

Still, the memories were painful. They were painful in a different way than kneeling on nails for 1,000 years in Purgatory... but, nevertheless, painful.

Since The Long Walk was published in 2012, Brian has written a second book, titled All the Ways We Kill and Die. He is working on a third book, which is not about war.

Brian is married and has four sons, ranging in age from seven to eighteen. His wife, a former emergency room nurse, now teaches nursing at a local university.

Meet the authors, part one: Sandra Block

Note: In May, two local writers came to speak at the Grand Island Memorial Library. Sandra Block, the author of Little Black Lies and The Girl without a Name, was the guest speaker at the annual meeting of the Friends of the Grand Island Memorial Library. Later in May, Brian Castner, author of The Long Walk, came to speak to the Grand Island Memorial Library Book Club. Today, I'm sharing some of the things that Sandra Block said during her presentation.

Sandra Block said that, as a girl, she dreamed of becoming a writer. She also dreamed of becoming a doctor. She couldn't decide which career she preferred. As a college student, she double majored in pre-med and English. She had an internship with The Buffalo News as part of her writer side. As part of her scientific side, she had an experience shadowing a psychiatrist. That persuaded her that psychiatry would be a great career choice for her.

She recalled a conversation between the psychiatrist and a patient:

Psychiatrist: "Do you think you might be Jesus Christ?"
Patient: "Yep, I do."

She wondered, "How did he think to ask? I was hooked on psychiatry. I went to medical school, but the writing bug was hard to kick." During her residency, she wrote a medical thriller titled Scalpel. Despite sending 101 query letters to agents, the book never sold. "My ego took a big bruising. I put it (the book) away for about fifteen years. I got married, had kids, and had a busy practice."

Sandra's busy practice is in neurology, not psychiatry. She specializes in sleep disorders. When she was in medical school, she did a psychiatric rotation at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Buffalo. "I hated it." She tried to cheer herself on but had to ask herself the question, "Do you, in 20 years, want to give yourself a pep talk every 20 minutes?" Fortunately, she discovered neurology and odd neurological conditions, such as alien hand syndrome, a rare condition. People who have alien hand syndrome report that one of their hands acts involuntarily, without the awareness of the hand's owner. People discover their own hands around their own necks and have no idea why they are attempting to strangle themselves. Some people, who have this condition, believe that their hands are possessed by devils.

Sandra decided that she could try writing again. She began writing a novel that she originally titled "Psych Ward." This time, she found an agent, who sold the book to a publisher. It was decided, however, that "Psych Ward" was too "horror-ish" a title for a book. "The Memory Thief" was a good title, but, unfortunately, it had already been taken as a book title. So the book was titled Little Black Lies.

The main character in Little Black Lies  is a psychiatric resident named Zoe Goldman. She is exceptionally tall and she has ADHD. Her random thoughts are quite hilarious, especially when she keeps herself from blurting out something especially inappropriate. Sometimes, she doesn't succeed. She has an on-again, off-again long-distance relationship. She was adopted when she was a small girl and she has always wondered what happened to her birth mother. Her adoptive mother, however, has dementia and can no longer remember the answers to Zoe's questions. Sandra said that part of her story came from her personal experiences. She based the adoptive mother on her real-life grandfather, who had dementia.

At the end of the book, it seems obvious that the adventures of Zoe Goldman will continue in future books and, in fact, they did. The second book, featuring psychiatric resident Zoe Goldman, is The Girl Without A Name.   Sandra, who has managed to become both a writer and a doctor, is working on a third book featuring Zoe Goldman.

The 366-day photography project: week 50

On Sunday, I began week 50 of my 366-day photography project. Father Earle is leading a group of youth on a pilgrimage to France. Here, Father Earle, the youth, and their two adult leaders are being commissioned for their pilgrimage. They are traveling with another church group from Western New York. I am sure that they are safe; they were nowhere near Nice and the horrors that occurred there recently. We live in a sad and sorry world, where humans harm and take the lives of other humans for reasons that are nearly impossible to understand. 

My photography project is about documenting my world. But, as a journalist, I would be remiss if I never mentioned the bigger world outside of my own personal experiences. I feel that we are all connected, that humans bear responsibility for one another, and that we can do better. 

The images of the beautiful world that I've captured this week feel more poignant than ever. The flowers keep growing. Then sun continues to shine. The birds continue to sing. We have a beautiful earth to enjoy and to share with all humans. It is our home. It is that beautiful earth home that I've been photographing for 50 weeks.

So, on Sunday afternoon, my friend Amy and I went to visit gardens in Grand Island's Garden walk. It was a warm, pleasant day for seeing people's gardens.

I saw Eloise (in the floral shirt) and her friend enjoying a garden. I have interviewed Eloise several times for the Island Dispatch. She is one of the people who works busily behind the scenes to make the community Thanksgiving dinner at Island Presbyterian Church the success that it is every year. 

Here is an old wagon that was repurposed as a planter.

Little bicycle, little planter.

Mmmmm, delicious beverage. Fruit-infused water.

There is so much creativity in these gardens. It was a delight to visit them and to see what people have been doing to bring color and delight into their world.

A shoe shaped planter is definitely an unusual object.

Daisies are cheerful looking. There's a fly sitting on one of them. Flies are seen as annoying creatures who get in the house and sit on your food when you'd rather they just went away. Flies actually have some useful purpose in the world. Their scientific class is "insecta," and their order is "diptera." They have one set of wings, unlike many other flying insects, such as butterflies and dragonflies, which have two sets of wings. In their larval state, flies are decomposers, which help to break down dead organic matter. This brings new life to soil. Some flies, in their larval state, are parasitic, and they feed on insects in the garden that are seen as pests. Adult flies that land on flowers are considered to be pollinators of flowering plants. Flies are plentiful; there are more than 110,000 species of them in the world.

Flies, however, can also be destructive. They can carry all sorts of disease, including malaria and yellow fever.  Some flies, such as the Mediterranean fruit fly, are destructive of fruit.

Here is a bumble bee. It is a gentle, easy going, and fairly large bee and is well known as a pollinator.

This looks like a nice, relaxing place to sit.

Old industrial building. Not sure if it is still in use.

View of the bridge from a garden.

Water features in a garden are usually quite pleasant and relaxing. Below are some of the other delightful sights at the various gardens that I visited on Sunday.

On Monday, I finished rehabilitating a garden that had been badly overgrown. Then I came home and made a small bouquet.

Here are some of the things that grow in my garden.

The tree is loaded with apples, which should be ripe by early September. Considering the fact that we are experiencing drought conditions, it is quite amazing that the apple tree is doing as well as it is.

On Tuesday, I was busily pruning shrubbery at a garden that faces the river. Watching the water felt peaceful and serene.

This bridge is quite lovely.

Closer view of the bridge.

Docks along the river.

Wednesday was a hot and humid day so I stayed at home and finished this painting for Amy.

Later, I went back to the river and took these pictures. In the distance, you can see Niagara Falls, Ontario.

I found this face at the straw bale house at Riverside-Salem Environmental Chapel.

Walls of the straw bale house.

Later, I spotted this rabbit in the back yard at home.

This is Zoe. She is very photogenic.

On Friday, I went to work in a different garden and found these two little squirrels snacking on the seeds that fell out of a bird feeder.

They are not afraid of humans. They allowed me to get quite close to them to take their pictures.

The world doesn't seem to frighten this snail, either, as it emerges from its shell.

On its way.

On Saturday, I took this picture of a honeybee in a daisy.

Next week: More adventures and more stories.

Note: This blog post was hard to write. I write it in the memory of all those who were lost in Nice, France, and the men who died well before their time here in the United States. Philandro Castile and Alton Sterling, whose deaths at the hands of police is a reminder that racism is far from dead. The deaths of the five police officers in Dallas is a reminder that no problem will be solved with more violence. Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Krol, Lorne Ahrens, and Michael Smith.