I took a walk this morning sans dogs. I just wanted to be alone, to think, to contemplate, and to take some photos while our last snow was still with us. My mood this past week has been all over the place; happy one minute, kind of depressed the next. I’m certain it’s partly hormones, partly the fact that our house is still not sold back in Colorado, and partly late-winter-nearly-spring-blues. I don’t know exactly, but whatever it is I’ve been in kind of a funk.

My walk took me through the now familiar path in the woods down to the pond. As I walked along on top of the crusted snow, I couldn’t help but notice that something had been walking here besides me. They looked like duck prints. That’s odd. What would they be doing walking down the forest path? I was a little mystified.

I also couldn’t help noticing the shadows that the morning’s strong sun was casting. The trees and shrubs were using the snow as their mirror. Traceries of stems and tiny branches looked like veins and arteries under a “skin” of snow.

Some of them looked exactly like mirror images [or in this case shadow images] of themselves. Others looked a little warped, slightly skewed, or just plain refracted.

It started me thinking about how people were much like the trees and their shadows. That other people might see only the reflection [or shadow] that we each cast, and it might not be the true or whole person at all. Who we think we are is not necessarily what other people see; a slightly skewed image of our true self. Only part of the whole.

Do other people see me as I see myself? Not likely. Perhaps we all reflect—or cast—an image of ourselves as we think people should perceive us. Food for thought anyway as I trudged along with my odd mood.

We all have warts and imperfections, but we rarely allow other people to see them. Keeping them hidden rather than wearing them for all the world to see.

Finally at the pond, I was rewarded for my efforts by a beautiful pair of swans. I’ve not seen swans here before. They graciously allowed me to take a few photos of them. Like the trees, they too were using one of winter’s foils for showing off their reflections; the icy mirror of the pond.

But try as I might to ignore it, they also seemed to be trying to say something. Do we sometimes give out the wrong signals along with our perceived self-reflection? Seemingly aloof and detached when we really aren’t?

Now the prints in the snow that I had seen earlier made sense.

The seasons seem all mixed up. It’s almost like autumn did not want to give way and held on throughout the winter.

I enjoyed my walk and am very glad I went when I did. On the way back the snow had softened just enough that with every other step I took, my foot plunged through the three or four inch top crust. It was like being on a StairMaster that I couldn’t get off of. At least I got a workout.

Just after I got home the wind picked up and brought sulky, brooding, grey clouds along in its wake. Rain, or perhaps more snow on the way for tonight, washing the slate clean for tomorrow.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel more in focus.

Just when we were getting in the mood to BBQ, Mother Nature played a cruel joke on us Friday night. We shoveled it out today and tonight we’re grilling steaks and lobster tails! Want to join us? Sorry, we can’t eat outside on the deck just yet.

I hope I don’t offend anyone with this photo, but nature is just amazing to me; albeit seemingly cruel at times. This broad-winged hawk that lives in our woods and cruises my neighbor’s chicken yard, happened on the poor, wet, cold birds at my feeding station yesterday. One did not make it. I don’t what kind of bird it was, except that my best guess is a dove. It was quite large and the feathers fit.

I had glanced out at the bird station to see what was out there [because it could be the bears, deer, you name it] and saw something large on the ground fairly close out of the corner of my eye. When I saw him ripping the flesh of one of “my” birds of course I was upset. But on this snowy, sleety day it was also like watching a segment from Animal Kingdom. It’s what hawks do. There is a reason they are classified as raptors in the bird world. No wonder there weren’t any birds just then! But, pretty soon the other birds decided that the hawk was not a threat anymore [after all his appetite was being sated] and returned to the ground to feed.

Nature—truly amazing.

Hey Mom, can you teach me to knit with my paws?
Sam, our Maine Coon helps me with knitting today.

EGADS. It can’t be ... no, no. Please calm down. NO. After 25 years of marriage Rick and I did not finally decide to have a baby.

Actually, I blame it all on Susan in WA. If not for her I wouldn’t have had “baby envy” and had to go out and get one of my very own. Well ... not completely true, but she did push me over the edge of the cliff I’ve been hanging on for awhile now.  I’ve been thinking for quite some time that I really needed a small tote-along camera rather than lugging the Rebel along with its huge telephoto lens everywhere I go, plus I wanted the capability to take movie clips. Don’t get me wrong, I’m quite pleased with my Rebel and its performance, but it’s not the easiest thing to take on a trip. It literally weighs me down. So, I hereby proudly introduce my new baby—my Canon PowerShot SD800 IS:

I like the way the camera can be stood on end. Pretty, isn’t she? When I uncovered her from all her wrappings it was love at first sight. Lucky, that, since I never did see the camera in person before I ordered one. Slim and light, she fits in the palm of my hand. I like touching her body and it has a nice heft to it. Just right. Her bright LCD screen takes up most of her backside and the controls are readable without having to put on my reading glasses, a real plus. The difficult thing was to wait until the battery had charged before I could start to play. Patience, girl.

Not only did she look good, but within a short amount of time I was flipping through the different modes with no problem at all. Very user friendly. I am not one to be immediately at home with a new techie toy. Without really trying, the images were good. Here are a few

Rick’s cheeses ageing in the basement.

Our dinner last night: (my own creation of pistachio-crusted Turkey Parmigiana; recipe here) Trust me—it’s delish!

I took a short walk and tried different settings in different kinds of light. This next image was taken with the macro lens. The feather is teeny-tiny, no bigger than about an inch long.

It did a good job showing up the color and texture in the bark of this tree in my front yard.

Can you guess what this is? It’s a water-filled, muddy print of a bear’s hind foot. Again, it captured it nicely.

In this image I think it did a good job with color and contrast with difficult subject matter. I even caught some kind of duck in flight.

And last, cute white-tailed deer in my foggy front yard yesterday morning.

I’m still struggling a bit with the macro and I need to figure out what I’m doing wrong. But other than that, so far I am pleased. This camera was the best fit for me after doing lots of research online by reading and comparing reviews. I wanted it to be small enough and light enough to carry in my purse. While others looked great, they were just a bit too big. The SD800 had some features that I thought were important (at least to me they were), such as: an optical viewfinder. Even though all the reviews complain about how the ones on the smaller cameras aren’t accurate, I know from experience that in bright sunlight LCD screens can be next to impossible to see. Another feature was image stabilization to eliminate camera shake and allow you to take photos without flash in lower light situations. I didn’t want to be able to choose my own manual settings, I really wanted this to be a point-and-shoot, but creatively, travel camera. If you’re interested, the review is here. It could use a longer zoom lens, but that was one of the trade-offs I made.

For now the baby is behaving nicely. No tantrums, and no one is whining. Now I can’t wait for the Las Vegas trip!