Gorgeous the piglet & photographers trunks

Living around photographers

Gorgeous the Pot belly piglet

According to Nancy shepherd owner of "Pig O my Heart" a farm in central Missouri, This wonderful little piglet is named Gorgeous and she is is a Potbelly. (Link to Pig o my Heart) Nancy wrote to say "I remember so well Gay coming  here to photograph a complete litter.  It was so much fun watching her work.  As I recall for this one she brought a piece of sod and we placed in on top of the picnic table so that we could get the beautiful background of sky and pasture"

Note to reader-- it is well worth a careful look in the trunk of a photographers car.  One can find bits of sod, dead possums (more on that later), food for low blood sugar or to appease animals for photos, model and property releases, cloth for backdrops, a towel, odd bits of equipment, a box to hold special found things, etc etc. In fact I am sure it would be interesting to see what photographers consider absolutely necessary equipment to do what they do.

Pigs make wonderful subjects for photos. They are game, willing, expressive, and cute.  They can even pose for photos and if you don't believe me see Jezebel posing for show.  She is just one of the amazing Showpig photos from Nancy's ranch.

Let us know if you have a caption for Gorgeous or any questions.

Sharon

Valentines Day: Science and Flowers

"Solitude" winner of 1993 Americana rose competition

Scientists report that women and men who receive flowers smile more, talk more and stand closer together than when given a gift of fruit, pens, or candles. And, the more flowers they get, the more smiles. “Our hypothesis,” said a Rutgers researcher, “is that flowers are exploiting an emotional niche "they induce positive emotions so we take care of them. In that sense they're like dogs. They are the pets of the plant world.” 

Here is a flower for you that won’t wilt or fade.

Happy Valentines Day!

Wild roses

Raccoon Nation -- Our mischievious friends

Woodland Animals -Raccoons

Tonight the PBS shows "Raccoon Nation" a story of the evolution of raccoons. The idea is that they are getting smarter and adapting to the environment-- Thanks to us.
We see them every day and yet know little about them.

Meanwhile see our gallery of the raccons

Animals - Raccoons: wits and perserverence 

Watch the slide show for some interesting raccoon photos or click on them and go to the gallery. Then see the summary article in NYT or Canadian broadcasting.

Canadian documentary on raccoons

In praise of barnswallows- a view of parenting

Its March 1983 outside Columbia Missouri on north Highway 63

Barn swallow mother perches on rim of nest

In a cold barn the photographer sits in the dark

practicing quiet trying to stay warm and explore good ways to unobtrusively light the spidery scratchy place so that she can see something... anything ...

some action besides the top of a black head high up in a nest on the barn rafter.

This action or change occurs in brief surprises in-between very long periods of no action For some days she has watched from a loft across and above her head as the nest was recycled Cleaned and lined with new mud and some of mother birds own indigo feathers. Then eggs were laid, one each day and, glory be! None of the awful predators came.

Each day the watcher/waiter/photographer climbs into her place and two females sit in a cold barn

one on eggs and the other in hay with a camera

Again and again-- like a fighter jet she swoops in carrying food

watching, dreaming, and incubating the one on the nest has come to accept / tolerate the the other

Barn swallows, Hirundo rustica, have thrived with the human race.  They once lived in caves but now there are barns and porches all increasing in number

Mother carries food to the noisy nestlings

One morning there is shell on the barn floor and weak squeaking above she climbs and watches breathless from her loft the nestlings grow in their demands, exponentially

The mother becomes a flying carrier service

catering to growing mouths.

They are a chorus, parsons or judges, always above her, looking down, looking demonic and ridiculous

Soon they are nearly her size and their wide open mouths are endless.  The photographer is reminded of parenting. Her own children wouldn't like the affinity she feels with this tiny  straining bird.

Barn swallows wait on a barbed wire fence for the evening bugs

The birdlings grow beyond the nest, bursting its limits.  Always one will take off first.  Maybe it hates crowds, maybe it is not quite "right" and has fallen or been pushed,  maybe it is restless or impatient, or simply believes flying can't be that hard.  One will always fledge, 'trying his wings' on the long drop, but may not be ready to fly.

Those around barn swallows have come to expect at least one babe will fall or fail flying each year and not just once.  With luck these people have learned and have and the means to re-place them in the nest or protect them from the cats (check out Baby barn swallow stories)

Barnswallow feeds fledge

Soon they all fledge and for the next two weeks parenting is on the wing.

Later, it is one of those summer evenings when the tree frogs are a choir, the air is a bit cooler, the grass is up, and after dinner we wait for the lightening bugs. The barn swallows and bats wait for the mosquitoes to lift off the fields.

I am reminded of a comment my aunt Mary Bumgarner made when my son was new born. In an amused but knowing voice she said, "The thing about parenting is that it is so daily."

For a lovely set of references about the barn swallow including short essays by people that have lived around them I highly recommend this site: excellent summary facts about barnswallows

Stay tuned we will create a gallery of Barn swallows.

Sharon

Love the faces: more barnswallows

            Moments--in Between the  eating --               

They seem sated and look both earnest and ridiculous

Barn swallows -- Notes from the Photographer

Wednesday June 20, 1984 (Blue book page 102)

I put the blind in the barn loft about 10 am & the birds started coming in right away.

What a good idea! There are at least 3 nests. The nest I watched had 5 babes and they were huge. I had more fun watching them than any birds yet. They followed bugs and wasps and flies with their eyes – watched the horses – called their parents – stood on nest edge and whirred their wings.

Two babes fledged – flew to a beam, sat awhile, and then back to the nest.  The parents usually feed fast, on the wing.

The parents occasionally give a special chirp and all babes become statues in whatever position they are in – like the game “statues” except they usually shrink down in size. A fun experience. I was 6 feet 8 inches in the hay loft and used 60 power zoom.

Note from the editor: Barn swallows are beloved by many in blogland. If you want to read more or see more of the pictures see the previous stories -- More barn swallows.

Sharon

What are these called?

There is a group of animals that I do not know how to categorize.  For example, When you search for a picture of a wild animal you expect to see this

or maybe this

But you do not expect to see this

or this

Ok, so the latter group is a problem. We love these guys. They are not pets, they are not domesticated, they are wild but....??  It may seem like a trivial problem really, something that a good librarian, or veterinarian could tidy up and at the very least apply some good nouns and viola' --all is well.  But, alas, google and its friends are photo-blind, seeing only a box, an empty box, or an "object" where there is a picture.   So, to create eyes and windows we use Categories & keywords -- wrapping these gorgeous, silly, educational, friendly and familiar creatures in pictures with words.

Most stock photo agencies, professional photo buyers, and even regular folk agree about how they would categorize most animals.  Right or wrong image websites offer pets, wild animals, and farm (or agriculture) animals. As one creative director said -- there are the ones you shoot, the ones we eat, and the ones we adopt and treat like children." Granted there is a bit of slippage across cultures but by and large given a photo of a cow or an elephant we know how to categorize them.

But then one is left with the opossum, raccoons, the "garden deer", foxes, turtles, squirrels, etc..... We have an extraordinary collection of images showing baby and adult animals that I cannot seem to categorize.  They are "wild" but when placed in that category it is clear that the person searching for wild animals isn't looking for a smiling possum.
If keywords are the way people find pictures and search engines make them available it is important to word-ify these creatures to help them and us.

To solve this problem I started asking people --- image buyers, photographers children, biologists, marketers, and frankly anyone that would bear up to it three different questions.
1. Do you think possums, hedgehogs, squirrels, groundhogs, turkeys, and raccoons are "wild" animals?
2. If you were searching for pictures of "wild animals" and  images of a raccoon came up would you disagree.
2. What would you call this group of animals to differentiate them from cattle, pigs, dogs, elephants, and kittens-- the farm animals, wild animals, and pets or just cute?

Here are the suggestions so far....Yard animals,
.....garden animals.... pests......mid-size animals, wild animals, short-range animals, familiar animals, animals of fields and meadows, storybook animals (?), Wind in the Willows animals, animals that hang around bird feeders,animals that eat from my garden, animals that seem to thrive despite or because of people.  More suggestions, please.

Thanks
Sharon and all from Mother-Daughter Press

Click here to see more "Yard animals"

OW! Kidney stones

 

OUCH!!

Surgery today.   Stone free, now.
Ok...enough already.
It would be better if the stones were diamonds or pearls.
Ordered not to lift more than 10 pounds for at least a week. ...Yippee. Let those boxes alone!  Bring on the bon-bons and People magazine.
Thanks for the well-wishes.