August 2023

Bare Tree #111
Carl Washburn State Park, Oregon
2023

A well-weathered tree stump on the beach displays a nicely arranged collect of rocks. We saw a number of these firmly anchored tree stumps on beaches in this part of Oregon. It seems strange to see them out on a sandy beach with tides washing in and out. It turns out, according to what I read recently, that they are the result of a huge earthquake that happened some 1,200 years ago, causing the shoreline to drop many feet. That they are there is strange enough. That they’ve been there 1,200 years without rotting away is even stranger. I guess saltwater is a good preservative.

Little Landscape #59
Carl Washburn State Park, Oregon
2023

She Sleeps With the Fishes
Bozeman, Montana
2023

In this case, the Fashion Queen went down to the pond to feed the goldfish and I later found her like this. She said the sun felt good so she decided to lay down and catch a few winks. She wasn’t wearing a hat however, so she pulled her sweatshirt up over her head to protect her face from the sun. An odd place to take a nap perhaps but I wasn’t too surprised; one day 40 years ago when we were building our house, I found her stretched out sleeping in the bucket of a front-end loader parked on the garage pad. I’m envious of how she seems to manage to sleep just about anywhere.

(The title of this photo is a reference to but in fact, in a sense, the antithesis of the line used in the movie The Godfather: “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.”)

They’re Coming for You
Bozeman, Montana
2023

There I was last Friday morning early, innocently sitting in the cafe area of a local supermarket eating my weekly donut when I looked up and saw this in the window. Talk about something making you feel paranoid. Perhaps it was an omen suggesting that even a weekly donut isn’t particularly good for my health. Who would have thought! But I just laughed in the face of death, i.e., I keep eating the donut.

(Fully disclosure: It’s actually the rising sun shining through the top of an umbrella on an outside patio table, casting a shadow on a window screen.)

Sticks and Stones
Carl Washburn State Park, Oregon
2023

Dog Nose
Carl Washburn State Park, Oregon
2023

Once you start seeing faces in the sand, it’s hard to stop.

Sad Baboon
Carl Wasburn State Park, Oregon
2023

Was seeing a face in the sand what compelled me to photograph these rocks in the sand? I don’t recall, but I do know that the interpretation of it as a baboon shedding a tear came just now as I was working on the photo.

Baboon photo from https://true-wildlife.blogspot.com

Bare Tree #110
Carl Washburn State Park, Oregon
2023

Up Art
Helena, Montana
2023

Some crates containing art work waiting to be hung at a new exhibit at the Holter Museum of Art. Given the direction of contemporary art in the last couple of decades (at least), perhaps it’s not surprising that I see artistic compositions in things at museum that weren’t intended to be art installations.

Koala Quandary
Bozeman, Montana
2023

This broken bolt and washer had been laying on this old hunk of wood on our porch for a number of days before I realized it was a Koala bear starring at me. Or maybe it was Big Bird? I’m confused.