Empty Nest #6
Bozeman, Montana
2016

I thought I’d try one in this series in monochrome. I believe I like the subtle color images better. This is actually two old robins nests.

Empty Nest #5
Bozeman, Montana
2016

House wrens build interesting nests. They pile up these big piles of rough twigs and then line a small depression in the very top with nice soft material. This one only started to get past the rough twig phase when the builders for some reason abandoned it.

Empty Nest #4
Bozeman, Montana
2016

Empty Nest #3
Bozeman, Montana
2016

More fake eggs–too big for this nest! I’ve noticed that the robin nests around our house always contain a number of strands of sagebrush. I wonder if that is just because it is a convenient source of nest material or if there is an additional advantage, say for parasite control. (I read that sage does help with such things, when taken internally anyway.) Or maybe they just like the smell.

Cowboy Moon
Bozeman, Montana
2016

So this misquoted line came to my head on a walk the other day: “….and the cowboy jumped over the moon.” What made me think in terms of fractured fairy tales I don’t know; perhaps a residual of watching too many episodes of Rocky and Bullwinkle back in the formative years of my youth.

Apparently to this day there still exists a genre of literature (illustrated or otherwise) devoted to fractured fairy tales. Perhaps the most controversial and disgusting of these come from the NRA who armed characters such as Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel in rewrites of their misadventures.

Empty Nest #2
Bozeman, Montana
2016

The egg is plastic; the robin’s nest and other items are all real.

Lives Real and Imagined #43
Bozeman, Montana
2016

Lives Real and Imagined #42
Bozeman, Montana
2016

Lives Real and Imagined #41
Bozeman, Montana
2016

Just Walking
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
2016

I’ve been cleaning out some random photos that have been in my POTD file for a while now. This shot was from last spring, before the roads were open to vehicular traffic in Yellowstone. The solitude of the surroundings then was quite a contrast to the busy summer months when park visitation is at it’s peak–topping over 3/4 million in July.