Stink Horns are back

Well, what with this abnormally warm winter we are having here in Athens, GA, I have had quite a few Stink Horns pop up in our herb garden.

I don't know the specific type or varietal of this Stink Horn, but, from my observations, this stink horn starts off looking like a small white puff ball. After a few days go by they split open, like an egg cracking open, and then start to sprout some orange fleshy bits, usually in three or four prongs, sometimes knitted together at the top and sometimes separate. The closes way for me to describe the stink horn once it has fully grown is the inside of a red bell pepper with the sides cut away and only the rib of the bell pepper left over. The spores accumulate on the interior of the fungus, looking like a brown slimy substance, or a better description might be liquid feces.

If there were more bugs out and about, they would be covering these stink horns. I have seen flies, fruit flies, beetles, and slugs in the summer months swarming over and eating the Stink Horn. But, the winter has had a couple of cold days so the insects are just not around.

Here are a few photographs of the stink horns, called that because of the pungent smell they put off once fully grown.

Men's Fishing Trip Part 5

As I have mentioned in some of the previous posts, at the beginning of the Men's Fishing Trip, forest fires more up north were deposting a lot of smoke in the area. This made for some interesting light at the time. Here are a few photographs showing how the smoke limited how far you could see.

Men's Fishing Trip Part 4

A fixture that has always been up here in Idaho near our cabins are the sheep herders. My dad has a much larger collection of photographs he has taken through the years of the various sheep, sheep dogs, and sheep herders in this area of the Sawtooth National forest.

Here are a few photos from this years sheep, sheep dogs and sheep herders. The mountains, if any in the background, are the Boulder Moutains. At this time the forest fires added a lot of haze to the photographs, but this made for some interesting effects for the background and sky.

Men's Fishing Trip Part 3

On the last couple of days I was there, we got some snow. Which helped in putting out some forest fires which led to very nice blue and clear skies. This made for some good weather to go out and photograph in the morning. Here are a couple of the photos I got during those days.

Men's Fishing Trip Part 2

One of the days a group of us hiked up to the Baker Lakes to go fishing. I brought along my camera equipment and fly fishing equipment. But as we started hiking the temperature dropped and I started to just take photographs. Once we had hiked up to the lake, I just kept photographing, because the fish were not feeding at all. I am glad I did this because I captured a few nice photos.

That is one thing that is troubling. You almost need to decide if you want to fish or if you want to photograph. Because to produce the best results you have to focus all of your energy into one not both fly fishing and photographing.

Men's Fishing Trip

Every year, the week after memorial day, the males of my extended family get together for a “Men’s Fishing Trip” in the Sawtooth National Forest of Idaho. It will last a week, consisting of eating, fishing, eating, fishing then drinking, eating and drinking with some smoking. Additionally, some of us did some hiking and for me and my dad, photographing too.

This last year, 2006, I finally had time to go again. The last time I had gone to the fishing trip was in 1994, I believe. I was finally able to visit with a lot of extended family I have not seen since then, if not longer.

As usual the main hang out is the Easley Gulch cabin given the names: Britton's Inn, Doug's Condo, and Uncle Tom's Cabin, depending on who is staying there at the moment. Just above this cabin is the Proctor's Palace, A.K.A. At-Las_Ta cabin. Then over on Newman Creek Road is the last cabin, the Kaiser cabin.

Seattle WA

In my last post I talked about Portland’s Japanese garden, well this post is going to be about Seattle, WA. But the funny thing is that I took an exponentially more amount of photos in Portland, OR then in Seattle, WA. I believe this is because I was trying to observe Seattle with everything I had, because of our decision to move there. Instead of taking photographs where ever and when ever and was looking, feeling, observing, figuring the city out and imagining living there. Because of this I only took a few photos, and all of them in Volunteer Park.

I got a few pictures of a blue heron in the fountain, which at first looked like a statue, but then as you got closer you could see that it was in fact a live blue heron. After this photo we walked around the park and ended up at the green house in Volunteer park. Which is a very nice green house, and interesting to compare to the old green house on Sapelo Island. The structures where basically the same, with the exception of the new addtion have vinyl instead of wood for most of the mullions. Otherwise, the architecture/use has not changed .

First blog of the New Year

It has been a while since my last blog. Life just seems to speed up and leave the blog behind. Well, I am going to try and keep it updated more frequently this year. And to start the year off I will be writing about all of the events I wanted to post last year.

Last December I and my wife went out to Seattle, WA and then Portland, OR. My wife, Jennifer, had interviews for a new job while I went along to give input and what area I would like to live in. Well, we decided on Seattle, WA where my wife got a great job and we both liked the feel of the city.

Well enough of the life story, now it is time to move onto the photos. One stop that everyone needs to make when visiting Portland, OR is the Japanese garden. It is the best Japanese garden I and my wife have been too. It is well maintained, meditative, tranquil, beautiful, very detailed and planned out, and well worth the price of admission. What I have here are some photos of the garden, mostly looking at the details, which are unreal and well thought out. I have now visited the garden in the winter and summer, and once I move out to Seattle, WA I will have to go in the fall and spring too. Then I will be able to feel a completion for seeing all of the seasons at this garden.