Thursday, August 03, 2006
Still alive and kicking!
Well, I have been using up some of my time playing with Mr G, the bull-mastiff. I took him down to the river park a few blocks from the house to try and introduce him gradually to the water. The mountain river we were in before was maybe a bit much for his first time. Here he could hardly find anyplace that was over his head.
G was much happier with this experience, splashing through the shallows to the other bank and up and down the length of the stream. It's called a river, but I'm not sure what the criterion is. So maybe there is hope of turning him into a bit of a water dog after all.
Yesterday I went alone to the riverside to meditate. I found a little gravel island where I could sit still and just be for a while. Right downdown, it's practically under a highway interchange, but it was the wildest place accessible right then.
And therer was a green heron (I think) hunting on the bank. Maybe the size of a jay, with a short tail, orange beak and yellow legs. The neck was as long as the body when extended, with some white on it and a crest. Whether she didn't see me or saw I wasn't a threat I don't know, but she just kept on doing what she does: hunt.
At first she was prowling around a small puddle on the island, apparently hunting for insects that kept flying away from her. Then she went to the shore of the river and had more success. I wasn't sure if she was hunting for the tiny fish that swarm in the warm shallows or the little bugs that skate on the suface, crawl through the water, or hover over the water. But she did seem to have some success and I imagined she was getting the hatchling fish the way she put her head back to let the food slide down her gullet.
I wished I had my new camera. He'd read my griping about my lack of equipoment for bringing my own pictures to this blog, and very kindly offered to send me a camera that he had replaced and was no longer using. Though it didn't quite fulfill his needs, it's quite fancy to me: it can take snaps, zoom, panoramas, audios and even videos! Quite a step up from the disposable cardboard camers I had been playing with.
Of course it has taken some of my computer time to figure the camera out, how to download the pictures to the computer, and how to make the picture files small enopugh to post here. You can see a sample of the camera's work under 'busy busy busy' where I posted a picture of Mr G that I took with the new camera.
Once I've digested this new info, and gotten into a routine with the dog, I'll be able to blog more regularly again.
G was much happier with this experience, splashing through the shallows to the other bank and up and down the length of the stream. It's called a river, but I'm not sure what the criterion is. So maybe there is hope of turning him into a bit of a water dog after all.
Yesterday I went alone to the riverside to meditate. I found a little gravel island where I could sit still and just be for a while. Right downdown, it's practically under a highway interchange, but it was the wildest place accessible right then.
And therer was a green heron (I think) hunting on the bank. Maybe the size of a jay, with a short tail, orange beak and yellow legs. The neck was as long as the body when extended, with some white on it and a crest. Whether she didn't see me or saw I wasn't a threat I don't know, but she just kept on doing what she does: hunt.
At first she was prowling around a small puddle on the island, apparently hunting for insects that kept flying away from her. Then she went to the shore of the river and had more success. I wasn't sure if she was hunting for the tiny fish that swarm in the warm shallows or the little bugs that skate on the suface, crawl through the water, or hover over the water. But she did seem to have some success and I imagined she was getting the hatchling fish the way she put her head back to let the food slide down her gullet.
I wished I had my new camera. He'd read my griping about my lack of equipoment for bringing my own pictures to this blog, and very kindly offered to send me a camera that he had replaced and was no longer using. Though it didn't quite fulfill his needs, it's quite fancy to me: it can take snaps, zoom, panoramas, audios and even videos! Quite a step up from the disposable cardboard camers I had been playing with.
Of course it has taken some of my computer time to figure the camera out, how to download the pictures to the computer, and how to make the picture files small enopugh to post here. You can see a sample of the camera's work under 'busy busy busy' where I posted a picture of Mr G that I took with the new camera.
Once I've digested this new info, and gotten into a routine with the dog, I'll be able to blog more regularly again.
# posted by newbie @ 7:21 AM 
