Huddling

We are going on a couple more photo shoots during May and early June.  I haven't finished all the India posts yet, so it will be a couple of months until I get back to them.  In the meantime, I'm going to post some piece from earlier trips.  This is the first:

 

 Huddling

Mousy mousebirds

with long feathered tails

cling to woody twigs,

huddled like football players

learning the next play

for blocking the evening chill.

Mousebirds
by Jan Haffley

White Ghosts

These ghostly trees may wear
cloaks of different hues—
a mossy green when rains
ride on monsoon winds
a blondish tan when dust
drifts high from dirty thongs
a hint of pink at dawn
azure blue at noon
vermilion at sunset
ashen at midnight
and white when all is well—
when Flames of the Forest burn
at their branches’ ends
and other species drop
their leaves to the forest floor
revealing ficus vines
arching from tree to tree
and clusters of bamboo
hiding jungle fowl.

These White Ghosts now stand
guard with regal air
calling for all who hear:
this forest is fit for life—
for the Bengal Tigers
and Sambar deer, their prey,
Asia’s Lion prides,
Leopards and Panthers Black,
pouncing Jungle Cats,
termite-eating bears,
Blackbuck stags, and more
who may not become
ghosts by extinction’s fate
as long as forests thrive.

                                  by Jan Haffley

Stones and Pebbles

Being a former chemistry teacher, I used demonstrations to teach and inspire imaginations.  During one of four regional flights in India, I read a description of one such demo I found in a magazine.  The problem is that—unlike a real professional—
I didn’t write down the name of the professor who created the demonstration.  I’d like to describe it for you anyway.  I just hope he will forgive my inadvertent plagiarism.

Imagine a large canning jar with a wide lid that screws down tight.  I’m going to take the lid off and add stones.  As one of the stones slides off the top, I’ll ask, “Is the jar full?”

I expect the class to say, “Yes.”

But I am able to add several smaller pebbles, so I ask if the jar is full now?

The class will again say, “Yes.”

From under the demonstration table, I’ll fetch a bag of sand.   I pour it on top of all the rocks.  With sand sliding over the side all over the table, I say, “Is the jar full yet?”

Though suspicious, they might say, “Yes, definitely yes.”

From my water pitcher, I pour myself a fresh glass of water and then add it to the stones and sand.  I let them stare at the canning jar for a long moment.

This jar represents my life.  The largest stones are the most important things.  For example, my heath matters a great deal to me.  I value being mobile even though arthritis threatens my freedom.  My family is also special.  My husband likes to take pictures of wildlife, but he doesn’t like to travel alone.  I like to sit in front of my laptop at a café, but I will fly away with him whenever he is ready to go.

Of slightly lesser importance are the pebbles.  My pebbles involve creativity.  I love to write stories and poetry, and when I take a picture, the zebra stripes are likely to go every which way.

Sand is not as important as rocks.  For me, doing laundry is a grain of sand and so is re-organizing my nests, a constant battle with entropy.  I’m old fashioned and use computers as separate tools—one for photographs, another for my blog, and my laptop for writing.  Each device is at the center of a nest.  (My problem is that I can’t figure out if this blog is a pebble or sand.)

Finally comes the trivial, those minuscule molecules of water.  For me, the most minuscule thing that fills too many hours of my days is playing solitaire games on my i-Pad (my fourth computer).

The point is to spend a proportional amount time on each task relative according to the level of its importance: Stone, Pebble, Sand, or Water.  (I’m off to play Free Cell now that I’ve finished this post?)

Namaste  

Plains Zebra, photo by Jan Haffley

We're Back

We’re back from three weeks in India.  Our bodies have finally adjusted for the second time to a 10½ hour jetlag.  Yes, India does not divide its large country into time zones.  Everyone there has the same time on his watch (if he has a watch), and India is the only country that is on the half-hour when the world is on the hour.

The country is changing.  It is not the same country we visited four years ago, but I am not the same person I was four years ago either.  This time my body was more cooperative.  Naproxen doesn’t mute RA pain as well as a biological with a prednisone kicker does.  I did have some problems with fatigue and the heat, but they were minor by comparison.

It took me a day just to do five loads of the dusty laundry we’d stuffed into our suitcases for the return trip.  Now there is the task of processing thousands of photos.  We need to cull out the losers and batch-rename the animals or whatever for the winners.  We need to keyword all the photos so we’ll be able to isolate all of the tigers from two India trips and from any zoos we’ve visited.  Then there are the lions.  Asian lions are different compared to the African lion we’ve photographed.  A great compare-and-contrast exercise awaits us.  And so on.

I’m going to insert India posts as I finish writing them and processing the pictures.  We are going on two more photo-shoots soon, one in the middle of May and the second at the end of May through the beginning of June.  Both are one-week ones with one-week between to wash the clothes.  After that we’ll have the rest of the year to process those photos and finish the India posts.

Namaste  (nah-muh-stay´, Hindi for “have a good day.”)

Australia-6

Australian Magpie 

Black Cockatoo

Rainbow Lorikeet

Regent Bowerbird 

Satin Bowerbird 

                               Male's bower or nest he built to lure a female.