Monday, January 31, 2011

Jack and Priscilla

Jack and Priscilla are friends from all the way back to Vermont. He was part owner of The Daily Planet in Burlington, the best joint in town. He moved South ahead of all of us, to Charleston, SC, and opened a great hot dog stand, Jack's Cosmic Dogs, in Mt. Pleasant. DO NOT miss it if you go near Charleston.

Besides a good job in the educational field, Priscilla keeps Big Pants grounded.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Delia, Stonewood

Sometimes when a flash doesn't go off you get a better picture.

Drying weeds

More weeds, Guana Reserve

Weeds, Guana Reserve

The last flowers are getting quite delicate as they dry.

Chairs and shadows, Pone Vedra Club

Chaises, Ponte Vedra Club

It was 34f when I took this. I imagine they were unoccupied all day, even by visiting New Englanders.

Ratatouille, done

This is the finished meal from the post below. I must remember to reverse the order of these posts when it's before and after.

Ratatouille.

Our friends from Vermont and fellow travelers to Provence, gave me the ratatouille recipe from the Disney movie Ratatouille. It makes a wonderful comfort food meal with almost no fat and layers of roasted vegetable flavors. This is as it's just about to go into the oven for 2 1/2 hours. The finished dish is in the post above.

Cabbage on dock.

This cabbage made us 3 meals before it gave up.

It's alive!

The onion on the dock, from a previous post, has other ideas about drying up and dying.

Pine Trunks, Guana Reserve

Out late afternoon light is beautiful this time of year.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Ooooops

I have just been told by Kate, my daughter, that the comments were turned off. They should work now.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Marsh, Guana Reserve

Palm fronds, Guana Reserve

Palm frond in marsh, Guana Reserve

This just worked better in black & white.

Marsh, Guana Reserve

You come out of thick woods onto this beautiful marsh, what a change.

Spotlit weed, Guana Reserve

This was the only thing the sun was hitting for 100 yards in either direction.

Weeds, Guana Reserve

These stems are so thin that I can't imagine them surviving a light breeze...but they do.

Weeds, Guana Reserve

Four weeds, Guana Reserve

Cloud of weeds, Guana Reserve

As the winter goes on, these weeds lose a little bit more of their old leaves every week. Now you can see two or three layers into them.

Lone weed, Guana Reserve

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Holly and marsh grass, Jacksonville Beach

The holly berries are an incredibly rich red this year. Must be all of the frosts.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Weed patterns 1, Jacksonville Beach

Another set of weeds where the struggle to get a leaf to light creates a real order out of chaos. The order will be more apparent if you click on the picture to enlarge it.

Weed patterns 2, Jacksonville Beach

In what seems like a random tangle of weeds there is a real pattern.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Onion on dock.

Every now and then a recipe calls for half an onion and the other half gets away from me. At least this one is providing pictures for me.

Arms cache, dock.

Waiting for the summer.

Golden Light, Guana Reserve

Near the end of our walk.

Bramble, Guana Reserve

The light is just so clear this time of year. The lack of a lot of leaves lets it into more places.

Delia, Guana Reserve

Delia, Guana Reserve

On my last walk Delia was my company. She has an active imagination and we always assume roles during the walk. This day we were two horses, recently escaped from pulling a train out West.

More grasses, Guana Reserve

Grass Guana Reserve

All of the grasses and weeds have assumed their Winter colors, all warm browns with little spots of red and yellow thrown in.

More seed pods

The northern section of the Guana Reserve has been a great new source of pictures for me and a great place to take a 2 to 3 mile walk in the afternoon, when the sun is low in the sky.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Weed music in oils

Here is an oil rendering of my earlier picture in Guana Reserve

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Painting subject- Marsh grass under bridge.

I have a painting program on my computer that lets me turn a picture file to a painting. I can paint over the whole picture or only parts. I can use different sizes of brush and stroke length.
One of my first attempts with a new version of the program, on this picture, is the post below this.

Marsh grass-oil

Here is the above picture given the oil painting treatment.

Reflections, from bridge.

The water looked like patterned glass this day.

Marsh grass under the bridge.

Right after our run of weather in the 20s, the marsh grass turned greener. The hollies are all covered with red berries (and birds).

Fishing under the bridge.

From the bridge you get a great perspective. Once again, being in a flat area, it's not very often we can look down on things. These guys were catching a few fish while I walked by.

Fall color

We take our Fall color where we can find it here in North Florida. This weed has just turned.

More palm fronds

Once a week or more I walk from my gym on Beach Blvd. across a bridge that spans the Intracoastal Waterway. It's a good 3 1/2 miles with a climb and a descent, hard to find in hill-less Florida. I take pictures as I go. This is an untrimmed Cabbage Palm along the approach.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Weed Music, Guana North

These seed pods looked to me like the notes of a musical score.

Palm Fronds in Guana

Once a Cabbage Palm frond dies it takes on a delicate shade of tan and a papery texture.