Tonight, the full moon was expected to rise around 8:30, but last night, when the move made itself known, it was a little before 7:30.   Friday, then, was my choice with these photos taken on some wonderful bits of prairie land north and east of Granger, Texas.  The opening photo is my favorite, but since the skies turned that nice shade of blue in short order, one of those is included as well. Bird people, are those starlings?   If you need a lunar lesson, what you see here is a Waxing Gibbous moon, 99.5% full, close enough.  

On that last post, I mentioned a mobile phone photo at the library, which I forgot to post.   Consider it a senior moment. 

These are photos my week of long walks in Taylor.  I’m trying to get a handle on cell phone photography.   What it does, of course, is provide a method to record what I see, a really good thing.   There are limitations.   The phone’s ability to zoom in via telephoto is archaic at best.   If something in the distance gets my attention, it’s not likely to be documented.   Not very well, anyway.   Also, there are problems with close focus on a subject.   Earlier this week, while on a paying assignment, I observed someone snapping closeups of red poppies with her phone, an iPhone.   She indicated it performs well in that arena.  My phone, a $125 Motorola, can’t do that.    But I don’t want to be saddled with one of my “big” cameras while on these strolls.   I’m going to take another look at point-and-shoot models, maybe higher-end phones, but for now, it’s an interesting experiment.  Did I forget to mention Slim?   What a nice man!  Slim, 91, invited me into his home.  I stayed longer than planned because he was a hoot.  “I used to be 6’5”, he said, “but now I’m 5’11.”     By the way, one photo included here, the last one, was taken in our public library, with the phone.   That’s not a place I’d normally tote my big cameras.   Exploring, friends.

For a good part of this week, we had some steady, but much-appreciated rain here on the Blackland Prairie.  By last evening, when these photos were taken in East Williamson County, the clouds had begun to part near sundown.   Don’t worry about those soaked farmers’ fields, friends.   This rich soil will soak all that moisture right up, providing good yields of corn very soon.  

This past weekend I visited the track at Georgetown’s Forbes Middle School for a Special Olympics-style event, the Georgetown Track Meet.    It’s a local event, but teams from Elgin’s Down Home Ranch and the Austin School for the Deaf joined the Cen-Tex Rockets and a team from Georgetown ISD.   I treasure covering these events, always have.   These are some of the photos I took for the Williamson County Sun.  In the opening photo, 14-year-old Alize Ramos, a member of the Georgetown ISD team, is encouraged by Jared Friemel, from the Cen-Tex Rockets, as she nears completion of her 25-meter event.   It’s all good.  Helping out were members of the Georgetown Sertoma Club, the Salvation Army of Williamson County and students from Southwestern University and area high schools.  

A friend recently mentioned the arrival of two baby donkeys born recently, in fact just a couple of days apart, with different mothers.  It only occurred to me tonight, getting ready to post these, that my friend, a longtime Democrat, may have donkeys for that reason.   But really, I think she just likes them, along with her cows, who all live happy lives on a swath of Blackland Prairie land in East Williamson County, Texas.   These photos of the babies were taken when both were  less than a week old.   They are cute!   I don’t like that word (cute),  but it fits here.

Photos in this post are from Taylor’s Fannie Robinson Park.   They’re not so much about people, just images from this park.  I haven’t posted much from here, but let’s remedy that tonight, okay?   Fannie Robinson Park is in the southeast part of our little community, an area with abundant charm.  It does not, however, get a lot of attention.   That’s unfortunate.   Bull Branch Creek, which courses through both Bull Branch and Murphy Parks, flows through here, too.   On the hill above the park are some mighty nice grain elevators, peeking down on basketball courts, a baseball field, a playground, a city swimming pool and a covered pavilion.  If you go north on the hike-and-bike trail just a little you come to the Dr. James Lee Dickey bridge, built over Bull Branch Creek in about 1940, at Dr. Dickey’s urging, to make it safer for children attending Blackshear School to get to class.  Dr. Dickey was a community activist, a physician, a man of color.  Blackshear School was where the town’s African-American kids went to school.    These  are “hats off”  photos to Fannie Robinson Park.   We are a small, but diverse community here in Taylor, Texas.  

Most of my day was spent in McDade, Texas, photographing the Sherwood Forest Faire for the Austin American-Statesman.   For that complete coverage, keep an eye on their website.   Sherwood Forest Faire is certainly interesting, but the birds of prey demonstrations presented by Kevin Gaines, with Wildlife Revealed, was really special.  During Kevin’s show, I was enthralled to observe these brilliant avian beauties.  Among them was Artemus, a Eurasian Eagle Owl, Binx, a shiny raven who collected donations for Wildlife Revealed, and Vegas, an aplomado falcon, still pretty young, but when fully-formed can reach speeds of well over 200-miles per hour.    That is simply  incredible.  Vegas is pictured in the last two photos.  It’s amazing I got him in focus.  

As you might know, the rookery at Murphy Park in Taylor, Texas is a place I go for therapy.   Recently, however, I was fascinated to see humans watching the action, too.   This brother and sister duo appeared to be geese whisperers.   You don’t often see geese being so people-friendly!   Anyway, I thought it was sweet moments to record.   After they left, I stayed around and took a few bird photos.   Therapy, friends.  Meditation. 

….is the one you have with you” is something I’ve heard my entire professional life.  Until recently, I’ve not been willing to consider a smartphone camera a part of that definition, but seeing things in new ways can be useful.   For years, I’ve taken long walks, mostly in Taylor, last usually about two hours, a little more.  And I see things worth documenting, but with no viable route.  My DSLRs are too heavy, defeating the purpose of walking as exercise.  I’ve considered some of the small point-and-shoot cameras, mirrorless cameras, anything to reduce the weight.   After all my complaints about phone cameras, recently I’ve started using my $125 Motorola phone during those strolls.   It, like more expensive phones, has limitations.   The zoom function on most of them is awful.  But it’s a tool I have with me.   Something that made me try this was recalling a time in the early 1970s, when Walker Evans, a photographer from the Farm Security Administration period who documented the Depression, came to my campus, University of Texas in Austin.  At the time he was well into his 70s … small in stature, wearing a sports coat that engulfed him.   As some of us students walked across campus with him, he stopped, pulling a Polaroid SX-70 camera out of his coat pocket, commencing to snap photos left and right.   So I change, a little.  I’m not giving up the “real” camera, but alternatives are good.   The young lady with 1965 model Nikon F camera is friend Amy Jasek, who happened to be visiting Taylor today to snap a few photos.   Check out Amy’s site here.   The last photo in this post is yours truly.  All images were taken this week … walking and shooting.