Renewed Focus

World View

I find it increasingly difficult to concentrate, to "be in the moment". There are so many distractions coming from every direction, including internally, that I often find myself pulled away from my purpose or drifting into memories or fretting about something yet to come. I listen to the radio news every morning and evening, sometimes in the middle of the day, and the stories and images permeate my consciousness. Politics, war, terrorism, corruption, the environment, poverty, injustice...it goes on and on. Far too often I give in to the time suck of smart phones, tablets, the internet and social media. I spend more time than I care to admit checking for new email messages, reading Facebook updates, watching cute animal videos and streaming TV shows on my iPad. I feel anxious when I can't check my messages and turn to the devices regularly during the day, just like a chain smoker. I will confess that I have checked my phone at dinner and even in the middle of conversations. I am addicted. And then there is the constant noise. Even in my relatively tranquil neighborhood, sometimes it's hard to think, let alone hear birds or other sounds over the steady hum and rumble of buses, cars, leaf blowers and heat pump fans. 

A couple of weeks ago I was on a walk at the botanical garden. I had gone to see if I could find and photograph a very early blooming Hepatica flower, a new flower for me. The weird warm weather brought them out a month early, and the gardens were going to be closed for the week between Christmas and New Years, so I made a quick trip so I wouldn't miss the blooms. I usually hike with several cameras--one with a telephoto lens for things that are far away such as birds, butterflies or deer, one with a macro lens for close ups of flowers or stationary insects, and another point and shoot camera for general shots. I had only brought that camera this time because it was to be a quick trip in the midst of holiday preparation.

Hepatica (Don't know which species)

As luck would have it, I did find the pretty Hepatica, and I got some photos of it. The weather was warming up after a week or so of cold, wet weather, and as I walked back to the car, I noticed a number of birds flitting through the bushes and around the branches of the trees, perhaps hunting insects that were perking up in the warming sun. I did not have binoculars or a telephoto lens, but I decided to sit and enjoy the birds for a while, so I found a bench and watched. A Yellow-bellied Sapsucker hopped up the trunk of a tree. Chickadees zipped between branches. Crows cawed in the distance. Then I saw a tiny yellowish bird in a bush a few feet from me. It was a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. And as I watched, I saw it flash its ruby crown again and again, something I rarely get to see. "Darn," I thought, "it's too bad that I don't have my long lens." But then it came to me. I am seeing this bird clearly because I am not distracted by trying to take its photo. As I thought more about the truth of this realization, I understood that I have been spending far too much time being distracted. I have been missing the whole point.

Sapsucker Holes

Reflection is essential, but when I spend too much time rehashing past missteps in my mind I am neglecting the here and now. Likewise, planning for the future is important, but worrying about things that have not yet happened keeps me out of the present. Cameras are tools to record and capture a moment, but while I am focused on a bird or flower, I risk missing the rest of the forest. I have to remember to take time to enjoy the moment as well as capturing it. And when I spend hours plugged into the virtual world, I neglect the actual sounds, smells and experiences. Years ago, a friend who was dying told me that in her last days she wanted "attractions, not distractions". What a mind blowing concept! Time is limited for every one of us. Attraction is what I want, too.

Quiet Winter Woods

So here is my resolution for 2016: I want to use my time on Earth wisely. I want to concentrate on keeping my attention on the present and real and remember to appreciate what I have here and now. I want to help make my world a better place. And I want to seek out peaceful spots that help me focus on the beauty that surrounds me.

Happy New Year.

Focus on Nature

Spring is Calling! Bees buzzing in the Hog Plums

I've been waiting for March to come and for the cold weather to leave before getting serious in the garden. It's been hard, but I kept telling myself that it was best for the plants, and that after writing for all the world to see that one should wait to trim, I couldn't exactly go out and chop everything down in February. But I have also been preparing to give a talk at a conference, and I've found, for myself at least, that an important deadline is the surest motivator to start a totally unrelated project. It helps me to procrastinate getting to the work at hand. I think I deal with stress by not dealing with it. When I was an English major at UW Madison, I still remember starting and completing a simple quilt for my daughter's bed before I started my paper on the Gulliver's Travels. But I managed to pull off both big jobs, and as I recall, got an A on my paper, too. Not the best strategy, I know, but it's the way my twisted mind works sometimes.

Spring Signs! Carolina Willow (Salix caroliniana)

I was invited, for my first time ever, to present at a conference--the annual conference for LEEF (the League of Environmental Educators in Florida). My topic was "Bringing the Natural World to your Classroom with Photography"and my talk was going to be about the ways that I've been able to turn my love for photography into tools that I use as a Nature Educator. So it's a good thing that I wrote the blog about spring trimming, because that kept me honest (garden-wise) and made me focus on preparing for the conference.

Nature Tools! (Shameless plug--available on my Website)

It worked and I got almost everything ready ahead of time, which is good, because I ended up taking an unplanned trip to Utah a week before the conference. Utah was nice. It was a pretty time of year, pre-spring. The buds were just coming out, the mountains were spectacular, and we even had a light snow on our last day.

The Beautiful Wasatch Mountains

And in those few days that we were away, spring arrived big time in Florida. We came home to azalea bushes completely covered with fuchsia, pink and white blossoms, the yellow and blue of coreopsis and spiderwort in the front path, and everything covered in yellow pollen from the Oak Trees. The Fish Crows had joined the Baltimore Orioles that had been coming to our feeders all winter, emptying the jelly feeders about as fast as I could fill them. The flocks of Cedar Waxwings had settled into the Publix parking lots, snarfing holly berries with gusto. I like that you can hear the sound of their squeaky-door calls back and forth to each other a long time before you can see them. I hope every year to finally get the definitive photo, because they are some of the prettiest birds I know of. I usually don't have my camera when I see them, probably because I see them most often at the grocery store. I didn't have my camera in Utah, either, because it was a short trip. I'm like an addict, and when I haven't been out in nature, walking and taking photos, I feel it. My friend Maralee calls this "Forest Bathing", which I just love. Environmental Educator, Richard Louv, calls it "Vitamin N". Either way, my supply gets low and I need to replenish it. I was feeling seriously Nature deficient after working on the computer so much and being out of town for family visit, sans camera. (Well, to be honest, I actually did have a camera. Two, in fact--a point and shoot, and my phone. But I didn't bring the fancy lenses. So there.)

This was waiting when we got home. Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis)

The Elusive Cedar Waxwing. I hope someday to catch it eating a berry, while showing it's yellow tail tips and red wing spots. Sounds impossible, but I've got to hope. This was shot in a grocery store parking lot, and I was lucky to finally have the camera with me when I went to pick up a prescription.

When I got back to Florida, I felt this yearning desire to be outside, either hiking and photographing, or working in the yard. But I also felt like they would distract me from preparing for this conference, and I wanted to do a good job there, so I only allowed myself small doses of the fun stuff as reward. It was not completely satisfying, though, because I couldn't really focus well without feeling guilty.

Guilty Pleasure--A trip to Paynes Prairie to see the Baby Pied Billed Grebes

In the end, though, I finished my presentation, printed out all my visual aids and had it all ready to go with plenty of time to spare. I practiced working the presentation on my iPad (pretty nifty!) since I don't have a laptop. I used an application called Prezi that my husband recommended. Prezi is almost the same idea as Powerpoint, but the slides come to you from different points on the screen and can zoom in. It feels a little more dynamic than the old slide by slide method, though I'm very new at using it. I used my own photos for everything and I thought it looked fantastic! So off I went to the conference at 4-H Camp Ocala in the Ocala National Forest, about an hour and a half from home. I wasn't able to attend the entire conference, with camping, workshops and the keynote speech, but I was able to stay for the day's workshops. I attended a session from the people at Hobe Sound Wildlife Refuge and Nature Center, called "Bird Brains" and learned some fun ways to teach children about birds, using costumes and props. And I learned about Gopher Tortoises from Florida expert, Pat Ashton. Great stuff that I know I will use in the future.

Prezi slide on my iPad mini. Amazing!

Environmental educators are a great bunch of people. They are fun and creative, don't mind looking foolish doing a turkey dance, can make convincing owl calls, and are able to make neat things happen from a wish and a prayer (like creating gopher tortoises from disposable paper bowls and calipers from bamboo skewers), because budgets for environmental education are sorry, to say the least. Which is sad, since it is so important, and teaching future generations about nature, ecology, the environment, natural history and conservation are crucial for the health of our people and planet. We've had one of the harshest winters on record and weather is out of kilter due to climate change. It seems like every week now we learn about how much better children perform in school when they are active and spend time outdoors. How much healthier they are. How much more empathetic they are. I think Environmental Education is very important and I am just happy that there are people like those who attended the conference who believe the same.

My session went well, except for a few minor technical flubs caused by my inexperience with Prezi and iPads. But I know it will be even smoother in the future, should the opportunity arise. The small group that attended my session was friendly and understanding. They enthusiastically shot questions and suggestions at me throughout the presentation. I think I shared some new, good things with them. And they did the same with me. At the point of the class where we were all going to go outside and take photos to put in a mock-up of a blog, one of the attendees said, "I think I have something that would be fun to photograph if you're interested". And I thought, "hmmmm--I don't know where this is going…". Then she opened the box in her hands and showed us two 10-day old baby armadillos! Wow! Only at an E.E. conference! The person was Leslie Straub, a wildlife rehabilitator from Gainesville. I was so lucky to have her in my photography session! I think everyone got great shots. Hopefully, some of them went home and blogged about it, or wrote a story about "Annie the Armadillo's Big Adventure". I know we all had fun.

Twin Armadillo Baby Girls. They were 10-days old and had been rescued. Two of their siblings died.

This was only the 2nd outing for the babies. They were cute and curious and very skittish! They ran around like kittens, jumping and sniffing.

Armadillos always have litters of 4 genetically identical babies. They will be all girls or all boys. These were girls. After they played and explored for a while, they were tired and got fed and went to sleep.

But that's not all. The session ended and as my kind helper and I were cleaning up and loading things into the car, we saw two Sandhill Cranes walking around the building. They were perfectly at ease with us being there. In fact, they wandered into a campsite and looked at the tents and at things on the table. Then they walked right over to where we were standing and I took some of the best crane photos I've ever gotten. No fences in the way, no crowds. No pressure. They even did a little "dancing", although I think they were trying to chase off the man who was near the tents (in his campsite--how dare he!). It was a spiritual experience standing so close to these magnificent birds.

Sandhill Crane probing for goodies

Curious Camp Invaders

I got my reward for staying focused until I was done with the conference. It was a great experience, and I hope it is the start of a new path for me. Next time I'm calling my presentation, "Focus on Nature". Perfect!