View allAll Photos Tagged OPTIMISTIC
🌙♥ The Good Witch of the North ♥🌙
She is humble, optimistic, mild-mannered, and extremely kind.
She gave Dorothy a powerful magical kiss on her forehead that protected her from being abused by any who would wish her harm.
Her whole ensemble can be found at PurpleMoon for Only L$100 from Oct 26 to Nov 1. It includes, gown, sleeves, crown and staff.
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Stellar/127/54/23
WINGSDG ER1101
E. Beauty Calie shape and skin
Maitreya Lara
Fall is a season of change
Bright vivid colours...the last hoorah of the season...before it lets nature sleep.
It also gives us a lesson of season..and change....and realizing the beauty before us.
Change is natural...and what lies ahead....can not always be what one expects......but for us to gather strength to deal with the things that can not be changed....
Fall gives us hope....and a passion to be optimistic in anything that lies before us....
The We're Here! gang is looking for optimistic cloudgoats today. This one thinks he's going to get fried eggs for breakfast...but they are only "fried-egg poppies", not the real thing.
This has nothing to do with the photo, I just like the proverb !!
“Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Love more, and all good things will be yours"
Swedish Proverb
Photo captured via Minolta Maxxum AF Zoom 70-210mm F/4 "Beer Can" Lens. Washington's Central Cascades Range. Wenatchee/Chelan Highlands section within the North Cascades Region. Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. Chelan County, Washington. Late October 2021.
Exposure Time: 1/30 sec. * ISO Speed: ISO-100 * Aperture: F/11 * Bracketing: None * Color Temperature: 4148 K * Plug-In: Vibrant Fall - Lou & Marks * Elevation: 2,211 feet above sea-level
This mother turkey seems to be getting started way too late in the season. I took these this morning. Her nest is along a fence between Hwy 94 and a rail corridor in St. Paul. When she stands the piece of styrofoam rises. When she sits it covers her and her 12 eggs. The cars on 94 were roaring by at 65 MPH 20 feet behind me as I shot. Those are railroad tracks behind the fence in the background. I took a few shots and left when she stood up. I didn't want to stress her. I'm afraid she has enough to worry about.
A few days ago we had snow on deck for the Sunday forecast at lower elevations. Plenty of precipitation and the temperatures were supposed to dip below freezing, but just barely. As is often the case, the snowflake has turned into a more familiar rain cloud....bummer.
I really hope we get snow in Portland this winter. I know I can head east and get all the snow I can handle, but the city just looks so pretty under a fresh coat.
Image with my Hasselblad 500cm
We're Here! : Optimistic Cloudgoat
Strobist: AB1600 with gridded 60X30 softbox camera right. Triggered by Cybersync.
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Flies are buzzing round my head
Vultures circling my bed
Picking up every last crumb
The big fish eat the little ones
Big fish eat the little ones
Not my problem, give me some
You can try the best you can
You can try the best you can
The best you can is good enough
You can try the best you can
You can try the best you can
The best you can is good enough
This one’s optimistic
This one went to market
This one just came out of the swamp
This one drops a payload
Of fodder for the animals
Living on an animal farm
You can try the best you can
You can try the best you can
The best you can is good enough
You can try the best you can
You can try the best you can
The best you can is good enough
I’d really like to help you man
I’d really like to help you man
Nervous messed up marionettes
Float around on a prison ship
You can try the best you can
You can try the best you can
The best you can is good enough
You can try the best you can
You can try the best you can
Dinosaurs roaming the earth
Dinosaurs roaming the earth
Dinosaurs roaming the earth
Radiohead
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"Flies are buzzing round my head
Vultures circling the dead
Picking up every last crumb
The big fish eat the little ones
The big fish eat the little ones
Not my problem, give me some "
Radiohead_Optimistic
I wasn't terribly optimistic when I went looking for the BNSF's local on the Hanley Falls branch to Madison, MN. Good news! I saw a headlight when I crossed the tracks at this rural crossing west of Boyd. Bad news: it soon became obvious they were running east as light power. Consolation: the east facing locomotive was an ex-Frisco GP38-2 still wearing H1 paint. I gave a little chase back to Clarkfield, but I think I'll need to come back to try again. This telephoto view shows how little grading was done when the Minneapolis & St Louis Railway laid the first tracks down back in the late 19th century.
I found a print of this image last night, an underexposed print, and I realized that with my recent advent of negative scanning (as opposed to scanning prints) that it might turn into something interesting. I've probably been through this particular set of prints three times now, and each time I find something that catches my eye - and didn't before.
This is a pinhole image that I took from the top of Eagle Falls, which overlooks Lake Tahoe. While we weren't fortunate enough for any interesting clouds that morning, I was still amazed at the goldeness of it all. I think pinhole did a good job of capturing that light and motion.
As for the title, I am excited tonight. I am perhaps not as blindly optimistic as the title suggests, but I am optimistic nevertheless. Four years ago I was depressingly discouraged at America's decision. Today I am proud of us. I am also a bit nervous in wondering what the next few years will be, because I believe that my/our decision will bring about the greatest amount of change that would have been possible. And change, even when desperately needed, can be scary. But as I've heard multiple times today - there is nothing to fear but fear itself. I am ready for this. I think America is ready for this. Certainly, the rest of the world is ready for America to be ready for this. ;-) And I am proud.
I am also very happy to be done listening to political ads. Ha.
Happy Election Day, all. Thanks for voting.
My (optimistic) Order...
Please deliver a massive Starling murmuration very close to home during the lock-down
Status...
Delivered
20-30,000 birds
Payment Details...
1 tube of meal-worms and crushed peanuts in the garden feeder every morning
(Only 20-30 Starlings will attend)
Done
Transaction completed
Thank you
20,000 Starlings
I'm not sure what this nursery web spider (Pisura mirabilis) was up to on the garden sage bush. It looks like it is eyeing up the Bombus lapidarius queen as a snack. Normally it goes for much smaller prey which it subdues physically rather than poisons so the bee represented quite a challenge!. I shall never know as the bee flew off before the spider could make its intentions clear.
This is the third species of queen bumblebee seen in the garden this year - the other two being B. terrestris and B. hypnorum. There have also been honeybees and a single male mining bee.
The spider is interesting because although I've seen them in the local countryside it's the first time I have seen the species in the garden.
Close to Home ‘The great cedars call our names’ Willapa Bay’s Long Island is a Northwest treasure
Story by David Campiche
Sep 18, 2014
www.discoverourcoast.com/coast-weekend/coastal-life/close...
The birds are quiet, hardly a peep. The large Harvest Moon that was forecast is buried in gray slurry, in subtle shades of silver and pewter. A fine mist wraps its cloak over the soft green landscape. Long Island rests in the middle of Willapa Bay. Here awaits a late summer dreamscape.
Like the September full moon, leaves are turning yellow and umber. Among the 16 people gathered at the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge, the mood is speculative but optimistic. I came from Naselle, crossed the Naselle Bridge in a flurry, and headed south.
West of the bridge I could just make out the Herrolds’ oyster plant, their weather-worn dock and graceful wooden vessel. Gargantuan piles of oyster shells lay mounded on the shoreline. The two brothers are descendants of the Chinook culture and proud of it. They have worked this bay for oysters since childhood. The two families have protected both these pristine waters and a lifestyle that predates these oystermen.
Glenn Lamb is the executive director of the Columbia Land Trust. He and his staff have performed diligently in the Pacific Northwest. They have, in particular, a deep affection for Pacific County and the Long Beach Peninsula.
“It is all about wildlife, about restoring habitat,” he says. Lamb picks his words carefully. He is a careful and amicable man.
The organization outlines its parameters as, “Two states. One iconic river (the Columbia). 13,000 square miles of wonder.” Set in our backyard, the Columbia Land Trust projects hope with this succinct statement: “We conserve the Northwest you love.”
We are heading to the Don Bonker Cedar Grove, a 5,000-year-old copse of mostly ancient cedar trees on the west side of the island. U.S. Rep. Bonker saved that grove and then cemented public ownership of the entire island in the 1980s. In the grove are 274 acres of old-growth. The island is seven miles long and half as thick. In all of Pacific County, only 1 percent of the tall trees remain. Someday, as second-growth matures, the entire island will again rebound with a cornucopia of old-growth. This is Bonker’s gift to our grandchildren, to future generations.
Two capable assistants anchor our large barge-like craft at Smoky Hollow, and we make our way on an easy trail a half-mile to a trailhead that reads, “Cedar Grove.” Traveling the trail from the old logging road into the center of the grove is a quick route. One ponders the third-growth woods along the way, small timber the loggers call “pecker poles.” Don’t give up hope: Yards ahead is one of the treasures of the Pacific Northwest. In his long, fruitful tenor in Congress, Bonker left a legacy for you and me to enjoy. Today, the great cedars call our names.
Western cedars are referred to as cathedral trees. Lightning often strikes the tree tops. The resulting twisted limbs often bear shapes like giant candelabras. In this ancient copse, we are surrounded by massive and tall cedars. These trees preserve a quiet dignity. Perhaps, they project an elder’s wisdom, for they are old, very old, some 1,100 years. The landscape is like a natural church, but festooned with lichen, fern and a variety of mosses.
We stroll up the forested apse, a trail carved out by awestruck pilgrims who have ventured into this magical place since the advent of the Chinook civilization.
“Inspire love of place” — it doesn’t take much effort here. To see is to believe. The grove is much older than the trees in it. Like pilgrims coming to Mecca, we, the happy 16, have the rare privilege of standing amid this living and breathing antiquity.
The trip is short and fruitful. We traipse back to the scow and soon travel back to the refuge. By boat or kayak, Long Island is accessible to bow hunters, biologists and campers. Over a dozen campsites punctuate the island. The island provides infinite opportunities for photographers, or for those just seeking solace. Willapa Bay rolls through four tides a day. The Willapa was called Shoalwater Bay at the turn of the century. The shallow bay sustains that reputation. It also produces about 20 percent of the nation’s oysters. Those piles of bivalves are razor sharp. All that is to say: Beware of low tide, your unprotected hands, and the boat’s bottom.
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"Long Island cedars are living fossils"
By Rob Schubert
Longview Daily News
Apr 2, 2019
WILLAPA BAY — The term “living fossil” is one that mixes a sense of being out of place with one of awe and mystery. The coelacanth, a fish that lived alongside dinosaurs, was believed extinct until a living one was found in 1938. Another such living fossil is right around the corner, on Long Island.
That six-mile long island nestled in Willapa Bay is like stepping into the past. The 5,500-acre island includes 274 acres covered in cedar trees that were around when Constantinople became Istanbul in 1453. And unlike other forests, which are constantly in a state of flux due to development, fire or storms, this primeval grove has been untouched for thousands of years.
According to a 1985 article written in Washington Magazine by current Daily News editor Andre Stepankowsky, the first trees of the Long Island grove began sprouting about 4,000 years ago. While those first trees have not survived to this day, the average tree is still between 150 and 160 feet in height, with the oldest individual trees being roughly 1,000 years old. Old rotting cedars on the ground may have been sprouting when Julius Caesar was a child.
When studying forests, most of the discussion is about old-growth forests. The definition of this term varies depending on region, but in the Pacific Northwest, a forest reaches old-growth status when the majority of trees are more than 250 years old.
Old-growth forests already constitute a small fraction of all woodland in the area, but the Long Island grove is old enough to earn itself an entirely different distinction. These trees make up a “climax forest,” a steady-state system of self-reproducing trees so rare that before this grove was found, some researchers believed there were none still in existence. Usually, fire or windstorms interrupt the evolution of a forest to its final “climax” condition. But not at Long Island.
An aid in research
This well-preserved forest has allowed scientists to step into a snapshot of the ecosystem that once dominated coastal regions. Researchers from groups like the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Washington have used their rings to gain insight to the history of the area. A 1997 project, headed by David Yamaguchi and Brian Atwater, dated cedar stumps along the coast to 1699, which led them to believe a massive disaster occurred before spring of 1700, the same year that a massive tsunami hit Japan. In their report, researchers concluded, largely through comparative tree dating, that 1700 was the year of the last major earthquake in the region.
But the grove’s survival even through disaster is no mere stroke of luck; the trees were perfectly placed to avoid what felled similar groves around the region.
Long Island is tucked into Willapa Bay, with the Long Beach Peninsula shielding it from the worst winds off the Pacific, while the frequent fog and rain keep fire risk to a minimum. Additionally, its position on an island makes it very unlikely that wildfires started elsewhere will spread to the grove.
The location also spared the grove from heavy logging. While Weyerhaeuser Co. acquired the lands for logging from Northern Pacific Railroad in 1900, the cedar grove survived because its location inland on the south portion of Long Island was far more distant to the places where logs were rafted into Willapa Bay and, from there, to shore.
Weyco-federal pact
Weyerhaeuser began to log the grove in the early 1970s, but its moves were met with protests. The company ultimately agreed to a deal with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the ancient cedars.
The pact originally required the government to pay Weyerhaeuser each year, and the cost was being met with growing resistance by the mid-1980s. Southwest Washington Congressman Don Bonker stepped in to broker a lasting deal in which the federal government purchased Weyerhaeuser’s timber rights and preserved the grove in 1986.
Today, the Long Island cedar grove is open to the public, but getting there is a challenge. There are no bridges or ferries to Long Island. Anyone who wants to visit needs to find their own transportation. Visitors to Long Island who arrive from the southeast are met with signs for the Don Bonker Cedar Grove Trail.
Bonker was also instrumental in the creation of the Mount St. Helens Volcanic National Volcanic Monument, the Columbia River National Scenic Area and Grays Harbor National Wildlife Refuge, as well as many state parks and refuges he expanded.
In a 2005 interview with The Daily Astorian, he called the purchase of the cedar grove “special... a rare moment” among the many accomplishments in his legacy. It was preserving these special places, he said, that always meant the most to him.
..."Choose to be optimistic, it feels better." --Dalai Lama XIV
For ODC: Dalai Lama quotes
And Color My World Daily (yellow day on Wednesday)
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Rappelez-vous que les jours se lèvent toujours.
Savez-vous qu'être optimiste,
partager plus et vouloir moins,
vivre de manière plus simple et moins compliquée
est pour nous aussi protecteur que la lumière du jour,
chaque jour nous invitant à danser
avec la danse du temps d'aujourd'hui.
Oui c'est vrai mes amis(es),
: )
Ivan
---------------------------------------------------
Remember the days always rises.
Know you that being optimistic,
share more and want less,
try to live in a simple and less complicated way
for every day inviting us to dance
with the dance of today's time,
is for us as protective as the days'light.
Yes my friends, all will be fine.
: )
Ivan
After optimistically mistaking a pair of turkey vultures for our resident hawks, I spotted Mom perched in a tree at the Oval. Before I could get my exposure set, she took off to the ballfield and into this pine tree. It was a very nice surprise to find her sitting next to T4. Yes, that is ice on Mom's right eye.
Indian Peaks, Brainard Lake Rec Area, Ward, CO
Landscape photography and the pursuit of beautiful light can be extremely defeating at times. Driving hours and hiking miles all for the conditions to not play out as anticipated. This past weekend I had one of those defeating trips. The sky never cooperated, I drove really far, and the hike was tougher than I expected. On top of that, I lost my sunglasses along the trail. I felt defeated by the mountains that evening. A day later, the forecast looked promising for sunrise in the Indian Peaks. I had scouted this location a couple weeks prior and had been waiting to get a chance at sunrise with it. After a few restless hours of sleep, I hit the road and headed for the mountains once again. I arrived at the trailhead with an optimistic mindset. I had been absolutely denied a couple nights before and I didn't want to be let down again. The sky was looking promising though with clear skies to the east and a bunch of moody clouds above the mountains. I set out for my spot. As I was about a quarter mile in, my headlamp caught a reflection in the bushes about 50 feet from me. After a second, I realized that the reflection was 2 eyeballs staring at me... I looked around and saw about 3 or 4 more pairs of eyes all around me. I carry a small reindeer bell intended for hiking in the dark, so I continued to ring that as I cautiously continued along the trail. I kept looking behind myself in fear that one of those sets of eyes could be a mountain lion. After a few look backs, there was nothing following me and I pushed on. Once I arrived at my spot, I could see the horizon still looking promising and I found my composition and waited. Finally, the light show began! After patiently waiting what felt like all summer for a morning like this, I jumped with joy for the light I was witnessing. As the show continued the light changed from pinks to oranges to a yellowish green. Just as I thought it couldn't get any better, a large rainbow appeared over the mountains... I wasn't able to capture that in a way that portrayed how beautiful it actually was. After about a half hour of an incredible show, the sun climbed up into the clouds and that was my cue to pack up and head home filled with joy.
After making it back to the car, I knew that I would be passing by an area that was ideal for moose. So I got my camera out of my bag and threw on the long lens to have in the seat next to me. Sure enough, as I came around the corner, there they were, 4 big moose enjoying the morning, grazing in the willows. Not far down the road, I found 4 more, couldn't believe it. An incredible sunrise, and 8 moose. Visiting this location over and over allowed me to create some spectacular images. It's the failures that make these mornings so amazing.
If you made it this far reading this, I appreciate you and hope you enjoyed the story behind my image. Landscape photography is a challenge and I love every part of it.
I'll probably post some moose shots later, but if you wanna check out the big guys beforehand, go check em out on my website.
Fynn and his human and furry family wish all our Flickr friends a Happy New Year. May the sun shine on you and your loved ones in 2017 and may the year be all you hope it will be.
I have chosen Fynn for my New Year's greetings because it's often not easy to stay optimistic when you have to deal with his health issues. He ends the year with more problems than he started it and I'm not sure what the next months will bring but I know that Fynn is a fighter otherwise his life would have been over years ago. If anyone has taught me not to give up easily it's him.
Wheatfield.
Midsummer:
the blue of the sky stretches
from horizon to horizon,
fading from intense cerulean overhead,
to a gentle haze closest to the plain’s edge.
The wheat field gleams
golden in the noon light,
vast as a prairie,
the ears heavy,
bending
under their own productivity.
That was then.
Now,
in early spring, there is still snow in the north,
the pristine whiteness mired in mud,
and blood,
churned by tanks, craters, artillery,
pits blown apparently randomly,
deep and water-logged,
recalling the almost forgotten horrors
of Ypres and Passchendaele.
The woodlands give little cover,
the trees split, twigs scattered.
No birds sing.
No seeds have been planted.
The only yield will be that of death
and destruction…
yet still the flag flutters
optimistically,
hopefully,
heroically,
echoing the blue and yellow,
of sky and land:
the colours of peace.
Published in reach poetry 284 June 2022
Voted 2nd of the month by readers.