Birthday to Birthday

It's snowing. Again.

The gorgeous public library in Portland, Michigan. The original building was built with a Carnegie grant in 1905; the expansion, which tripled the floor space, was completed a century later in April of 2005. The expansion features a wonderful reading room that overlooks the Grand River.

Taking a break from the Thanksgiving gettogether.

Joan tells me she's making a scarf.

I'm not really a fan of removing the trees and brush boundaries that separate fields, but hey--it's not my farm. I can certainly understand that the folks who work this land would prefer bigger fields. (I note, too, that they've also removed a farmyard--house, sheds, barn, and trees--since mid-summer. In the long run most construction turns out to be temporary.) Farmers work really hard during planting and harvest. In between they keep busy at routine work--and projects. Many of the projects get crowded in between harvest and winter. Like this one.

Joe and I get together with Mike Coyer every couple weeks in Eaton Rapids, Michigan (" The Only Eaton Rapids on Earth "). Mike and I worked for Joe for over a decade. Old friends, now.

Maya Ying Lin taught us to build walls, so we build walls. This one's curved, and rather striking.

Mornin', everyone!

West of Woodland, Michigan.

A bit north from our yard. This tree's long been one of my regular photo subjects (examples here [1992], here [2012], here [2005], and here [2012 again]), particularly in autumn and winter. (Those are all flickr links.) Before our next-door neighbor built his garage and the developers built Mulliken Meadows behind our house, this was an easy photograph. These days I need to stand in someone else's yard.

Bored, sitting in a bank parking lot, waiting for Joan.

Oak Park, Grand Ledge, Michigan.

Near Richland, Michigan. These days the signs around the place all say Zoetis, but I can't bring myself to call it that.

I'm really not an SOOC guy, but this one's straight out of the camera except for a crop. Light like this makes it easy to be an excellent photographer. The specific route I took this afternoon was planned with this view in mind.

Black-Eyed Susans, well past their prime.

Since the day's stayed persistently foggy, I naturally thought a foggy shot appropriate. Then I consciously made the new photo look old. This farm's about a mile south of my home and the house is usually visible from our yard. Not so much today. I've shown you this place before , but never from this angle.