Although the camera stopped the action -
these sandpipers are running to beat the band!
Up and down the wave as it ebbs and flows,
faster than anything,
and then flying to the next wave, and running again,
and again and again.
They tickle the funny bone,
these masters of slapstick,
making any willing heart lighter.
St. Augustine Beach, May 2014
It is still the birds that bring me back to the wonder of this world, flying over the waves or diving for their dinner, wild and free and alive!
Watch this...
Can you do this?
Or this?
I didn't think so!
Pelicans doing what they do! St. Augustine, Florida.
The whole fam-damily...
Daddy too!
Roseate Spoonbills.
Oh, and a white one.
And a duck.
Pals on the edge of the turtle pond.
(There's nothing more uncynical than being good to one another.)
Even though our art show is closed,
the good news is that
I have been accepted into the Butterfield Garage Art Gallery!
So...
You can see a smaller selection of my photographs anytime!
Pat Arenas is already a member and her work is always on display.
That being said, here are the promised photos of the show.
Thanks to all for your love and support,
friends and family,
far and near.
We love you!
Pat and Laine's Art Show at
Butterfield Garage Art Gallery
has been extended one week,
through May 3rd.
(So all of the procrastinators in the building still have a chance to see it!)
Butterfield Garage is located on King Street in St. Augustine,
137 King Street.
Front window display, Butterfield Garage Art Gallery.
Thanks!
A vigilant rest,
living so close to those unpredictable humans -
with cameras!
Brown Pelicans, sunning themselves at the Conch House in their mating plumage.
Was it just last week? No, the week before(!) 2016.
Warm weather passing through.
Cooler air on the way.
Raining now.
Silhouettes at the beach, St. Augustine Beach, Florida.
Soon here...
Soon over...
Pelicans coasting up and down on the air currents,
as graceful as anything that flies.
Watching them reminds me to relax and lighten up.
They seem to know that life is meant to be enjoyed
and that there's time enough for the important things,
and that play is one of those important things.
From the Archives, November 29, 2012.
St. Augustine Beach.
Ever grateful for the beautiful ocean,
the wind and pelicans,
for night blooming jasmine off my deck,
for the moon and stars,
for family and friends I adore,
for my health and happiness.
Happy Thanksgiving!
St. Augustine Beach.
As Mary Chapin Carpenter sings,
Why walk when you can fly?
(It's not just for the birds.)
Sanderlings, St. Augustine Beach.
Floating in the clouds,
a swan.
The Delaware River, between Lambertville NJ and New Hope PA.
On our way back to the dock,
leaving the Humpback whales to their stomping grounds,
and the humans to forage on land.
Whale watching on Cape Cod with the Dolphin Fleet.
This I miss the most!
More photos tomorrow!
Lobster traps and buoys.
And a place to sit,
On your way down the pier.
Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
(Apologies to the friends I didn't get to see!)
After a day of storms,
the beach beckons
and there's a wedding against the backdrop of the green water
under a canopy of clouds.
Meanwhile...
Life goes on-
surfers surf,
and birds scamper for their food,
while folks walk or ride their bikes or swim,
oblivious to the special moment that is paramount to the people attending,
especially, one could hope, to the hapless couple!
All best to one and all!
St. Augustine Beach, Anastasia State Park, September 12th, 2015.
This morning person in training
caught the sun rising.
Footprints sinking into oblivion.
Leave nothing behind...
St. Augustine Beach, sunrise and sandpipers, August 6th, 2015.
Standing in line at the Winn Dixie one morning,
someone said something that stayed with me...
It went something like this in response to another person apologizing for taking so long...
If I was in a hurry, I would have gotten here earlier...
I liked that.
Once in awhile, we do hurry, but it is all the same in the end, isn't it?
A minute here and a minute there.
As Rumi says,
We are all going through the same gate.
Egret in a great hurry! Or so I imagine in St. Augustine, Florida!
The first guess what this is was a detail of this shot of an Anhinga in the Everglades, Florida.
Here is another shot of the same creature to get a better perspective...
The second Guess what this is was a detail of this shot...
an alligator just at the surface of a leaf covered river's edge.
More to come!!!
Thanks to David Gardner, our resident morning person for sharing his sunrise photographs.
This stunner is from yesterday, July 7th, 2015.
Wish I had been there!
St. Augustine Beach, ©David Gardner, 2015.
Friends, paddling along together through life's currents.
It's a calm evening and mild in between the storms and troubles.
There's peace and quiet and a kind of welcome ordinariness,
a rightness about things.
All's well.
Reprinted from Laine'sBlog, June 2012.
Water, the most yielding and the strongest of nature's wonders,
is a chameleon.
Reflecting the sky, it is all kinds of blue.
(all the bumps in the shot are turtles!)
Looking down it takes on the color of the sand and leaves and turtles!
Lively pond near the Hospital, St. Augustine, Florida, 06.10.15.
...not from New York!
My favorite Ice Cream at the beach, St. Augustine Beach.
Little fish watch out.
As the sun prepares to set.
White bird is dining.
And Human is watching...Vilano Beach, St. Augustine inlet.
When I was a little girl,
I loved the smell of the earth,
flowers and trees and fresh mown grass,
starry nights and beautiful sunsets,
and time spent at the beach.
A lot of life has happened between then and now,
and I still love all of those things,
as well as making people smile,
feeling connected to just about everyone (on a good day!),
and I especially love the deep friendship that I have cultivated with myself.
The essence remains-
we are still those children that we once were
with the refinement that a life lived allows.
And those pelicans flying so close to the water you think they might trip.
But they don't!
They don't!
Pelicans, St. Augustine Beach, April Fools Day, 2015.
Who are those nervous birds in the tree on the parking lot of the pet store?
Ah ha!
They're the wonderful Cedar Waxwings, coming through again!
Moments later...
In the top photo, you can see air plants as well as mistletoe and little flowers on this deciduous tree that is just leafing out.
Primitive anxieties in a "modern" world.
Simpler when you can see the predator,
and not some elusive shadow from the past.
How to cope?
Trust what you have learned,
what you know is true.
Wait it out.
Look around you and believe what you see,
not what you feel.
And when you are ready,
lean on a friend.
Alligator and Great Blue Heron, surviving side by side in the Everglades, March 2008.
The other day at the beach,
there was a pelican sitting in the water minding her own business,
who would stretch her long neck and reach into the water.
Then she would point her beak up to the sky revealing a full gullet,
swallow and go on minding her own business.
When a wave threatened her, would she rise into the air,
only to return again on top of the sea and wait,
and not long,
as there must have been a lot of fish in those waves.
Sometimes life's blessings just come to us,
with little or no effort,
all we have to do is show up!
Pelicans, St. Augustine Beach, February 2015.
Check.
Landing gear up...
Check.
These Brown Pelicans, up close enough to see the accordion wings against the sky,
are proof positive that we live in a very beautiful, complex,
and fascinating world.
You are clear for takeoff!
Saint Augustine Beach Pier, once again hosting the people who fish and the birds who love them.