One of our Christmas presents to each other with Christmas money we received from family was this beauty a 65mm macro lens. I had yet to play with it so I took it out in the backyard one day at lunch and shot some seedlings, garlic, and dill. It is pretty freakin’ amazing! I love using the reverse macro mounting technique and use it quite extensively, but this lens is crazy! The depth of field has a similar feeling to the reverse mounting, but it seems sometimes I can get more in focus in the whole frame with the macro lens.

It will definitely be a working experiment!

I toiled over this blanket for so long. Its original incarnation looked nothing like this. In fact it was going to be a simple square, half double crochet alternating between the back and front loops in a striped pattern. Somehow along the way I kept decreasing my rows. The first time I did not get very far into it before I unraveled it. The second time I thought perhaps it just needed to stretch out.

I do not know what happened. All I knew was that I felt that I had just begun crocheting not that I had been doing it for 9 years. I was dumbfounded. Finally, I scrapped it all, actually I left what I had finished together and let my cats sleep on it for a few days and instead went for the yarn still in balls from the store. Initially this was going to be a blue dominated blanket as it is for a baby boy, but then I went for the grey/white dominated with blue accent. Eventually I booted the cats off of the original one because I need to unravel it for extra yarn.

And here is how it ended up. I’m worried it might be a bit girly because of the frilly sides due to the circle pattern.

In all I am happy with it but I will not be crocheting a blanket for anyone for awhile. In fact, maybe ever. Unless I buy really chunk yarn that whips up fast. I have definitely learned to favor the quick quilts I have made for a few friends. Time wise they whip up in a few hours, money wise they can be a bit more expensive unless I make separate trips to craft stores with coupons. Yarn isn’t cheap either and I don’t always buy the lower end stuff for babies. My tastes in yarn have grown finer over these 9 years.

My mother in law went beyond my normal line for fine yarns and bought yarns that I probably would have splurged on only occasionally. It was definitely a great idea for a Christmas present and I have yet to figure out what to make with them.

This is sock yarn. I think I have recovered enough from my last pair of socks to make another pair. I am still looking for knitted (or really nice crocheted) candy corn colored socks for Fall/Halloween.

I’m hoping this is enough for a shrug but I might have to buy more if it isn’t. Love these colors so much!

This will be a great chunky scarf!

Now that I have finished the blanket I will probably put crochet on hold for awhile. I need to write and process a lot of photos.

While I was crocheting I watched a lot of movies…
+Sideways: Never saw it when it initially came out. It was not what I imagined, good but not nearly as much wine as I imagined. Slightly depressing.
+Emma: with Romola Garai. I had listened to most of this on my mp3 on the AT so I knew the story. I still feel the ending is rushed and so is the pairing between Emma and Knightley.
+North & South: This has to be my absolute new favorite. Mr. Thornton is the 1850s industrial version of 1800s Mr. Darcy. Rent this. See this. You will fall in love!
+And if you aren’t watching Downton Abbey you must be living under a rock. Ok, I’m not currently watching because I watched all of S2 on YouTube, including the most recent Christmas special, but everyone in the U.S. is watching on PBS right now. Rent S1 and then catch up with S2. And if you have 30 minutes to spare, listen to Elizabeth’s commentary on the new season.

That is all!

A few months ago we were in REI when I spotted this book, Paddling the Wild Neches. Having spent the better part of spring and summer working on and around the Lower Neches River near Beaumont I thought it would be a fascinating read.

Ever since we did our two thru-thikes I have been intrigued by those who also paddle source to end (or sea) down rivers, particularly relatively unknown or lesser known rivers such as the Neches. I think many people in Texas know about the Sabine since part of it forms the boundary of Louisiana and Texas, or maybe the Trinity and Red Rivers, or particularly the Guadalupe or Comal since are tubing rivers in the summer time.

But the Neches? Or the Angelina? Or the multitude of other streams, creeks and small rivers that surround those two rivers? Not many except those who are familiar with the land in east Texas and even then those will be a relative few.

The author, Richard Donovan, sets out to revisit the river and surrounding lands that he grew up on. He had a history of working for Temple-Inland, well known for their pine plantations and logging in and around the Piney Woods/Big Thicket. In the late 90s and early 00s two dams were being proposed along the river, the Fastrill Dam which would help support Dallas’ thirst for water, and the Rockland Dam, which would also help aid in Dallas’ thirst but also the surrounding ares of east Texas. The Fastrill Dam has since been stopped by the Supreme Court (if you click on the Fastrill link). As far as I can tell the Rockland Dam is still being proposed.

So, Donovan sets off down the river starting not at the source in Van Zandt county near Lake Palestine and ending at B.A. Steinhagen Lake in the south. A couple of years later he paddles the original route but then adds in the final southern portion all the way to Beaumont with a varying group of reporters and friends to join him.

Overall I really enjoyed this book but was disappointed in some of the lack of detail. He includes great anecdotes of the history of the area, stories about bears and albino deer (that ended up being a goat), bootlegging and days of the ‘open range’ before barbed wire and folks were able to hunt and gather on any land they pleased. The days of fencing properties occurred when too many cattle were wandering around in the middle of roads causing accidents. The fencing properties led to game theft and trespassing and a spirit of debauchery that was eventually slowed when the timber companies began putting together hunting camps.

He also writes about the impacts of logging, not only to the local economy but to the forests. The logging of the virgin pine and bottomland hardwood forests was done heavily in the early 20th century, but provided jobs for the local towns until the areas was cleared completely and they moved to another region. Then the towns were hollow shells of their former tent camp selves. I can only imagine what the vast stands of longleaf pine looked like prior to their near eradication and subsequent replacement by tight stands of loblolly pines.

The river itself is mostly untamed with the exception of two lakes and the salt water barrier dam located in Beaumont. At the time of the book’s writing the dam was being built; this summer it was definitely in operation….or rather not because they wanted to hold back water to the north due to the drought. Donovan also tells tales of the river being traversed by paddle and steam boats in the 1800s and I can’t imagine that because the river isn’t all that large, but apparently they did make their way a good distance up the river. Then they would be log jammed, literally, because the loggers would send all the logs they cut upstream into the river to float down to Beaumont to the mills. Sometimes the logs would get stuck when the water level dropped; the author surmises that some of these logs are still under the water and in near perfect condition.

If you are looking for a different book to read, something adventurous but also environmentally relevant to the current politics of the Texas environment, definitely pick this book up.

+Paddling the Wild Neches via the Conservation Fund
+A Trip Report
+Article on the author in Texas Monthly
+Transcript from an interview with Donovan
+August 2011 article on how other places are tearing dams down, Texas is going for more.
+Drought Schmout from 2009 about DFWs largest water users. Ross Perot is on that list.

Now it is time for some frivolous reading as I have finally got hold of a copy of The Help.

Last weekend I had the privilege to do a maternity session with one of my best friends. Stephanie and I met while sailing on the U.S.T.S. Texas Clipper II during the summer of 1998, between our senior year of high school and freshman year of college. I don’t recall how we got introduced but she, paired with our friends Michelle and Rosemarie and my friend from high school Erika, all became good friends in college. So, that summer we sailed through the Panama Canal and down through the southern Pacific Ocean and to the Galapagos Islands and here we are in 2011 when she is expecting her first child in February! Time flies!

I love this photo a lot because of these tiny little Aggie shoes. Her husband is an avid Longhorn, errrr…t-sip, and of course she bleeds maroon. She’s not the only one to be in a divided household, I know several others! Of course this might all be moot after November 24th and perhaps the final Aggie v. t.u. game.

We shot photos inside the nursery and then went to downtown McKinney to take the rest. We weren’t the only ones out there doing portraits, there were at least two other photographers out there. McKinney offers up a lot of unique backgrounds for shooting portraits and I’m glad to have asked Steph about going there. The only downside was the wind had kicked up that day so we had some hair-in-the-face issues.

It was definitely a learning experience for my first official gig as a portrait photographer and it gave me a bit of a buzz to keep doing it. I would love to do this a few times a month; coming up with creative ways to take portraits is exciting. After I started processing them at home I thought about all the shots that I wished I had gotten and just filed them away to remember later.

Can’t wait to meet the wee one in February!

A couple of weeks ago Chris and I had one overlapping day as he went to PA to work and I was heading back to Texas. Part of our day together was at Penn’s Cave and the first half of the day was spent at Leonard Harrison State Park and hiking down the Turkey Path to the bottom of Pine Creek Gorge. It was a beautiful hike down as is evident in the photos below. I highly recommend hitting this park up if you are in the area. The trail itself is switchbacked well and maintained nicely. Though I am out of mountain hiking shape and was still huffing and puffing, Chris and I still went up the hills quicker than the majority of folks on the trail. Take your time if you aren’t used to climbing mountains!

Down into the gorge….

Pine Creek, at the bottom of the Turkey Path.

We did not see any snakes out—a bit too chilly but if they were going to be out, that would have been the day—the sun was perfect.

Having been on steep, narrow trail, I wouldn’t say this was that at all. But to cover all the bases….

Looking up at the trail…

This one is an HDR, as are the three above, however I’m not sure I like the heavy contrast and color. I will probably rework this one eventually.

If we’d had more time I know we would have explored more and found other photographic adventures. Processing these photos has me itching to get out and take some more shots, but now that the time has changed my daylight will be limited in the evenings!

Since Chris and I hadn’t seen each other for two weeks we were able to get a day off together this last weekend in Pennsylvania. I was being sent home and he was going to be there for a few more weeks. We took off to sight-see around Pennsylvania and ended up at the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania. We snaked our way down the trail to see several water falls and then finally to Pine Creek itself.

The photo above is just a teaser to the rest I am going to process later this week. I had a bit of fun with this one, it was my first HDR image. I only merged two instead of the normal three, but I have some others I am going to try. I didn’t rely on a tripod, just holding my breath and resting the camera on rocks or railings to keep it in the same spot. I am not the biggest fan of HDR, some folks are really great at it while others can make it look cartoony and fake. I’m not sure if I completely like this one or not but it’s pretty good for my first time. I tried a few months ago but could never get it to look how I wanted it to look so I gave up. I suppose not all photos are supposed to be ‘the one’.

Chris’ tripod took this one for us.

Hope I can share some more waterfall photos soon!

Photo by Chris, click photo to see more details

These reads have been culminated throughout the years. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some that should be included. Send me your favorites that I should read!

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Most everyone is familiar with this book or at least the story behind it, the tragic 1996 climb of Mt. Everest in which 8 died and many more lost limbs and were injured. This was my first Jon Krakauer book and read it a lot of while doing a short backpacking trip in central Florida a few years ago. I think a lot of people, ok, a lot of outdoor people, have climbing Mt. Everest on their list of things to accomplish, whether they believe they will do it or not. After reading this book I decided going to base camp would be good enough for me! Krakauer discusses all the possible ways to die, pulmonary and brain edemas, not to mention hypothermia and freezing to death. He also touches on the history of the mountain, the history of using Sherpas to obtain the summit, the use of oxygen and going without. There is another book about this same 1996 summit attempt by another hiker who happened to be there and I would like to read it sometime because it apparently offers some counter arguments to Krakauer’s book in regards to safety and quality of those guiding the climbers to the summit. I definitely recommend this book if you are looking for an adventure story for an adventure that you might not ever get to take.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Originally I found this book to give to a coworker for a Christmas present several years ago. The bear on the front cover attracted me to it and so I snagged it up without really knowing what it was about other than hiking and the outdoors on the Appalachian Trail. At that point in time hiking the A.T was a theoretical idea on a piece of paper in a journal, something that was not probable and just something I would write as a dream. It’s funny looking back on the story now and comparing it with my actual knowledge of the A.T, I really thought the trail was more quiet than it actually was and much more remote than it actually is! He would talk about these towns like Gatlinburg, Tennessee and you could imagine the chaos and craziness of the city. When I read the book I didn’t really understand what a thru-hiker was, not knowing that while Bryson hiked a decent portion of the trail, he did not hike it all nor has he even summited Katahdin in Maine and yet he considers himself a thru-hiker. Most people on the A.T have read the book and it often is what inspires them to get out and complete the trail. When we encounter non-hikers and tell them we hiked the A.T they always tell us they ‘read the book’. Which means they read A Walk in the Woods. Though, Bryson writes about the Approach Trail at Amicalola Falls State Park and the overloaded and overweight packs, sometimes complete with cast iron pans, with people ditching weight here and there along the trail, we did encounter a few people like that, though no cast iron pans. Our first day out on the Approach Trail we saw two guys in their 20s with packs that looked to be about 60 lbs or more and incredibly cumbersome. We have no idea what came of them and never saw them after that. While it is a great beginning entrance to the A.T there are others out there that are even better and more in depth about what trail life really is like. Bryson is an enigmatic writer and can easily keep your attention.

AWOL on the Appalachian Trail by David ‘AWOL’ Miller
This book I bought while at an REI store in D.C when I had some downtime during a business trip. We were in the beginning stages of planning our A.T hike and Chris wanted me to scout some gear prices and quality, so I picked up this to read on the way home. It is written in a journal style and discusses the trail more in detail than A Walk in the Woods. AWOL also writes about injuries and obstacles he has to overcome like leaving his children and wife back at home in Florida to accomplish his goal of hiking the trail. AWOL has now come out with a companion thru-hikers book to the book that the Appalachian Trail Conservancy sells for thru-hikers, listing shelters and town information and important mileage data including elevation profiles. It is probably the second most popular trail guide right now. We were able to meet him at the opening of the A.T museum at Pine Grove Furnace State park in June 2010 while on our hike and then later on while we were hiking the Florida Trail we met him again at his house where he was hosting a group of other Florida Trail hikers.

Barefoot Sisters: Southbound and Walking Home by Lucy and Susan Letcher
These two books also chronicle the A.T (sense a theme here?) but they are about two sisters who walk barefoot on the trail for the majority of the time. They begin their adventure walking south from Maine to Georgia and once they get close to Georgia they decide to turn around and walk back home to Maine. They are the most in depth of A.T books I’ve read, taking turns each chapter for the sisters to write about their own experiences on the trail. I could feel similarities between hiking with Chris, a husband, and the two sisters hiking together consistently, the strain of having to deal with each hiker’s emotions and challenges but also the comfort of having someone you know being there to help you through the rougher days and to enjoy the wonderful moments. I love these books, mostly because they do things in quite a different way than the average thru-hiker, taking a lot of time to hike the trail, taking a lot of time off the trail in winter—and winter hiking in general. Plus, going barefoot. If you really want to experience the AT, try this book. The sisters were in Maine in 9/11/01 so it is an interesting perspective, too, coming from being in the woods and life is beautiful to a terrible tragedy.

Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes
This book isn’t adventure in the outdoorsy sense, but adventure in changing lifestyles. I’m sure most of you have seen the movie and while there are parts of the book that are simliar to the movie, they are most definitely not the same thing. The author did give her blessing for the changes, though. I should note that this is not a book to read when you are hiking 2,000 miles and are hungry. I picked it up in Vermont and finished it on the next to last day of our AT thru-hike. What I loved about this book was the imagery, imaging the old Roman ruins and ruins older than that she would find on her estate. Discussing food and friends and the Italian culture, this book made me want to visit Italy. And it made me want to eat. She has a few follow up books on her transition to Italian life that I need to find some time to read.

The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball
Another book about life transitions, the author is a writer that is firmly rooted in all the trappings of conventional life in New York city until she goes to interview an organic farmer. It’s love and so the two slowly decide to move in together but in the meantime they are planning the large organic farm co-op that is his dream and slowly becomes hers. The move to rural Vermont (New York?) where they lease some land from a friend for a year. Kristin discusses the ups and downs of planning this farm, from what they will grow and raise, including farm animals, how they will live, the depth of working a farm and what toll it takes on the two of them but how it also brings them together. Now, this isn’t just a normal organic farm, they also do it all the old fashioned way, with horses to pull plows and all the things you’d see Pa doing on Little House on the Prairie. Kimball describes the long days as achingly tired but incredibly rewarding at the same time. It definitely puts a new perspective on organic farming!

Between a Rock and Hard Place by Aron Ralston
If you’ve seen the movie 127 Hours this is the book that the movie is based on. I wouldn’t have thought to read the book but our library had it so I gave it a whirl despite knowing the story since I’d seen the movie. And if you’ve seen the movie it is a pretty accurate account, but the book goes into more details about his other adventurous hijinks and near-death adventures. Aron is/war an extreme athlete and accomplished in skiing, rock climbing, running and at one point was part of a search and rescue team. He was normally very prepared for his backcountry activities and at the time of his accident had been working on climbing all of the Colorado 14ers in winter, solo. He describes a few climbs that would definitely have me sitting at home on the couch and enjoying hot cocoa instead of risking my life! But like all experienced outdoors-people, sometimes we get a little too relaxed and his unfortunate lack of oversight was to not inform anyone of his whereabouts at this particular canyoneering trip. And it was of course the dumbest thing that set the whole accident off, a boulder that had been in the position for decades, perhaps thousands of years, happens to move at the very instant he jumps from it. How many years had that same boulder been through flash floods? The whole preposterous situation is analyzed by Ralston several times during his six days stuck in the rock. This book is highly entertaining and is a page turner. Perhaps on the more grotesque side and something I wasn’t expecting, is that there are pictures in the book. At first I thought it was going to be just photos of him and his previous trips until I turned one page and there it is, his sawed off hand stuck in the boulder. It’s pretty disgusting and yet very curious.

There are lots of adventure reads out there, tell me your favorite!

We’ve been decorating our house with some of our work. It is nice to see our work off of the computer and on the wall! Not only that, but it reaffirms that we are doing something right!

Chris ordered canvas prints from Pixel 2 Canvas because they had a discount sale on particular canvas sizes. He opted for a 40×60 print of this shot taken in Fakahatchee Strand. The flowers up close are clamshell orchids, Encyclia cochleata. I was hesitant about the shot on the computer but I really love it printed. You can almost feel like you are walking through the swamp!

I went back and forth on what I wanted to print. What I liked, Chris didn’t. Not to say he didn’t like them, just not for our decor. We ended up settling on this macro shot of butterfly orchids Encyclia tampensis taken at Myakka River State Park several years ago in Florida. I’m very happy with this shot and I know that I have some others of the butterfly orchids that I want to have printed one day.

We had small prints done as well. This one and the next are mine.

Shot at an angle to keep the flash from bouncing. Just quick shots done for the blog.

Chris’ ghost orchid

And a nocturnum orchid

I can’t remember where Chris ordered this canvas from but it was different than Pixel 2 Canvas. This is the panther he saw last July in Fakahatchee.

Drop by Wildscape Photo and look at our galleries. Some of these photos are not on our galleries yet but are available for print if desired. Print Pricing. And if you want you can ‘like’ us on Facebook on the top left of the blog here. If you see something you like feel free to email me and we can discuss what you may be interested in and the sizes you would like! oceanicwilderness at gmail dot com

With books. The Hunger Games trilogy to be exact. Over the last week that’s what I’ve been reading. Of course I could read them all at once but other things have gotten in the way. Work for example. Went back to the field for a few days to the Big Thicket in Beaumont, so paired with my reading I don’t have much time for blogging.

I will need to take a break from reading to tackle some creative projects though. Julia Cameron in The Artists Way writes that reading is often a good excuse not to get things done. And she’s right. Reading, at least for me, is very consuming. Ask my parents about my growing up years and books. So once I get through this I will be hitting some projects hard.

But when I’m ready to read again, what should I read? Give me your book suggestions!