I thought it would be fun to look back over my year by picking out a favorite photo from each month. When I first thought of doing this it seemed a bit daunting because I have several thousand photos to pick from covering quite an array of activities. And the object was not to pick out my best photos, per se, but ones that stand out to me for one reason or another. So here it goes.
January-Egrets
It was with a bit of trepidation that we had moved to Ban Phrueksa 36 in rural Chachoengsao in December 2012. It is not far from Lat Krabang, which was just over the line in Bangkok province. The thought of living in such a tightly packed subdivision was a bit overwhelming.
But as we toured around, we discovered that there are a lot of birds adapted to the rice paddy/fish pond environment that we found ourselves living in. So we started to enjoy bicycling, walking and driving around just to see the rural landscapes. Often, on the way back from church, we will take a
scenic route, where the roads are less crowded and the driving more relaxed. And I usually keep my tripod in the car in case a photo op comes up.
At other times, we just hop in the car, go find us a cold coffee somewhere, and drive back along the back roads. It was along such a trip we happened upon these frolicking egrets (mostly little egrets--Egretta garzetta--similar to snowy egrets). The reason I liked this one, of the many I took, was the way the one egret flew with his legs hanging down.
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| Little
Egret-Egretta garzetta-Ardeidae-นกยางเปีย |
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February-Consultation
In our kid's clubs and other activities, one little fellow really took a liking to us. This young guy, Toon (or perhaps his twin--I have a hard time keeping them straight) would tool around the neighborhood on his mini-bicycle with training wheels. If we were outside the house, he would usually stop by to chat.
He happened to be visiting with Ingrid on this occasion. I grabbed a camera quick and snapped the shutter. If I had more time I might have set things up for a better exposure. Still, I think this one came out really nice.
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| Ingrid and Toon |
March-Rice Rat
We were taking a scenic road home one day when we happened upon a combine harvesting rice. We thought it would be great to grab a few shots of the brightly colored combines that they use here. But it was while doing this that we noticed what we found was a common practice here--alongside the rice harvest there is also a rat harvest.
It seems to be the practice when they harvest in the dry season (the ground is too wet for this in wet season harvest) that some people will walk alongside to combine carrying sticks that they use to kill rats that are flushed out of the field by the combine. This is not for pest control purposes--it is for dinner.
In these parts there are even roadside stands selling BBQ rice rat.
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| Harvesting Rice Rat |
April-Frog Legs
On one of my coffee runs, I decided to take a round about way home. There was a rice paddy that was flooded between harvests, awaiting being tilled. Birds love to hang out in these kind of fields.
Amongst the many photos I snapped that day was a Javan Pond Heron eating a frog.
My camera's auto focus was not working well and my eyesight is not so good anymore, so getting an in-focus shot through my telephoto is sometimes a bit of a challenge. But this one came out reasonable.
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| Javan Pond Heron eating a Frog |
May-Snake Roots in Khao Yai
In May, Ingrid's nephew moved to Thailand to begin teaching in an international school. When he first arrived, he stayed with us for a few days before moving to Bangkok.
While he was here we took a trip to Khao Yai National Park, located about a 3 hour drive north of here. On our way to Heo Narok waterfall, we detoured down to the river that feeds it. There was this interesting tree with snake-like roots that were reflected in the ponded water of the river bed. It seemed like a scene out of some fantasy movie.
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| Tree along Heo Narok River |
June-Courage
My June photo is actually not one that I took--that's because I was more involved in the process of getting it set up.
In June we had a team from Heritage Bible Church in Bakersfield, California, come assist us. There were three adults and 6 young people.
The first week they were here, we held an English Camp in a nearby school. One day I noticed this big strange-looking beetle crawling on the floor. I was thinking that with many beetles, they are similar in to a Saint Bernard--because of their size, Saint Bernards can be quite intimidating, but the only danger from them is if, in the process of kissing your face, they knock you over and you get hurt.
Using that line of reasoning, I reached down and let it crawl on my hand. After I let it crawl on my hand a while, I asked if any of the young people wanted to give it a try. ONLY ONE volunteered--a young woman named Dani.
I was really impressed by this act of courage. If I was a young man looking for a potential spouse, it is this kind of behavior that would land someone in my "possibiities" list. (Thirty years ago, I did, in fact, marry a courageous woman like that.)
I think the photo was actually taken by Bri, another young woman on the team.
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| Dani and the Beetle |
July-Making Cupcakes with Neighborhood Children
For much of the time that we lived in Ban Phrueksa, Ingrid has given baking classes. Typically, he students are adults, but sometimes the young people want to get involved as well (mostly because they want to eat the results.)
This particular day, we had two groups. The adults were working one table and the kids on another. I like this photo mostly because it reminds me of some of the fun time we had with the neighbor kids in the house. You can tell by the photo that not all of them actually participate in the work. Mostly it is an excuse for them to hang out together and have fun. And eat cupcakes.
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| Making Cupcakes with the Neighborhood Children |
August-Double Rainbow Over Mill Lake
We had only recently arrived in Abbotsford and had stopped to visit Ingrid’s brother and sister-in-law. We weren’t planning on staying long at their place, but they asked if we wanted to go for a walk.
It was late in the day and the sun was getting quite low. I didn’t think that there would be many photo ops, so I didn’t bother to reach into the car to get my camera.
Then, as we’re walking around Mill Lake, just at sunset, there was a beautiful double rainbow. Not only did I not have my camera, but Ingrid did not have her phone (which has a reasonable camera). So I used my old Samsung phone with it’s 640x480 camera and snapped about 5 photos with portrait orientation, which I later stitched into a panorama using Adobe Photoshop Elements. It is not the greatest photo in the world, but it is a nice remembrance of the awesome rainbow that we saw.
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| Double Rainbow over Mill Lake |
September-Columbia Icefields
After we were finished with all the necessary meetings at our office in Abbotsford, it was time for some vacation. Ingrid's parents had driven down from the Edmonton area. We drove back with them, taking the scenic route through the Icefields Parkway in Banff and Jasper National Parks.
While we have been through these mountains many times since we got married, we had not actually gone down to the Columbia Icefields. When I was a child, our family had stopped here on one of our cross-country trips, during which time we had gone out on the icefield in one of the Snow Tracs.
This time we decided we had time to walk around a bit. The place where we parked to walk up the terminal moraine was pretty much the edge of the glacier when we had visited there in 1970. Now were were able to walk along that area which had been buried by ice back then--and we never even got as far as the tip of the glacier.
This photo was take with my little Fuji Finepix--the only camera I had brought along. I used the built in panorama ability to capture the photo.
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| Columbia Icefields and Athabasca Glacier |
October-30th Anniversary Trip to Monterey
October marked ur thirtieth anniversary. Because of all the changes that have gone on in our lives the past few years, we never even made the big trip we wanted to take for our 25th. Now, for our 30th, we still had little time or money to make much of a trip.
We decided to go to Monterey for a few days, only this time we stayed close to the beach in a better facility than the Motel 6 in Marina that we have typically stayed at in the past.
Our main activity was to walk along the beach and shoreline. It was on one of these evening strolls that we happened on these brown pelicans on the rocks below. I braced my little Fuji camera on the guard rail as I zoomed in in order that the picture would be somewhat sharp.
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| Brown Pelicans in Monterey |
November-Birthday Trip to Morro Bay
This was a hard month to pick photos for because we visited our two most favorite places in California: Lake Isabella and Morro Bay.
In the end I picked this photo taken from the trail to Valencia Peak, showing my favorite person in the world and Morro Rock and the Sand Spit in the background.
We have climbed Valencia Peak many times, but often the fog obscures any decent views. We were happy to have such nice weather and an unusually warm day. This was the first day I have been to Montana de Oro State Park where I did not wear a windbreaker while walking along the bluffs.
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| On Valencia Peak Trail in Montana de Oro State Park |
December-Two Heads are Better than One
As our time in North America came to a close, we finished off by spending Christmas week with my sister and her family. Her daughter and son-in-law and grandkids were there that week as well.
I spent a lot of time playing with the twins. I tried to get some photos of them, but it was hard as they were little balls of energy--seldom sitting still long enough to pose.
Then, on one occasion, they were sprawled out on the floor, so I sprawled out on the floor in front of them to grab this photo. In the photo, it looks like the twins share a single body with two heads coming out of it.
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| The Twins at Christmastime |
