Afta kept very close watch from the screen door over the young birds as they grew.

She was very excited as they began to explore around the porch, hopping across the chairs.

And with that, they were gone. I felt like Tony Soprano watching the ducks fly away as I stared into the "empty" pot that served as their nest.

I was looking for a photo I took a couple years ago the other day and while I was browsing through them I found a lot of others I took long before forgottengrain ever existed that I thought deserved a little screen time.

A fish with a slow shutter speed at the Minnesota Zoo.

Well, its final. I am moving to LA. I have been hired by a company called Blur in Venice. It should be interesting. I stood on the beach and took it all in.

The day I left for the weekend my 19 yr old cat went blind. I found myself obsessed with sunlight staring down in the water. Cliche' I know, but things like that make you appreciate what you have.

A dog eyes me cautiously, yet lazily, as I snap his picture in a walkway.

I grew up next to a liquor store that sold bait for fishing at the Lake of Egypt. The store even had a couple large tanks out in the back of it where it kept some of the fish along with snapping turtles the owner liked to eat. I used to sit as a kid and look into the dark water and see a school of glowing eyes swarming and looking up at me. It was common to find dead fish along drainage ditches and water holes that fishermen had discarded on their way home from the lake.

The tracks were a source of constant adventure when I was a kid. Fueled by the inspiration of movies like The Goonies I crawled down or in every hole in the ground and through every tunnel. I never found Sloth or any pirate's treasure, but I certainly had adventures all my own and found turtle shells and pretty enough rocks.

p.s.

Caught this cool set of x-rays at the animal hospital when I was picking up her meds. Yes that's a turtle on the right. It has bladder stones. The left image is a dogs intestines shot with barium. Here is a close up of the turtle.