August 1, 2024 a thought for today, Don't sell the sun to buy a candle. Latin Proverb

One of my uploads for yesterday was “journey”. For the most part, this is the extent of my journeys these days. It is a trip to the church, the store, a neighborhood photo excursion or a quick trip for fast food. I don’t like to compete with traffic so I stay close to home for the most part unless I have a “journey” with family. 

The second challenge upload for yesterday was “a path”. There are several paths in the near by park each with its own shape and attraction beside its edges. 

The last upload for yesterday and for the month or July 2024 was “photographers choice”. This yet another of the flowers found at the park near my house. It will soon be like the “last rose of summer” but there will still be some colorful autumn bloomers.

Life today. This seems to have been another busy week, not quite as full as last week but almost as tiring. Maybe I was still coming down from the week before. The rest of the week is “free” of obligations on the calendar.

I got to the church early to get the printing done. Patti was already there. Her laptop was already open on the desk so I worked around it to get the printing set up and started. Before I was done Patti and I had a chance to chat and catch up on things. There is an interview for the choir positions. I am hoping the people will be accepted and will want the job. The printing was simple today and was done and done in about an hour.

I had a couple of stops to make on the way home. One of the stops was to pick up one of Sweet Peas medicines. As I was leaving, I saw Donna taking Arthur in to the vet for a visit. I got to meet him personally.  He is a gorgeous and very friendly Basset Hound. After I went on to drop off the mail I have from church, I thought about going back to the vet to get photos of Arthur for my blog and photo archives. But decided against it feeling I might be interrupting their appointment. 

One of the challenges and uploads for the new month is “unedited/edited”. I chose to use a photo of one of my hollyhocks from my archives. I used that image, the one shown, to create the other image. I copied the original blossom to three images. Then I used a filter to give the three connected copies a twrilled looked as an art piece. 

Brian came by today to do the lawn. It probably didn’t really need it although the back seems to grow faster than the front. We also discussed a couple of other things he will be doing for us. We are going to “spruce up” the basement stairway with a new and brighter paint job. Brian will be doing that. He will also be helping to renew the back deck for me. Hopefully both of those projects will be done before autumn. 

After I got home and stated on this letter and set up for my photo archives for the next month, I started the laundry. I got a later start than I typically do so I will be finishing later. This is the first time I have been down stairs since the “crew” finished on Saturday. It looks “unfamiliar”, good, very good, but still “unfamiliar” and something I will have to get use to after so many years. 

I am fighting off a cold right now I think. I don’t catch colds very often. I think maybe it was from over the week end when I was going in and out of the heat to the air condition. 

Now to get the rest of my agenda done and get ready for a meeting at church this evening.

The second upload for today is “photographers choice”. Here is another of the scenes in the park near my house. To me my way of thinking this one gives me the impression of a very beginning of a small forest or the edge of an opening in a small forest. 

The word today is image.  Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life. Aristotle.  Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite. Francis Bacon.  A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art. Benjamin Disraeli.  Send forth the child and childish man together, and blush for the pride that libels our own old happy state, and gives its title to an ugly and distorted image. Charles Dickens.  Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image, but thee who destroys a good book, kills reason its self. John Milton.  What we have in us of the image of God is the love of truth and justice. Demosthenes.  Science is but an image of the truth. Francis Bacon.  I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will. Charlotte Brontë.  

The last upload for today is “on my plate”. I did this “assignment” during the morning and early afternoon so I did have much on a ‘plate’. So I went to my archives for this image of a lunch I had a while back. Spanish rice and a mixed salad was the food fare for that day. 

As the stalwart animal love I am here being another story about animals. This one not such a happy one but one we should be aware of. Remember “all creatures great and small,.....the Lord God created them all”.....we need to protect them all. This story is on a sadder side of the coin. It is about dognapping. It started out with the time of day being late at night, a dog is sleeping on the porch inside a fenced yard. There is a strangers just outside the gate. He “softly calls” to the dog and pets him. As the stranger looks from side to side he opens the gate. He clips a leash on the dog and leads him away. Gone forever. The article goes on the say “it’s a crime that has repercussions that go far beyond the animal’s financial value”. In many studies of pets it has been reported that in many cases the “loss of a pet can have a similar emotional impact to the loss of a loved one”. This article explains getting a better understainding of dognaping and dognappers along with ways to.”keep their four-legged friends out of harm’s way”. In the study of dog napping it was learned that some of the napping is done by one or two thieves. It seems the theft takes some planning. In a bout a third of the cases a vehicle is used to transport the stolen pet. Some even use a bicycle, the rest are on foot. Some of the thefts involve violence on either the owner or property. The pets are hidden in pieces of cloth or bags. They are usually small dogs and ones that will sell easily for higher prices. The pets have acted differently during the robbery, biting or barking, some have been calm and even friendly to the thief. I think that it should be noted that not all thefts end in a sale, they are sometime used to train other dogs in dog fighting. There was an increase in thefts during the pandemic. People seemed to want the closeness of pets during the lockdowns. The article goes on to say as a preventive measure maybe to make the pet less visible with a higher fence.  Microchipping may help to recover the pet. A GPS collar may help to make the theft “less attractive to thieves”.

To end this, another busy week, it is going to be something from the freezer for dinner.

Joy 

these are composites of the photo a day challenges I have had for July 2024