Meeting an Old Friend for the First Time
May 29, 2022
Tuesday was special: Mic. and I and our spouses met up at the Hurdle Waterfowl Park in Ohio’s Ashland County. Although we’d left comments on each other’s blog for years, we’d never met. What a pleasure to do so. The weather was as agreeable as the company. Four hours sailed past like minutes. Here are my mementos from the day. Mic. has posted his photographs at Landscapes and Other Abstractions. You must take a look.
1 As you would expect in a waterfowl park, much of the property was in ponds and other wetlands.
2 The only waterfowl we saw, however, were some Canada geese on the other side of one of the ponds.
3
4 Sun angling in on these water-lily pads made them look metalic.
5 I saw two kinds of oyster mushrooms in the park. These are Pleurotus ostreatus.
6 This is the golden oyster mushroom, Pleurotus citrinopileatus.
7 I should say that I’m pretty sure these are oyster mushrooms. I did not take their spore prints or key them out.
8 The golden oysters were a bit past their prime, as the edges on these attest. I don’t know if the ragged edges are from drying out or from being eaten by beetles.
9 I thought at first that this formation in one of the ponds was a film of Leptothrix discophora, which I’d seen in a small stream in the park, but it doesn’t look quite right. It’s not iridescent. The orange floculate indicates that some kind of iron bacterium is present, though.
10 We saw traces of former farm life throughout the park.
11 Once part of the functioning built environment, these boards—possibly a sign—have been reclaimed as a substrate for lichens.
12 An old corn crib on the property has been repurposed as a shelter and fitted with picnic tables.
13
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15 We had almost reached the parking lot when I saw this assassin bug. “I don’t know why I like assassin bugs so much,” I said to Mic. He had a ready answer: “Because they’re iridescent.” I guess he knows me.
Correction: My friend Lynda wrote a few hours after this post went live, “Your green bug is a Six-spotted Tiger Beetle or Cicindella sexguttata. Don’t mind me but I’ve seen quite a few tiger beetles so I recognized it right away.” Gulp. I just Googled “assassin bug,” and saw a lot of insects that are not my green iridescent one. Thanks, Lynda. Sorry if I led you astray, Mic.
Romancing Reality 
What a treat! 2 of my favorite folks I’ve never met. And these great shots make it even better. Great post, Linda!
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May 29, 2022 at 7:22 AM
Thank you, Ken. Never met—yet. Webster’s not that far away, and the halfway point is even closer.
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May 29, 2022 at 9:49 PM
During the early years of my blog I managed to physically meet several “blog friends.” Now that you’ve had this pleasant experience, are you going to try to meet any more people you’ve gotten friendly with online?
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May 29, 2022 at 8:16 AM
Wow, good for you, physically meeting several blog friends, Steve. I would enjoy meeting more of mine, but some of you live really far away.
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May 29, 2022 at 9:50 PM
What’s a little distance between friends? I met one of my blog friends in New Zealand—twice.
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May 29, 2022 at 9:58 PM
…the enjoyment of the day continues. I love the collection of images you have posted. It is so interesting to see how we each responded to the same environment…we walked past that fencepost with the wire together but only one of us saw it. 🙂 Thank you , Linda!
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May 29, 2022 at 10:30 AM
Thank you, Mic. You saw many of the same things I saw, but I couldn’t make a decent photograph out of them. Maybe context makes a difference, too. What I mean is that your photographs taken together have a certain feeling to them. If one of your photographs were on my blog, I wonder if it would have the same feeling that it would on your blog. Joel Meyerowitz has said something like “A single photograph doesn’t say much; it needs others—a series—to acquire meaning.”
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May 29, 2022 at 9:52 PM
I’m glad your meeting worked out so well and I sure hope you and I will figure out a way to meet – one of these days! The pond lily leaves do look metallic and the photo is composed beautifully. The oyster mushroom photos evoked their sweet smell for me – I’ve been seeing them here, lately, too – but I didn’t know about the yellow kind, cool! Love the detail of those ragged edges. I like your centered post with wire a lot. You gave the old corn crib dignity, nobility, even. The progression from outside to looking outside from inside to looking up inside is very nice. That bug brings to mind a certain old quote about a rose being a rose – it’s handsome no matter what its name is!!
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May 31, 2022 at 4:57 PM
Did you notice that Mic. also thought the water-lily leaves looked metallic? It was so hard not to pick the oyster mushrooms, but I wanted other people to enjoy their appearance, too. Apparently the yellow ones are recently introduced. I’m glad that centered post sits well with you. I keep wondering if I should have framed it a different way also, but that didn’t occur to me at the time. I think there were more ways to photograph the corn crib—including the way Mic. did. I like how you’ve conflated Gertrude Stein and William Shakespeare. At least I think that’s what you’ve done. We do need to get together to discuss this and a bezillion other things. I hope someday we will.
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June 1, 2022 at 9:09 PM
I’m sure there are many more ways to photograph that corn crib – it’s a great subject. Yeah, I sort of conflated G. Stein & Shakespeare, thanks to you and I suppose, to the ease I have with making loose connections – not always a good thing! I’m glad you clarified that – I don’t think I thought it through! 🙂
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June 2, 2022 at 11:56 AM
Ease in making loose connections can be a very good thing. It’s where creativity happens. Glad you didn’t think it through, Lynn. It was fun to read—a twofer!
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June 2, 2022 at 8:35 PM