“Midwest Farm at Dusk” Photo of the Week #20, selected in September, 2019
The Midwestern U.S. has many iconic farmhouses and barns and I have certainly shot my share of them. This particular farm is located in Caldwell, Kansas, about an hour due south of Wichita near the Oklahoma border. The Chisholm Trail ran by here from 1867 to 1871, and you can easily imagine this farm operating during that time frame.
Besides being an attractive set of antique farm buildings, I like this particular shot because the tones that the “Golden Hour” provided, as well as the contrast between the dark, freshly-plowed field with the untouched grassy surroundings.
This photo was taken in Humbolt County on the far northern coastline of California. Coastal fog on the west coast seems to act differently than on the eastern seaboard, especially New England, and I certainly have plenty of it to see when visiting Maine and Massachusetts in the fall.
Around the seashores of Northern California, Oregon and Washington State, a marine layer usually creeps in during the wee hours, especially during the summer. The fog often burns off by mid-afternoon, leaving a few hours of golden sunshine before dusk. In the east, you can have continuous fog for days. These peculiarities can create opportunities for some very different photos on each coast.
Oh, and just try to get a shot of open beach in New England… Another thing I really like about the west coast is its nearly complete public access along the ocean.
“Lunch Time” Photo of the Week #18, selected in September, 2019
This photo included a pleasant surprise indeed. In Alaska a few years ago, I took several dozen shots of bald eagles, but only a couple of them were striking. One was my “Alaskan Eagle Taking Flight” and the other was this pic, taken during a remote cruise stop.
I had spotted a nest with a bald eagle sitting patiently in a tree a couple of blocks from us as Nadyne and I walked along Harbor Drive in the small, rustic town of Hoonah. As we approached we found that the nest was about 60 feet up, far too high to see it very well. I switched cameras to use a large telephoto lens and snapped several photos from various angles. We had asked the locals if there were any eaglets in the nest and they all said that nobody had seen any, and we hadn’t either. Lo and behold, when I got back home and began going through my 1,300 or so Alaska pics, I found that a couple of shots of this nest showed a little eaglet’s head, the chick evidently waiting for lunch. I never saw it with my bare eyes.
“The Ghosts of Commerce” Photo of the Week #17, selected in September, 2019
I have always been fascinated by abandoned buildings, especially those that were storefronts, gas stations or other means of commerce. The photo of this rural drive-in store store was taken in Central Kansas and I have often wondered what it was like when it was first built and used. At first I thought it was a gas station, but there were no visible signs that gas pumps once stood there. Its sign has an odd shape on top, like perhaps someone wearing a chef’s hat, so I’ve been thinking it was a roadside bakery. It’s fun to guess!
This photo was also used for the cover of my fourth book of poetry, “Aspects Long Forgotten,” and also inspired the title piece of the book.
“Moored in a Brown Fog” Photo of the Week #16, selected in August, 2019
I took hundreds of photos during our tour of the Maine coast a few years ago. The fishing boats in this shot were moored in Seal Harbor, on the southern shore of eastern Mount Desert Island, near Acadia National Park.
We experienced rain and fog nearly every day during our autumn visit, which is normal for this region of New England, but the cold marine climate did make for some interesting shots. I love that the faded Cerulean-blue boat tells you that this isn’t a sepia or black-and-white photo.
Many of who who have followed us since we began full-timing will remember my rear bumper project, upon which I installed a generator and cabinet, power cord winder and a few other things. Unfortunately, the D’Hanis/Hondo (Texas) tornadoes and hailstorm of April, 2021, destroyed our fifth wheel, leaving me nowhere on our new rig to conveniently carry and use our generator.
We love our new fifth wheel. It’s new, bigger and has a lot of newer technology than the old Cruiser. I could have purchased a storage tray to fit the rear hitch receiver for the generator, but at 120 lbs. (including gas), a tray sturdy enough to hold the weight while on the highway or country back road is difficult to find and expensive. I tried placing the generator in the pickup bed, but it’s too tall for the overhang, no matter where I set it.
I decided the basement was the only possible location for it, but the inconvenience of loading and unloading it for use would be undesirable, to say the least. I looked into a new-fangled metal slide-out drawer made for such equipment, but the $1,000-$2,000 price tag was far more than I wanted to pay.
I went searching for other solutions and came across rails similar to those used by the slide-out drawers and found them to be much more affordable. After measuring the generator, I decided that 24″ long rails that slide open to 57″ made by Yenuo would be a perfect fit, and only cost $98 for the pair. They will hold up to 260 lbs., more than sufficient for my project, so I ordered them in.
Next was my planning and prep. I decided that the rails should be installed on 2″x4″ boards in order to lift the shelf over the lip of the basement doors, and a 3/4″ plywood plank could be cut to fit. Cross planks attached below the rail supports would give me more room to secure the shelf unit to the basement floor, and I decided that a few L-brackets would help in the rear of the unit, where the most stress would be when the generator was rolled out.
The following photos show how the pieces went together:
Then it was time to install the sliding shelf unit in the basement.
Everything looked great until I actually placed the generator on the shelf. I had enough clearance in the cabinet door frame to roll it all in, but the second aluminum ceiling joist was about an inch lower than the top of the door, preventing the generator from moving past it.
The solution was to remove the 3/4″ plywood cross planks from the bottom, turn the 2″x4″ rail supports sideways and replace the cross planks with other 2″x4″ pieces. With a slightly smaller motor frame, it wouldn’t have been necessary…
I put the pieces all back together and voilà! I do have a couple of things left to design: a pin or other method of securing the shelf closed while traveling, and another to keep the shelf extended while the generator is in use.
Another comment (or two):
I found it a little tricky to align the rails on both the supports and the shelf so it would slide smoothly. A little off and the rails don’t line up completely. After a couple of attempts I was able to arrange them fine. It was also a bit of a puzzle to figure out securing them without opening and closing them to access each screw hole.
In this particular model of generator, the exhaust points one direction and the pull handle points the opposite way. This meant that if I placed it on the shelf with easy access to the starting pull cord, the generator would send the exhaust right into the basement. My solution was to buy and install 3′ of heater hose to gently direct the exhaust to the open side of the basement.
The total cost of this project, including wood, rails and hardware, was under $200. This worked so well that I plan to order in a pair of 60″ rails to install to the left side of the generator for a long supply shelf. No longer will I have to pull half of everything out to get to something in the middle of the basement space…
“Winter Sunset with Stump” Photo of the Week #15, selected in August, 2019
Another one of my favorite photos from Kansas, this pic was taken in winter at Cheney Reservoir in the central part of the state, the lake frozen over and a tree stump making a shadow in the sunset. Well played, Kansas. Well played.
Kansas will eventually frustrate local photographers, since there are only so many scenes of waving wheat and grassy plains one can shoot. However, with patience, opportunities like this are often presented if one is open and ready for them. In the few years I lived there, I went on several photo outings with the hope of coming across something interesting, even in the middle of winter. One this day, my optimism was rewarded.
“Wildflowers Loving Life” Photo of the Week #14, selected in August, 2019
Those who know me can assure you that I love birds and wildflowers, so much so that I have taken thousands of photos of both all over the country. These lupine flowers just seemed to be overjoyed to be alive and thriving in the California desert, despite their hardship, and this shot is a favorite among my wildflower photos. Lupines are relatives of the famous Texas bluebonnets.
I took this shot while hiking near our boondocking spot just outside of Joshua Tree National Park. It was surprising to see such color in the hot desert, adding to the feeling of delight when I came across the seemingly elated blossoms.
“Bird’s Shadow and Metropolitan” Photo of the Week #13, selected in August, 2019
The decrepit building in the nearly-abandoned town of Miami, Arizona, caught my attention when I saw the trailered Metro parked in front. My dad used to drive a baby-blue-and-white Nash Metropolitan when I was growing up, so there’s some nostalgia there, at least for me.
I love coming across interesting old relics or structures and imagining what they were like when they were first built and actively inhabited. This particular edifice looked like it once possessed real personality. I was pleased to have successfully captured a bird’s shadow on the faded blue wall.
Miami is a classic Western copper boomtown, though the copper mines are largely dormant now. There is a renovation underway, slowly, and the town is beginning to attract new residents to its low-cost housing.
As always, please click on the link to view the clear, full-color image:
Trappings of the Years 