Yes, We Have Telephoto!

And yes, I'm still playing with my new camera. On my way to the recycling center and grocery store this morning, I stopped by the side of the road and took pictures of Canada geese and their goslings (above is only one of many family groups) in a pasture by the river.

The heron was nowhere to be seen as I crossed the bridge but across the river I got a shot of the upper porch of the old house that was the inspiration for the house in the opening of In a Dark Season.

"The brown skeletons of the kudzu that draped the walls and chimneys rustled in a dry undertone, the once lush vines shrivelled to a delicate netting that meshed the peeling clapboards and spider-webbed the cracked and cloudy windowpanes."

Now imagine a black-clad figure holding to one of those posts -- imagine it's winter and an icy wind is whipping her black hair across her face and she's getting ready to jump . . .

But I digress -- back to here and now and the telephoto. A little ways on, far across a field, deer were browsing. I stopped the car and took this one's picture from the window.

I do know that for lots of folks, deer and Canada geese are just a step or two removed from rats, as far as being pests. But I still get a thrill at seeing them. (Re rats, I personally think of them as bare-tailed squirrels -- though, like squirrels, I prefer that they stay outside.)