I want to do things that I did when I was sixteen.  I would spend hours walking in the woods, in any season.  I carried a Mars Chocolate Bar in one pocket, my hunting knife on my belt, my 22 rifle in my hand, and a box of 50 shells in the other pocket.  Hours later I would show up at home, always before dark, to avoid having to give an account of why I was “late” to my Dad. 

That was fifty-five years ago.  Everything has changed a great deal.  In the imagination of my mind, I am still sixteen.  I do not have the fit body or the state of health of my sixteen year old self.   Hours of hiking on a Mars bar is out of the question.  My mind remembers well enough, and the desire remains.  But the body suffers the wrack of time.  There is no question that I am a “standard issue” human being, no exception to the abrasion of time’s passage.

I wanted to follow the path alongside the Fox River, passing through the woods, rendered in winter splendor by a recent light snowfall.  The walk is about a half mile in length to downtown Batavia, and the Village Hall.  At 8AM the solitude of walking alone in silence was sublime.  My purpose was to pay close attention to the partially iced over river, and the snow covered oaks alongside the trail.

I carried my camera, a tool that is designed for paying attention.  A camera is something of a time bandit, freezing a sliver of time, stopping change, by light impinged upon a photosensitive cell, translated into an image written on this screen.  My camera is better at “paying attention” than I can manage with my mind.  My mind attempts to make sense of everything, and the multitasking of that much data processing, — means that my mind jitters, poorly paying attention.  The camera lens, by contrast faithfully reveals what it sees.

Here are some of the photos that I captured.  The big old oaks close to the river are stark and dark, branches laced with a thin covering of white snow.  The Fox river has a coating of skim ice, a channel of open water flowing toward the dam.  I walked alone until seeing two cardinals, male and female to the side of the path above me. 

Reaching town, I walked toward the Village Hall and the Peace Bridge.  Batavia was known for it’s windmill manufacturing in the late 1800s, and early 20th century.  Ranches out west and the railroads used the windmills to pump well water for thirsty cattle, and thirsty steam engines.  The Model E on display was the epitome of windmill design.  The Model E was manufactured by the US Wind Engine and Pump Company of Batavia.  It was invented by Reverend Leonard Wheeler of Beloit Wisconsin in 1867.

I walked for a ways on the Peace Bridge, and noticed some mallard ducks below swimming in the swift moving current.  I took a photograph with lens fully extended, of a single duck.  At the same instant the water bird with a fury of wings and spray lifted from the surface of the water.  The right moment is always a stroke of luck.  Life is, in the main about luck, is it not?

The return walk along the path was accomplished in about thirty minutes as well. 

Enjoy the photos!