What? You DON'T have Bald Eagles in your backyard?

New roadkill so you know what that means. I actually got some decent shots of this guy in flight. Too bad the lighting was yucky and the background means the wings blend into the photo.

Some photos from December

December was busy, it started off with me house sitting while very sick with a major sinus infection/head cold... to then working literally every day through till Christmas. I don't know how people with 2 or more jobs do it. Holy cow, it kicked my butt. I had very little time to go out for pictures, or get ready for Christmas. December is normally one of my favorite times of the year, but retail quickly kills that spirit for me. I want to be able to savor the season... I knew I was going to have issues, but adding in Church commitments (that once again I took on too much and I got criticized for it) and then a second job just threw me over the edge.

Still I had a few opportunities to break out the camera - we got another road kill a week or so before Christmas, and dad threw the bones out into the backyard for the ravens and magpies to feast on... and just like this past spring, an Eagle showed up. It was definitely a different bird from the last time as this one was skittish and once I took his picture he hasn't been back. Bummer! They're such awesome creatures. I managed to snap a few photos before he flew away. Not as many as the ones that came last time, but a few.

Then, the Sunday before Christmas I was able to go out onto the Kenai River to shoot some Engagement/Family photos for a former coworker of mine and her fiance. SO much fun! I have definitely missed shooting. Hopefully I get to do more of it now that most of my day/evening isn't eaten up by going to work in Soldotna!

I managed to snap a few of the area I was shooting that day, too... I LOVE the Kenai River in every season.

Enjoy the photos.

There are more under the cut, as always...

Mature bald eagle photos

We've had that Juvenile Bald Eagle visit the bone pile all week. It's been pretty neat to see, though he was getting annoyed with the attention and flying off more and more. Last night we were surprised to find a mature eagle on the bones. Looks like Jr. decided he needed his parental unit to keep us from bugging him.

Joke was on him, though, because we brought out the cameras again to get some captures of the beautiful mature bald eagle. Here are just a few (I may have taken over 100. Yeah, not sorry.) of the photos I took while he ripped into the carrion.

Juvenile Bald Eagle photos

Here in Alaska when a moose gets hit by a car (or hits a car) and dies or has to be put down, the Alaska State Troopers have a list of people to call offering the meat. All the person on the list has to do is butcher and package the moose.

My dad gets the call for their church so that people who are unable to do the butchering can still get the meat. He got a call on Saturday night (during his and mom's Valentine's Day Date) that a moose had been hit and killed and that they'd be dropping it off at our house.

So all this weekend was about blood and meat and bones... and the bones are now sitting out in the backyard to let the birds pick them clean. Normally that means magpies and ravens but yesterday....

 But instead this guy showed up. He is an immature (juvenille) bald Eagle. I don't think I've ever seen one in our backyard munching on moose bones before. They normally perch in a tree or just fly over (did that a lot when Yuka and Lulu were puppies...) but this guy spent all afternoon ripping left over flesh off of a moose's backbone.

I've got the blahs...

I don't know if it's work - which is a job, not a passion... yet again - or the living situation drama, or the hermit lifestyle I've led these last six years or so... but I just have been in this set pattern of blahs. Aside from vacations to Disney... and the Iditarod... I really haven't had much to look forward to or get excited about. It's frustrating, but at the same time I'm just not enthusiastic about changing the situation either. It could be laziness, or maybe I just don't give a real care to change. I look around me and all of these people are so much better at what we do, have these amazing families - which yes I know have their own trials, tribulations and moments of discontentedness - and I can't help but feel like I'm still stuck where I was in 2003, the only difference is back then I had a whole world of possibilities... now, nothing. I'm in that rut, I've gone back to the one place I promised myself I wouldn't go. And I'm just. UGH!

I don't understand why I am this way. I don't understand why I can't take the bull by the horns. Why I can't seem to even make a sale in my job or with photography! I just feel very inept. I have Two Years before I'm old enough to attend a high school reunion but what will I have to show for it? I'll be the loser on the corner. And not even a good kind of loser.


So, yeah, I have the blahs. And I'm tired of people saying "look on the bright side" quoting a Bible verse or saying "it'll get better" and then tell me their lifestory. Because, honestly, I don't care. I don't want a comforting word. I don't want a "pick me up." I just want to vent, and when I vent I don't want someone to answer back. I just want to scream and hear the lonely echo. So let me do that.

and, yes, this was taken right outside my door. Gonna miss this sight.

And so this post isn't a total loss, let me add a photo.