(mid-September 2021)
Over the summer I heard that Kodak had started making Super 8 motion picture film again. This news inspired me to have my student film, which was shot on Super 8, digitized. And so I dug around the attic until I found the tin and blew off the dust before taking it to a digitization studio a nice bike ride away.
But he gave my screenwriting a D- or a D--. And deservedly so. The movie is about the internal struggles of a young man but they're never identified. The generic trials and tribulations of young adulthood, I guess. It seems that I had been watching a lot of Akira Kurosawa films at the time because I put a sword fight into the story.
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On Labor Day
I got up early and was out the door and on my bike before the dawn. The sun peeked over the horizon as I cruised down the bike path. It was about 50 degrees out so I was wearing a
long-sleeved shirt for the first time in months and it felt a bit odd. My ride
would take me east to Cottage Grove, a town of 7,000 people or thereabouts, albeit circuitously. I
found the route at the website of a local bicycle manufacturer but tweaked it
so that I started and ended at my house instead of the company's store out in
Mall Wasteland on the northeast side of town. Total distance would be somewhere in the
20-25 mile range.
As I made my way southeast, the landscape changed from urban to suburban to rural. The countryside was foggy and the mist was especially thick in the low-lying areas which made for some picturesque scenes.
I rode by
several stables and saw many horses.
Seeing them brought the song "Heavy Horses" by Jethro Tull to mind.
As the sun
crept farther up the sky, I was able to get more nice photographs of the foggy
landscape but with a more refulgent feel including this one where I made use of shade not unlike my movie. Look at that chiaroscuro! This photo reminds me of Days of Heaven. NĂ©stor Almendros and Terrence Malik would be proud.
Less than a quarter mile down the road I looked up a long driveway and spied a couple more of them heading away from me. At the top of a small hill in the distance there were even more. There must have been 6-8 of them just casually making their way to a stand of trees at the edge of a field. (A genuine muster!) I've never seen more than 1 peafowl at a time so this was pretty exciting stuff. A farm cat appeared on the top of the hill and it lazily approached the group which was growing as a few more trickled in from the field of what I think was soybeans to see what all the hubbub was about. None of them had large tails but I am unsure if this was because they were all peahens or if peacocks shed their tails after mating season.
This being America's Dairyland, of course I saw oodles and oodles of cows on my ride including this bull who got a bit antsy with the human.
While I am
on the subject of things country folk do to city folk, I want to note that more
than one person gave me the BS hunting story that goes something like this:
They run out
of ammo or their shotgun is otherwise put out of commission so they climb a
tree with their knife at the ready should a deer walk underneath it. Then, in what must have been the worst bit of luck ever, they lose their knife just as the biggest buck they've ever seen walks below them.
In an act of manliness worthy of Ernest Hemingway himself (or desperation), they drop down on top of the
unsuspecting beast and kill it with their bare hands.
Now that fall is right around the corner, the animal landscape will be changing soon. Heck, it probably is already. All of the herons I've seen on my walks and bike rides will be leaving soon. As will those hummingbirds that never bothered to come to my feeder despite me filling it with premium nectar! Blue jays and cardinals stick around during the winter as do rabbits, mice, and opossums. I will have to look into this further and perhaps make an effort to see more wildlife this winter.
One last
photograph from the ride.
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Bonus photo! One recent evening I went to a local restaurant and put in an order. Since it would be 20+ minutes before it was ready, I decided to stroll the neighborhood. Before long I discovered that the sidewalk on a nearby street had various quotes on the pavement, including this one. How ironic to pave over the land and then stamp the words of Aldo Leopold on it.
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