Featured Photograph 6/16/2007

If some of my photographs are more favorite than others, this is the favorite. It is hanging in my grandson’s room. It was sent as a donation to a silent auction for a co-worker whose son was critically injured in a canoeing accident. It probably will be one of my first editions to sell out. It says serenity and peace to me. And it is of one of my favorite animals, the cat, the panther.

Unfortunately it is not a Florida panther. Florida panthers are very rare and very endangered. It is also, unlike the majority of my photographs, a captive panther.

Her name was Sheaba. She went to live at Grandfather Mountain after she grew too large and too wild to be someone’s pet. She was graceful and she was beautiful and she has now passed on to a better world. I just discovered this while doing some research for this blog and so I don’t think I’ll write anything else today.

http://www.grandfather.com/about/archive/sheaba.php

The phone rang at 10:30PM. The caller-id number was 999-999-9999. That’s a new one, better answer that. So began my first experience with a reverse 911 call. My husband picked up the phone and then turned on the speaker in time for me to hear – “at this time there is no need for further evacuation but we urge people in the area to prepare for the possibility.” A brush fire has come close.

One thing I’ve found about moving to Florida is that it puts you into real contact with nature. Back when I lived in northern Virginia (basically Washington D.C.) I had the opportunity to visit Kansas. I was talking to a person there about tornados and why exactly one would live in Kansas and he said “I guess every area of the country has its weather issues, what do you have in D.C?” Uhmmm, traffic? Seriously, traffic is really bad in D.C. and every once in a while we would get a snowstorm that would paralyze the city for a few days and cause people with bald tires to think they had 4-wheel drive, but for the most part, weather isn’t really all that noticeable there.

But it is noticeable here. Today, Barry the tropical storm has come to visit. The fires are out.