Weather at the Pond. Happy Sunday!

Yesterday afternoon I took my electric scooter out, even though, at a casual glance, my weather app said there was a 67% chance of thundershowers. The great thing about weather apps, to me, is that you have access to real time radar maps of your area. At the click of an icon you can check the area to the west (at least here in New England it is the west, though certain seasons you do have to have an eye to the south) to see what weather is, or is not, coming. When I looked at the map, I could see storms well to the south of us, and tracking east out to sea, but nothing to the west…so I headed out, and had a good 3 pond photoprowl. And all under spectacular storm skies. And yes, I got home safe and dry.

This is the little pond where I am doing a lot of my dragon and damselfly hunting these days. As you see it is really drainage for a small industrial complex, now converted to a health care center. Health care is a major industry in Kennebunk. We have probably a dozen large residential care centers, three pharmacies, and two major medical outliers (mini hospitals) from larger full-service facilities in the area. And that is not counting all the physicians who are in practice on their own. Now if you live in a city you are probably thinking “ha, that’s nothing” but Kennebunk is a small town of 11,000 souls. We have become, somehow, an assisted living retirement destination. Go figure? (Actually the whole southern coast of Maine is hopping with residential centers…I have never lived anywhere where there were so many.)

That is not, of course, why we moved here…but, maybe because I turned 65 this week, it is more apparent to me now than it was when we got here 17 years ago.

But back to the image. I just like the intense sky and the empty parking lot…and the way the sky and trees reflect in the water. For me the shot has a lot of quiet tension…it should be pretty static…restful…calm…but that sky just keeps pulling the emotions in other directions.

Technically the scene was underexposed to catch all the detail in the sky. Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1EV exposure compensation. 24mm equivalent field of view. f5.6 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 160. I brought up the shadows (basically the whole foreground back to the building) using the selective exposure controls in Lightroom, and then added a final Graduated Filter effect from bottom to top to increase the brightness of the foreground for a more natural look. I think it works.

And for the Sunday thought. Lots of places to go here. At 65 I have to kind of, sort of, wish there were a life-weather app that would give me real-time radar of the life-storms that are, or are not, moving in from the west.

I also got my disappointingly small pension packet from the limited time I was in the pension system at my most recent employer (before they closed the system and went to mandatory 401ks), and had the inevitable discussion with my boss about when I was planning on retiring and what that means for my work, and the nature of my job, over the next few years. A kind of “lets get everything we can out of you while we phase you out” talk. Heady stuff. Stormy stuff if you let it get to you.

And I am feeling much like this image. There is a quiet, almost a calm, certainly a beauty…but an undeniable tension. I am not anticipating storms, but I can not deny the possibility. And yet, at my best, I would not have it any other way. I have lived my life by faith…never building barns (pension plans), as it is in Jesus’ parable…and, life-weather app or no, I know who has my hours and my days and all my years in hand. I will go on as I have gone. And I will, where ever I encounter it, celebrate the beautiful tension of living in this world.

And yes, I fully expect to get home, if not completely dry, at least completely safe!

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