fiction friday – sit here, beside me

Posted on by Tim McMurdo

Sit here, next to Me

  

Sit here beside me. In this chair. Talk to me. Tell me that things will get better than they are now. I am so tired and I need to become lost in dreams.

Tell me about the ocean. Is it true that you can see for miles and not see anything but water? Can we sail across the ocean and visit foreign places? I want to hear French and Italian. I want to eat with fancy forks and taste fancy food.

Tell me about our children. What will we name them? How many will we have? I want our girls to look just like you, but I want them to have grandma’s red hair. Those girls will be pistols.

I am tired, so sit and talk to me. Hold my hand and we can dream together.

 

friday fiction – smokehouse

Posted on by Tim McMurdo

https://www.flickr.com/photos/timmcmurdo/9543105962/player/

 

 

T’aint nuthin wrong with smokehouse bacon. Thas the truth. This‘d be a far worse a place witout it.

Sunday beans n cold biskits’d suffer mightily if’n we runned out.

Ah likes me some smokehouse bacon n so does my dawg n that mangy cat too.

Them hogs? Oh lordy, thas rich! Ah don’t magine they’s so keen bout smokehouse bacon.

 

fiction friday: waiting for the 3:14

Posted on by Tim McMurdo

Waiting for the Train

 

Detroit. I can see the question forming on your face, long before it reaches your lips. I am going to Detroit. I will be on the 3:14 with a one way ticket in first class. I am going in grand style because this will be my final trip, my last adventure. 

No, Detroit doesn’t sound very exciting. It’s a city that is slowly dying a cancerous death and that is appropriate because Detroit and I will reach that destination together. However, Detroit is not important, it’s the long ride over the rails that is the real adventure.

Yes, there is an interesting story behind my trip. I’d be happy to tell it to you. Meet me in the saloon car at 4:00 and I will buy you a whiskey. We’ll smoke a cigar, you can hear the tale and we can pass a few hours in good company.

 

 

winter of my discontent

Posted on by Tim McMurdo

Steamed Up

 

Packed in the barn for the winter, these ewes and their lambs live in a sort of dim twilight. Light but not light. Warmer but not warm. I feel as though I have something in common with the sheep. I am tired of the winter. I am tired of being packed inside. I am tired of not being warm, even in my own home. I am tired of the damp. I am tired of the wind. I am tired of the dark. I am tired of the ice and snow.

 

I am tired.

 

winter farms

Posted on by Tim McMurdo
Winter barn

 

 

 

The weather has been horrendous here in Ohio. This is the winter that just won’t quit. We’ve long been into record breaking cold and snow territories. Grey skies are the norm and those of us that suffer from the winter blues have been struggling.

Fotununately, this past Saturday was one of the rare clear days. The blue skies were gorgeous. The sun made the freezing temperatures feel bearable, if just for a single day.

I couldn’t resist the temptation to go for a nice long drive deep into the farm country. Mile after mile of snow covered fields were punctuated with the occasional barn or farm house. With every passing minute, I could feel my own grey mood lifting and by the end of the long drive, I felt recharged. I’m good for a few more weeks of winter.

 

lake lines

Posted on by Tim McMurdo

Last weekend, was a cold foggy one. My usual walk at the lake was not in the east bit comfortable. Still, it was beautiful in its own right. As I walked along the ridge overlooking the beach, I saw this scene:

 

DSC03113

 

What caught my eye was the way the tree broke the parallel lines of the beach. However, when I began processing the image, I was pretty dissatisfied. The lines were not as parallel as I had thought. There was ice floating in the water that was distracting. So I gave the problem some thought and opened up Photoshop.

 

DSC03113 PP 3

  

The first step was to re-crop the image to provide some better balance and focus on the tree. I then straightened the shorelines and removed the distracting ice. Finally, I straighened the tree line and applied some basic adjustments.

Sometimes our images need a little help to get them to be what we envisioned when we snapped the shot. Is it cheating? Is putting makeup on a pretty woman cheating?