What creatures dwell within that place where humans fear to tread, that lightless world brushed in shades of darkness?  What life calls the shadow realm home?

What fate awaits the hapless wanderer who unwittingly seeks shelter within the embrace of shadows?

What birth cares not for the light—fears it even—and wishes for naught save the confines of night wherein it finds all need and all want satiated?

What behemoth of diurnal adulthood springs forth in gloom to unwrap the clothing of childhood so that it might don the skin of the elders?

What flightless flier shields its childhood upon the underbelly of leaves and inside the grasp of sunless vegetation?

What mother-to-be satisfies her hunger and plans her children’s future in that place where no light shall ever fall?

What predator seeks shelter amongst the dense cover of trees while still mastering the hunt lying before it?

What whole being finds itself birthed, matured, given to offspring and caught by death all within the place defined by sunup to sundown, a total life spent in fear of the world of days and longing for the world of nights?

What tiny animal, one no larger than my thumbnail, peruses the unwritten future and exists within the pressing now by succumbing to nocturnal demands that keep it hidden from eyes that cannot see in the dark?

What large insect scampers diligently in a world devoid of illumination whilst simultaneously facing the dawn with utmost bravery and determination?

We—we humans—are creatures of light, diurnal monsters upon the face of a planet made of perpetual change, one given to fits of brightness so profound as to be blinding and fits of darkness so deep as to be swallowers of whole worlds.

Inhabitants of the shadow realm know not the world we know, and few of them dare invade it, yet equally we of the world of light can never understand that which comes in the darkness, that which feeds on the dim surface of another planet, one both alien and familiar.

Our senses cannot take us there, cannot protect us in that place.

I wonder how much living we fail to notice, fail to understand, simply because we do not possess the faculties to invade that space.

— — — — — — — — — —

Photos:

[1] A female green anole (Anolis carolinensis) hunting amongst the branches of verdant shrubs.

[2] A mushroom (unidentified) that joined its brethren in a one-day grow-a-thon outside my patio when days of rain finally gave way to calmer weather.

[3] The exuva of a cicada (unidentified) found clinging to a leaf.  Amazing that such a creature found sufficient leverage on the flimsy support of a single leaf…

[4] A southern flannel moth caterpillar (a.k.a. pussy moth, Bolivia bug, puss caterpillar or asp; Megalopyge opercularis) making its way from the upper branches of my photinia bushes to the safety of shade within the dense foliage.

[5] A young female black & yellow argiope (a.k.a yellow garden spider; Argiope aurantia) who has taken up residence on the ceiling of the pigpen at the family farm.  It’s quite easy to put one’s head right up against her web, if not against her directly, so be warned when stepping inside the pigpen: keep your head down unless you know what’s above you.

[6] A yellow-crowned night-heron (Nyctanassa violacea) perched in the treetops as I passed beneath.

[7] A mushroom (unidentified) with a drop of dew resting between it and a blade of grass.

[8] A juvenile toad (Bufo valliceps or Bufo nebulifer) crossing the path in front of me.  It stopped when I stopped, and there we both stayed for a wee bit of time as I just looked at it, appreciated it for its youthful beauty.

[9] A black carpenter ant (Camponotus pennsylvanicus) milling about on the surface of its nest hidden within the trunk of a tree.  Watching these large insects is quite fun, especially considering how clumsy they are on their own buildings.

I finished the preliminary redesign of xenogere unseen.  Much work remains as I have only completed the image migration for a tiny fraction of the pictures.

As for the design, I’ll tinker with it a bit more as I continue refining it, but overall I’m quite happy with it.

I wanted to keep it simple, to make the photo the center of the page and the main focus of attention.

As for the overall “Polaroid” look of the theme, I rather like the idea and believe it appropriate for the purpose of the site.  Some will undoubtedly disagree.

That said, the new approach to the photoblog gives me a lot more versatility in modifying or changing the theme.  I already have other designs I’m working on that could eventually go into production, but for now I think I’m happy with the way things are.

One thing this update offers is the ability of users to see the photos in all feed readers.  I hope that comes as a welcome change.

As for the overall photo migration to SmugMug from Zooomr and Flickr, this exercise with xenogere unseen has taught me it will take longer than anticipated.  While I hadn’t planned on doing such a thing, I’ve found it behooves me to reprocess all photos as I transition them.  This increases the quality and corrects some problems I hadn’t the time or expertise to correct along the way.

As I’ve gotten better with photography and the back-end processing of images, I’ve learned things that can improve many of the photos—not the least of which is removing the lossy compression I put into all of them as a security measure and means to keep my bandwidth consumption lower than it otherwise would have been.

But at least I’m on my way.  Once all the photoblog entries have been transitioned and updated, I’ll begin the migration from other hosting services to SmugMug.

Meanwhile, new photos should demonstrate better quality now that I’ve stopped degrading them both intentionally and unintentionally.

With the major work out of the way on xenogere unseen and the tedious effort stretched out ahead of me, hopefully now I can return to somewhat normal content and a regular posting schedule here.

After realizing I needed to revamp my photoblog, xenogere unseen, I promptly found several new ways to approach the site.

Unfortunately, they all require a major revamping of the architecture.

This doesn’t mean any posts or comments will be lost.  However, it does mean the site will be essentially crippled while I make the transition.

Once I implement the new theme and presentation system, all existing posts will be blank save the existing title, content and feedback data.  The images will be lost, though, and I can’t help that.

It’s only temporary.

One by one each entry will be updated for the new system, after which the pictures will show up fine.

Remember this if you run over there and see a big ol’ mess.  The disarray is temporary, and I promise to do my best to get everything restored as quickly as humanly possible.

I awoke just before the clock showed four in the morning.  Sounds of feline mischief beside the bed drew me from slumber.

In that place of being awake enough to hear and see without being so awake that I might as well get up and start my day, I rolled over and looked for the troublemakers.

Grendel and Kazon both sat intently beside the bed.  Grendel appeared to be leading the effort to subdue a shoelace that dangled tauntingly from where I carelessly had tossed some work boots the night before.

I reached down and gently pushed Grendel’s paw away and said something akin to “Please stop doing that.”

Without thinking about it, I grabbed the shoelace, curled it in my hand, then pushed it down into the boot so it could no longer vex The Kids—or my sleep.

But the shoelace had not been the problem.

While I tucked the suspected toy down as far as it would go, something climbed out of the boot and onto my hand.  Perhaps not so much climbed as scampered, skittered even.  And up my arm it came.

Before I could react, it circled back down my arm and around my wrist before climbing down the other side back to the floor, but behind my arm where the resident predators couldn’t reach it.

Needless to say I quickly left that semi-awake/semi-asleep place where I had been, quickly rushed forward to fully aware, and I bounced out of bed with—well, let’s be honest here—I leapt out of bed with a rather unmanly squeal.

It had been large, that much I knew, something moving too quickly to recognize by touch alone yet all too familiar in the worst possible way.  I knew it was a large roach or, as we call them here in the south, a Palmetto bug.

Behemoths no matter how you define the word, these “water bugs” easily reach the size of small cars—like the Lincoln Navigator or Cadillac Escalade.  They can be saddled and ridden cross-country alongside other beasts of burden.  They can stand as tall as a professional basketball player and be as strong as an eighteen-wheeler.

And they fly.

Did I mention they fly?  Not very well, I know, and that’s worse than if they could fly like Air Force fighter pilots.

I turned on the bedroom lights and cranked them up as high as they would go.  The room filled with harsh brightness that caused me to squint.

And thereby lose track of the invader.

But Grendel and Kazon hadn’t lost track of it.  They both had moved down the length of the bed where they stood staring with killer intent.

They stood staring at a pile of laundry.

Damn it!  Can this get any worse?

Unless pushed from its hiding place, the ghoulish creature would have remained hidden, only to creep out into the darkness once I had gone back to bed.

Assuming I’d even get in the bed knowing a demon of ungodly proportions still lurked around that very spot where I would entrust myself to sleep.

So I set about carefully picking through the clothes hoping to roust the devil from its lair.  All the while Kazon and Grendel circled, pawed, watched intently.

When I dislodged a shirt and held it up for a quick shake—in case the doggone villain was trying to hitch a ride out of danger—it rattled loose and flew by my head like a giant projectile weapon forged from disgust.

I leapt.  And it’s possible a wee bit of a scream escaped my lips as I tumbled backward trying to escape.

Yet Grendel immediately jumped into the hullaballoo and came to my rescue.  He had seen where the roach landed.  He masterfully pinned it to the carpet with a strategic placement of his paw.

I reached over, lightly pressed down on his leg and whispered, “Keep it there, Grendel, and don’t let it get away.”  With my other hand I groped behind me until I set my fingers upon the very boot from which the fiend had attacked me.

Boot in hand, fully cocked and loaded, I caressed Grendel out of position long enough for him to lift his foot from the ogre’s back.

And I walloped the bastard several times until all it could do was flinch its legs and try to look peaceful, as though I would fall for such a ruse.

I happily ignored entreaties from The Kids begging me to let them have the toy, let them play with it until it broke.  No such thing was going to happen.

A bit of tissue to protect me from the toxic freak accompanied it into the toilet where it quickly swirled its way into oblivion.

And I was left completely awake, not in any way interested in going back to bed or being in the dark, so I ultimately resigned myself to my fate of being up at four in the morning on a day when I would have to work until ten at night.

I still don’t know if I can go back in the bedroom, let alone sleep in there.  I feel quite certain the leviathan had friends who may well think it their job to avenge its death.

I began this post with a bit of humor…

But then I looked at these images and pondered Kako’s disposition.

And then I began remembering precisely why her proclivity for lying on the back of the couch and facing away from everyone else in the room made for an uproarious laughter-fest.

It was Derek who first pointed out this preternatural tendency to demonstrate profound disdain.  As I reviewed these images, I laughed until I cried, and then I cried because I wanted so much for him to see these pictures, to appreciate that Kako remains disgusted by intrusions upon her time, that she still sleeps facing the wall in undeniable revulsion at those why might stare, might rest their prying eyes upon her dainty figure.

She so enjoys this declaration of importance: that she would rather face the wall and rest her eyes upon its stoic, unchanging form than to have to look upon the repulsive faces of us insignificant beings.

My photoblog, xenogere unseen, will be undergoing dramatic changes over the next day or two.

The justifications are simple.

(1) Can you think of a reason I should use a photoblog setup with which I host my own photos whilst simultaneously I pay for image hosting at SmugMug?  Nope?  Me neither.  Truth be told, I have far more versatility with SmugMug than any other picture-hosting service, yet I fail to take advantage of that with the present configuration at xenogere unseen.  Making these changes will enable me to more fully utilize SmugMug for all my photos instead of just those seen here.

(2) I’m capricious.  I probably mentioned that before.  The xenogere unseen presentation (theme) has grown tiresome for me, so it’s time for a change.  That requires more significant work than it would here since the architecture at my photoblog hinges directly on the theme and hosting system used for pictures.

Oh well.

Needless to say, you should expect some issues while I make changes there as part of this rebirth.

Darkness shrouded the eastern horizon, the faintest hint of sunshine still well below the landscape.  I ventured out into a new day after saying my goodbyes to The Kids.  We would not share time together this day for my journey had just begun.

Supplies neatly packed into the car, my camera and bag set in the passenger seat within easy reach, I backed out of the garage and drove into the predawn hours.

Interstate 20 runs through Texas like an east-west artery carrying all manner of traffic right through the heart of the DFW metroplex.  The highway would be my primary landmark for three hours during my trip to the family farm.

Settled comfortably into the car with coffee in hand, I let the sound of Annie Lennox serenade me into deep places of thought and emotion, places sometimes shadowy and sometimes brightly lit.  Her poetic, sentimental voice brushed my cheek gently with each chorus, each verse, and I let her lead the way even as the Lexus practically drove itself on our familiar course eastward.

When finally almost an hour later the sun began spilling into the sky, it clashed ominously with thunderstorms forming in my path.

Crepuscular rays pierced the clouds where they could not hold back the sunshine.  In my reverie I could not help but notice the profound beauty of the scene, so I made my way off the interstate to the service road where I could stop long enough to drink from this magnificent cup.

The storms seemed intent on robbing from the sun every opportunity to shine, and all too soon the horizon turned dark behind towering shadows.  Disappointed yet satiated all the same, I returned to the confines of the vehicle and rejoined the tide of automobiles pouring eastward toward the storms.

Yet our warm star had not completed its attempts to penetrate the growing tempests, to pierce through the dark blanket with swords of light.

I felt drawn in even as I drove, eventually holding the camera out the window to capture the scene as best I could.  I knew it would vanish before I could pull over and stop, something it had already done to me twice after my first pause.

Only ten minutes passed betwixt those images, only ten minutes for the sky to change over and over and over again.  I knew the storms grew rapidly, violently rending control of the sky from both the night and the day.  And I drove right toward them.

Twenty minutes later brought the first rain of the morning, a powerful yet small storm that slowed traffic and captured my attention with celestial grandeur befitting a god.  What stunning designs it painted!

Again I eased off the road and parked behind a truck resting through the show.  I fought to protect the camera from the driving rain as I attempted to steal from this magic a bit of its glory.

Looking in all directions made me realize the wonder I felt could never be appreciated except by those in the moment with me, those capable early that morning of taking in the whole of the scene with their own eyes.  Only from horizon to horizon did the storm’s arresting potency become manifest.

It was the first of three such storms through which I drove that morning whilst making my way from Dallas’s urban core to the majestic silence of East Texas’s Piney Woods.  It was the first of three artists drawing patterns in the sky.

Now you see it…

…now you don’t.

I can’t begin to express how real my walk became Sunday, how personal, how divine.  For now at least that’s one story that shall remain untold.

But for hours before it changed so magically, I trotted about White Rock Lake as though I had no other care save one: to enjoy the morning in surroundings that become discovery at every turn.

Unending rain failed to dissuade me from mindless meandering.  Mud be damned! I thought (although much later when tediously washing my shoes for the umpteenth time, I began to wonder precisely how wise my flippant mindset had been).

Little caught my eye that I hadn’t photographed a thousand times before.  Flowers here, insects there, all manner of birds rushing to and fro.

The partly cloudy skies did little to improve my mood.  As I’ve always said, such days make photography difficult when the clouds create a painfully dynamic situation where a photo is painstakingly setup to perfection only to have a drastic lighting and color change when the push of the button is already mentally committed.

Nevertheless, I wallowed in luxurious nature while trying to ignore the anthropocentric hoopla.

Lush vegetation captivated me as I made my way along the edge of the woodlands along the flanks of Dixon Branch.

Watching crows battle a hawk—at least until the juvenile’s parents showed up—made for better entertainment than any television program or movie.

Bathing my senses in what heavy rains had created offered diversions aplenty…even if a bit usual.

Then behind thicket standing taller than my own head I spied a large insect buzzing about, flitting from spot to spot without landing.  I had no clear view of it of course, and shorts with a tee shirt made infiltrating the brush a daunting and unwise task.

But how I wanted to capture a photograph of the beast.

So I held the camera above my head and swiveled the LCD screen so I could see what I was aiming at.  Then I waited.

Finally landing upon a half-eaten leaf, I zoomed in on the creature and captured the first image, one setup for cloudy weather and snapped just in time for the sun to make an appearance.

Drat!

I quickly fiddled with the camera to change the options for sunlight, held the soul stealer above my head once again, and tried desperately to find my mark.

There it was right where I left it, on the same leaf in the same position doing the same thing: waiting for breakfast to fly by.

Clouds heavy with moisture provided a modest yet safe opening through which sunshine poured onto the scene, a space large enough to ensure the image would not be ruined by unwelcome changes in illumination.

Although too far away to see it even through brush pushed apart gently, the camera’s zoom brought the massive monster right to my eyes, right in front of my face—relatively speaking, that is, considering I held the camera at arm’s length above my head just to see over the verdant obstacles.

Despite wind that had ruined several images by moving my subjects about randomly at the moment I pressed the button, this target hid in a small opening protected by lush vegetation on all sides, including an impenetrable treeline standing tall against the backdrop of a creek I could no longer see.

I pointed.  I focused.  I centered on the object of my attention.  Then I pulled the trigger.

Just in time to see the second photo.

The doggoned fly dashed into the air in that split-second between mental command and physical obedience.  My mind already had captured a stunning, detailed close-up of it.  My fingers had yet to make that a reality.

And it was gone, off chasing some potential breakfast into the woods and out of sight.

Damn you, you cursed bugger!

Had I not been restrained by my own sense of superior decorum, an unsightly foofaraw would have unfolded right there for the world to see, a tantrum of explosive disappointment and undirected irritation.

But I have my reputation to uphold, one of being better than everyone else, so I waited until I returned home before sending The Kids into rattled annoyance as I blathered ad nauseam about the one that got away.

[photo is of a female giant robber fly (Promachus hinei)]

I admitted to my parents during my recent visit that, aside from images appearing on xenogere unseen, I intentionally degrade the quality of photos posted on my blog.

The reason seemed justifiable: Disable the ability of anyone save me to utilize the pictures for anything, including printing.

But I realize now that I can still do that without causing the more significant loss in quality that stems from compressing them as well (something that long ago became habit when I hosted all of my own photos and videos).

While I doubt I’ll go back and update all previous images, I can say without hesitation that I will no longer devastate presentation quality in the name of copyright enforcement and cost savings.  It’s unnecessary.

Also, please pardon my lack of activity over the past several days.  As I told Jenny today at work, I started a project of updating and patching all of my home computers.

That became drastically complicated.  Before I knew it, all of the computers found themselves in a constant state of installing and rebooting, followed by more of the same, and not just for OS and application patching.  It became a quest to update, replace, reconfigure and manhandle just about everything I set my eyes upon.

Oops.

I haven’t a thing to say or share.

Rather, I have plenty to say and plenty to share, but I’ve been working all weekend and have little energy remaining.

For now, what I’m capable of belongs to The Kids and those chores I can address.