By Callie Shell Be sure to click on the “show more images” link at the bottom of each page.

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0810/callie-bp.html

Reenadina Yew Wood ~ Killarney National Forest ~ Co. Kerry, Ireland

I just noticed, on my post editing interface I can insert photographs from Flickr.com — this is not a function on wordpress.com, so it is probably connected with a plugin I installed a long time ago and recently upgraded.

This is a photo of a stand of yew trees in one of the only ancient yew forests left in Europe. It is located within Killarney National Park and is one of the places I insisted on visiting. The magic you feel while surrounded by gnarled yews on mossy hills is very strong. Even folks who don’t believe in fairies come away with a little more understanding of the folks who do.

I follow a photoblog of a fellow who lives in the town where I grew up. I don’t know him, but he’s a remarkable photographer and always has an interesting thing or two to say. He is giving away autumn leaves in honor of the new season. I grabbed mine. You can too. Click on the image and you can pick up your own code for your blog.

Click the image for a larger view.

David is my brother-in-law. He’s been a farmer since he was a child, first helping his father as a dairy farmer, later as a corn and wheat farmer with his twin brothers. It won’t be long now, before the land he and his brothers farm outside Elgin, Illinois becomes million-dollar homes, fancy shops and expensive cafes. Though David is past retirement age, farming is all he knows. Soon there will be no cattle to feed, corn to plant or harvest, or hay and straw to bale. David’s days of taking a break near the barn are numbered.

I’ve been (slowly) scanning old photographs from my mother and uploading them to flickr. Mom knows I’m doing this and when I first started doing it about two years ago, gave me the photographs. This time, however, I just took a large bagful. Some are of people and events that don’t mean anything to me, and they are not old enough for me to care about. But some tell a story.

Today I found a photograph of my mother when she was about the same age as my daughter. The back of the photograph tells the whole story. She must have sent it to my father when he was in the Navy.

When my mom was 15 or 16 her mother or father suggested she write to a sailor whose brother-in-law they knew from the Moose. She did and I guess, fell in love pretty quickly. Well, who wouldn’t? Dad was a handsome and charming man. They wrote back and forth (mom still has her letters from Dad but he threw hers away) while he was overseas and met up when he was back on leave.

They married when she was 18 and he was 26 - eight years difference between the two.

My daughter is 15 years old. If I knew she would meet a 25 year old next year and marry him in three years, I think I’d send her to a convent.

Old photographs are fun to look at. They usually bring happy memories. Too often, though, they are a huge time-sink.