January 3, 2008

Brrrrr! It's going to be colder tonight. I just noticed the sunset and ran across to the canal and took its picture. Looked like a watercolor painting. No toads out tonight, for sure. The water is dripping in the dog waterer, the wellhouse light is on, and I'm afraid to look under the bedspread where I hid the tender plants last night. It was cold all day. The elephant ears finally laid down and so did the pineapple ginger lilies. They will go soft, decay and offer the new sprouts of spring their energy.

Driving to town this morning, I find icicles and stopped to take a photo. They must have left a sprinkler on - as soon as I download them, I'll post them here. We don't get icicles often here in nw Florida. But it did snow on Christmas Day, 1989, the year we moved here.

I didn't give you very much of an introduction last night - to explain who I am, what I'm all about.

Sitting here with old Pea on my desk in front of the monitor, (she's at least 20 - old, stiff, age has dimmed her eyes and she's deaf) I will tell you that my life for decades has revolved around animals, their rescue and their care. Pea was a rescue; a left-behind cat. She's been a dear friend for many, many years. Frankly, I don't know how she manages to climb up here - this is something new this week. She's knocked over the mouse, and a few other items. Not a big deal.
This is where she wants to be. She's earned it. So you know I'm a cat lover.

I've bred Bassets and Bloodhounds; used to show a male Bloodhound, Gabriel of Whiffletree, who was born next to my bed. His mother, Sugar Hills Jesse, my Mavis, a huge black and tan, though a registered bitch, was also a giveaway.

I was heavily involved with horses and donkeys, goats, and other barnyard folks. I miss them. I am not whole without horses, donkeys and other critters. I'm thinking about a goat or two, however. I love cheesemaking, and want to learn more. And besides, goats are smart and good companions - as good as dogs, I think.

There was a time when I was living in the Lancaster, CA area when I rehabilitated ravens. I've also kept a red-tail hawk.

I kept macaws, a double yellowhead parrot and a Moluccan cockatoo and a pair of conures, one of whom flew out of the sky to come to handsome blue-crowned conure, Ricky. He was immediately smitten, and they lived together for many, many years.

All the while, we were busy moving. I've lived in California - north and south; in the suburbs of Los Angeles, in Coloma, where John Marshall bent down and picked up that first gold nugget in the clear water of the American River, in the Mojave desert in several places, the Oregon Coast, the Florida Keys. Now here in panhandle Florida is where I make my home.

Here, came the squirrels and Mouse, the opposum. And if you want to read my book, and my small adventures with the wild ones, you'll have to find a copy: "Waltz on the Wild Side - An Animal Lover's Journal". Then there is the anthology to which I contributed called "Least Loved Beasts of the Really Wild West - A Tribute". That one, by Native West Press is still in circulation, but "Waltz" is not, though you can find copies if you look. There are two on Amazon.

Speaking of Amazon, I am now an Amazon Shorts author. Amazon Shorts are downloadable $.49 short stories, essays, etc. As I write, I hope my covers are coming along. I understand they are backlogged. Alpha Miller has graciously donated some images of red tail hawks, which are key players in the Amazon Short called "Paradise", which came from a eulogy of sorts, at my friend's
scattering in the Mojave Desert, after her death. Her real name was Alice Noera, a wildlife rehabilitator, who led me with a gentle hand into wildlife rehabilitation and my years with ravens.

I am a poet. Though free verse horrifies an elderly friend of mine, I can't rhyme for any reason.
I squeezed out a limerick recently and author/lecturer/educator Carolyn Howard-Johnson thought was pretty good. I have a chapbook in mind. Hopefully, it will come out in some form this year. Carolyn and Magdalena Ball, both poets and authors, are writing another collection and have surprised me by asking me to illustrate with my photographs. I'll put a link here when it's available for sale so you can enjoy it for Mother's Day.

"Ladies of the Guild" the story of four older woman writers on a road trip, is great fun. I registered it with Writers Guild of America because it reads very much like a screenplay. It is carried by its dialog. I wrote it for those transparent women of a certain age (read 55 and up), who are passionate, intelligent, witty, wild and not afraid to take chances. In its second reading now with a small press, I hope it has found a home. "Transparent women" you say? Take this test. Next time you're out and about, do you ever really notice women of that age? What goes on in our minds and lives would surprise you.

I wrote "Ladies" because another from my critique group challenged me. I told Norris McDowell I couldn't write dialog around the same time "Waltz" was accepted by Hawk Publishing Group, and he laughed at me. So I took him up on the challenge, and 120,000 words later, with all the characters gathered around me at the keyboard, my first novel was born.
It was an incredible experience.

I'm a photographer. The greatest gift to creative people besides the WP, the pen, and paper, is the technology of the digital camera. I sold all my Nikons and the lenses (stupid me) and went digital. Now there are digital SLRs. I took my little 2.1 megapixel out and started taking photos of butterflies and insects. Now macro photography is a great love of mine.

I am a freelance writer as well.

I love writing nature, incorporating my words and what I see with my camera.

I fell in the canal a year or two ago and drowned my camera chasing a Vesper forktail damselfly one summer evening.

You can see more of my images here: www.jpgmag.com/people/maziel and www.thelensflare.com/u_may.php. They are all for sale, matted or not. When I get out my price sheet, I will post the prices/sizes here. I have thousands now in my files. So when I set up the page, just let me know what you need.

Long a member of the Burryman Center for creative folks, I would like to invite all artists, no matter what your calling to visit their new blogspace at Ing. The home page is: http://inkedin.ning.com/ and you can find me there, too. I'm in a flowered shirt holding a baby bobcat at http://www.bearcreekfelinecenter.org/. Again, some of my photos appear there as well.