This morning, I was on the phone with my Web designers hashing out the primarily cosmetic changes coming to the blog. They are small things, but they will change how the blog looks and feels.

The cost is not small.

Then the Leica came. The afternoon was instantly chaotic. It’s 9:30 and I’m still at the computer. No reading tonight.

The photos in today’s Photo Journal above and below are taken with the new Leica 2 that arrived today. The first photo, above is of one of our white hens.

She was fascinated by my camera and was following me all over the place.

I decided to take the first photos on the farm, of them a part of my life and of this very special place.

(The first picture I take with a new camera is Maria, always. When I went outside with the camera, she was taking a break from stacking wood and making a quilt and rejoicing in the small of the lilac bushes. She was meant to be a wood’s elf, an artsy one.)

We’re working hard to improve the blog, as always. It is the love of my creative life.

We’re making the text easier to read, labeling subjects with badges – Essays, Army Of Good, Photo Journal, etc…simplifying, streamlining,  eliminating the clutter, experimenting, turning the Bedlam Farm Journal into something with a little more color, making the text darker and more easily readable.

I want the blog to be a bright and safe spot.

That’s where I’m going—essays on life spirituality, movie and book reviews, Maria, the animals, and the story of a life. All of it to be captured in my pictures.

I want nothing but what I have (especially now that one of those things I have is the Leica 2 color camera).

(We are getting our first firewood delivery for the winter on Thursday – two cords. Maria LOVES stacking firewood (go figure), so she started today, a good challenge for the new camera; there is hardly any light in the woodshed. I love how the  camera handles colors, even in low light.)

( I take many sheep pictures, but this one was special. So soft, so dreamy, so beautiful. And peaceful. This camera and I are already in love with one another; Maria can handle it. She laughs.)

The blog content and the mission aren’t changing, just the package around it. I want the blog to be more colorful, better organized, and pleasing to the eyes and souls.

We are on a journey here, to be better and healthier, and ever more spiritual and creative. You are welcome to come along. The work never seems to end.

I believe the blog needs some constant “freshening,” more color; the blog calls up the good and beautiful things in life and reminds us that they are there and powerful.

My goal is for the blog to project life, love, and hope. That’s the Mission. As I’ve said, Jesus is not my God, but he is my inspiration.

(These hanging basket has eyes; look at the center of the picture. Beautiful and a little unsettling. The eyes kind of laugh at me.)

You may have noticed that I am getting calmer and more manageable, and I want the blog to reflect this. Trolls, yentas,  and peckerheads are like vampires; color and light kill them and drive them away.

Most of them have vanished over the last couple of months,  perhaps busy harassing school teachers, laughing at starving immigrant children, and looking for the ever menacing “radical leftists,” and trans kids.

I want people to feel good when they read my blog; there is plenty of bad news without me.

(On a lighter note, Bud and Zinnia have a blast wherever they are. Bud loves to chase Zinnia around the dog area, and he is much faster than she is. She runs like moose with arthritis; Bud loves to get to her rear legs and trip her up. She rolls over and loves it. The two of them, Mutt and Jeff, run back and forth all day; Zinnia always loses the race and couldn’t be happier.)

The rest of the day was transformed when FedEx arrived with my Leica 2 and almost left without dropping it off.

I was out in the pasture throwing balls for Zinnia and the driver, finding nobody in the house, was about to drive off. The dogs constantly bark when deliveries are made, but they were mysteriously quiet this time.

I spotted the truck driving away and ran, shouting and waving my arms, and he pulled over and said he had decided to call me on my cell and come back in an hour if I wasn’t home. I thought the calls were spam and didn’t answer them.

How sad to be so necessarily mistrustful.

He needed a signature, but he knew this was a camera, and if he couldn’t deliver it today, it would take a few more days to get to me.

So I got the camera, thanks to his dedication and thoughtfulness: what a nice person, and how kind. I would have had a rough time if the package had taken three more days to get here. Somehow, he knew that.

I spent an hour or two unpacking the camera, inserting the memory chip, and fiddling with the menu and settings.

I had a lot of registering to do – time, date, time zone, and connecting the new camera to the app, which I will need some help doing.

Then I went out and had a genuinely joyous and exhilarating few hours taking pictures, at different angles, in a different light, and in various settings.

The camera is a dream.

But you have to stumble and screw up to learn, and I got a good start. I also got some pictures I love.

I am so very grateful to the gracious and thoughtful man who sold me this camera at a reasonable price with plenty of time to pay it off with no interest. He paid for overnight delivery.

He is a college professor; we had as good a time talking to one another as we did bargaining and negotiating.

His nice veneer didn’t fool me – he knows how to negotiate. We had a lot of fun going back and forth. And he is fascinated by my blog. He asked me if I ever accepted offers to teach a class or two at a college.

Probably not, I said. I do know where he lives. It’s on the Fedex box.

He went above and beyond, and I need to find a way to thank him.  I knew he wasn’t hard up for money; his new camera was a $9,000 Leica Rangefinder.

Maybe a good novel.

The Leica 2, like the Monochrome, is different from any camera I have used for color pictures, including the Canon and the Iphone Pro Max 13, which has a great color camera.

Believe me, I never imagined ever having a Leica camera, let alone two. The Gods must be forgiving me for my many mistakes.

The Q2 is a very different kind of color camera, not the digital clarity that sometimes looks too digital. I have to figure out how to use it, but now, I know that I can figure it out. A few months, I wasn’t sure.

I’ve already signed up for a lesson or two.

The Leica is different; it’s not for everyone or everything; I won’t carry it around all day like I can the Iphone. But like the Monochrome, I’ll learn when and how to use it. I need to be selective and go slowly.

And I’ll take my photography, hopefully, to another level.

Take a look at these photos.

They are different. As always, these images are free, not watermarked or copyrighted. Use them in any way you wish.

It feels somehow as if we are on this trek together a hero journey of pictures.

I hope that they bring you as much joy as they bring me. They are pictures of my life and the life around me, and I a lucky man to be taking them.