This is my fourth day of retirement.

I started the day the same way I started the previous three; with a walk in the park.  It was early,  7:00 a.m. and the park had just opened.  The sun was skirting over the tops of the towering pines casting the most gorgeous morning shadows of deep blue and purple.  This park is decorated with hundreds of rose bushes and their sweet fragrance drifted through the air.  I knew that within a couple of hours the sun would burn the scent away; I was thankful I was there early enough to enjoy it.

In the center of the park there is a stone fountain with a joyful towering spray.  This morning there was a man standing knee deep within the fountain which was disappointingly silent. The water around his legs was filled with swirling bubbles.  He had a tool in one hand and some apparatus in the other.

"What are you doing?" I asked.  (I have lately learned that people love answering this question)

The park worker, who was, as my father would have said, "built like a brick shit house" gave me a somewhat glaring look as he continued with his task.

He finally said "I'm cleaning out the nozzles."

"Oh" I said with a smile.  "Why are your doing that?"

He looked up from his task, saw that I was smiling and giving him my most friendly look and decided to give me a quick lesson in dirt clogged nozzles, water pressure and the resulting water display.

When he finished I nodded and said, "That fountain piece you are working on looks like a trident."

As he stood there with his feet apart, "trident" in hand and swirling bubbly water around his knees I saw him give me a begrudging smile and I think I caught a twinkle in his eye.

"You see these bubbles? He asked.

"I sure do." I said with a nod.

"It is an algaecide, not a bubble bath and I don't want to catch you in here later taking a bubble bath." He gave me a grin as he went back to work.

I laughed as I walked away.

About 10 minutes later I encountered an older woman with very short white hair leaning against the wooden railway that borders the duck pond.  She had a baseball cap turned backwards perched on her head and was holding a camera with multiple lenses.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Shhhhhhh" she whispered.  Then did a slow finger point gesture across the pond.

I followed her point to the multiple boulders on the other side of the pond and finally picked out a mound of blue-gray.

It was a blue heron.  I breathed out a quiet "oh" and whispered "It's like humming birds, you never expect to see them unless they are in flight."

She quietly said "I've been here over an hour waiting for him to move.  I want to take an action shot."

"Do you want me to throw a rock at it?" I asked.

Of course I was joking but she didn't know that.  She looked at me in horror until she saw my teasing smile.

She chuckled a bit and began telling me about her camera equipment and her membership in the local camera club.

What I took away from the conversation is that if she was building a camera collection now she would be focusing on Canon; but because she started with Nikon it would be too expensive to switch over.  She spoke at length about the fact that lenses and other pieces of equipment are not interchangeable among brands.

I wished her a good day and as I walked away I could hear her softly say.....

"All I want is one winning picture....just one."

This is my favorite shot from the park that day.