Autumn Eve Lincoln

Autumn Eve Lincoln
© By Abraham Lincoln 

This is how Autumn Eve spent her time when we were gone or when one or the other of us went outside for a short time period. She loved my chair because she could set like this and see out the bow window, and she liked to watch the traffic passing our house. She only barked when another dog passed.

She was, I think, the perfect dog. She had the heart-shaped ears of the Toy Fox Terrier and she was "yappy" when she saw someone or something she didn't quite understand. She did calm down when she could not longer see and her hearing began to fail her too. 

People talk about an afterlife for their pets, "The Rainbow Bridge." Cuddles, Tiger, Benji, Autumn Eve, and Puppy. Our latest is Pepper Jax, the Jack Russell Terrier.

An Old Tree

Sunflower

The perfect flower for us. It feeds all kinds of insects and many different birds and animals like squirrels and chipmunks. It is beautiful to look at and will seed itself.

Expressions

I often wondered where that expression comes from. Pepper Jax nailed it.

Heroine and Nicotine

Yep, that's me, back in the day when what I breathed came in through my nostrils and it was from the air around me. Nowadays, I can still breathe from the local air but have gotten to the point where most of what I breathe comes from an oxygen concentrator.

No matter how bad it might be for me, my son still smokes and knows he is looking at himself down the road when he is looking at me. I used to be that way—immortal; but I have learned that it doesn't pay to smoke—that Nicotine is harder to break than Heroine and either drug ruins your health for life.

Baby Rabbit Eating Hibiscus

I watched this young, baby, rabbit eat this final flower on the hibiscus. He ate the entire plant and this was the last piece. I have photos of the entire process that only took about five minutes.
> also see My Bird Blogs

Young Rabbit

Young rabbit sitting amid the white Dutch clover -- they love to eat this particular clover, so I try to keep some of it in the backyard.

The Super Bowl with Pepper Jax

Pepper Jax watched the Super Bowl last year and I was able to take a couple of pictures of him. I think we will watch it this year together too. He actually will watch television but after a few minutes he gets bored and takes a nap.

Cold Day Outside

It is -5º F in Brookville this morning. I cannot imagine how the squirrels keep warm in their leaf nests but most of them will make it as long as they get something to eat. I have put out a lot of peanuts yesterday and will today. Most are buried under the snow and hard to find but I don't know of any other solution.

Raccoons

The first time I saw the raccoon was in the Screech Owl box

I noted she has a couple of notches in her ear

I fed her dog food and cracked corn and sunflower seed without the hulls

She had four babies and when she weaned them they went over the fence and out of our lives

The raccoon family stayed here under my shop until the babies were weaned and then the mother coaxed them to go up and over the board fence. Once they did that, they never came back; and I found myself wondering if they were all OK. I sure hoped so because they were the sweetest family of wildlife we have ever had in our backyard.

Our Raccoons

We didn't know it at the time, but this was a pregnant raccoon looking for a place to give birth to her four babies. It was hard for her to squeeze her body through the 4-inch diameter hole that I had made for Screech Owls, so she eventually chose a spot under my shop building and that became her home. We fed her cheap dog food and corn and things she would eat while she nourished the youngsters. Now and then we would get to see them outside during the day and when she had weaned them, she sent them up and over our fence and she followed her brood and they were gone out of our lives forever. I still miss her but worry about more coming since we have a dog now that would be after her all the time. So far, she never returned and none of her babies came back here. They are all grown now and several generations of their kind have passed.

Sharing the Bed

Dog and cat share the entrance bathed in sunshine. Lots of snow and cold just outside the door.

Sprinkling Cans in Winter

Sprinkling Cans in Winter

More Snow is Falling

Snow, and more snow. I have had to cancel my toe nail clipping appointment and I was going to get a chest X-ray this morning but it is pouring down snow and that makes going anywhere very treacherous.

Purple Cone Flower

One of my favorite flowers -- The Purple Cone Flower. It is an old fashioned flower that has few enemies so you can plant them and watch them grow and feed both wildlife and insects.

Some bees collect pollen from them and some take the nectar. You can see the pollen on this bee's back legs. He stuffs it into "bags" and carries it with him until he gets back home.

Birds collect and eat the seeds and standing stalks with seed heads are a source of food in the winter.

Camp Schimmelpfennig

Back in the day when I was stationed at Camp Schimmelpfennig, in Japan, we would all come up out of the camp using these stairs. I was in the 1st Cavalry Division and my regiment was the famous 5th Cavalry Regiment and this is the regimental badge I had to wear on my cap and on my shoulders. It was this size and painted or was in brass and paint.

The street, at the top of the stairs, where I was standing, looking at the stairs is littered with bars, strip joints, and nightclubs. The photo was taken in 1955 and 1956 and it might be different now.

Pepper Jax in the Snow

Not that long ago, Pepper Jax had to wade through the snow to get to a place where he could do his business. He doesn't like very cold weather when there is snow on the ground as it freezes in his feet and makes him get stiff and he limps.

The air conditioner unit stands outside, covered in snow, waiting on the summer sun to make it run again. I lived most of my life breathing regular air but now, with my lung and breathing problems, I have to have air conditioning. This is the year, 2014, that I will finally turn 80 years of age. I can't really believe that either.

Main Gate to Imperial Palace

The moat and palace gate around the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. During the war, the city of Tokyo was bombed repeatedly and the fire storms that resulted destroyed almost everything but the palace and surrounding grounds were no touched and remained in pristine condition.

Imperial Hotel in Tokyo

 

The Imperial Hotel, in Tokyo, is where I bought a string of pearls for Patty and also a ring. The pearls are worth a lot of money today as is the ring. Since I was there in 1954 and took this photograph, the hotel as you see it in this photo, was torn down and replaced by a modern, box-like, structure that the Japanese purist do not seem to like and wish this original hotel was standing there instead of the new one.

Anxious for Summer

I am very anxious for summer to get here again

Shiogama, Japan

Shiogama and Samurai—

I began taking photographs in 1953 using a fixed focus camera that looks a lot like the new Fujifilm X100S camera that I just recently purchased. Neither Kodak or Fuj had come out with color film so we were all using black and white film in 35mm and 120mm size.

In Japan this is the character in power, Lord Date Masamune. His castle or parts of it remained on Castle Hill. All of the soldiers went up there to have a look and were disappointed that the only thing really connected to him and his past was the graveyard where one of his sons is buried. 

He was not a big man but was shorter than most Japanese of modern times. He was a hard man to deal with except when he was around his boss, the emperor at Tokyo. He was a samurai and his sword was one of the best ever made; you can see it in this photograph.

Early Morning

This early morning shows one of the squirrels in the oak tree eating a peanut that I had put out for them. You can also see the regular bird feeder that I am using now. I have others that I will use when this one is empty.

The Family in WWII

This is a family photograph of me and my family back in 1944 or maybe 1943. That is my dog, Teddy, and I had another dog, an all white fox terrier named, Betty. She is not in the picture. My mother, Vivia, is seated with my niece, Lulu Ann on the grass in front of her. My sister, Norma, is seated on the right holding son, Gordon Lee. Roy, her husband and my brother-in-law, was off in Stuttgart, Germany as the war in Europe was winding down. The black or dark, unpainted, building in the background is Tommy Rice's blacksmith shop and my dad eventually bought the lot it was situated on and the lot adjacent to that and then had Bob Clink move the blacksmith shop on my lot on Railroad Street and transformed it into a 4-room house without running water or indoor plumbing. When I got out of the Army, Patty and I moved into the blacksmith shop and all of our 5 children were born while we lived there. We moved from Gordon to Brookville in December 1962 on the coldest day of the year. Patty's uncle, Ed Eurich, moved us using his old trailer to haul our goods.

Baby Kitty

There must be something fascinating up there to hold his attention. I finally had a look and it was a piece of oak tree leaf stuck on the remains of a spider's web and it would flip and flop and wiggle with the slightest breeze. The cat spends a lot of time just watching it and I wonder if he gets a pain in the neck after doing this for a while. At least he is not trying to eat Patty's African violet. He had knocked it off the table a dozen times or more and Patty has to re-pot it or stuff it back into the same pot. As a result the plant is lopsided but still blooms.

Pyrmont, Ohio

This is one of the older homes located in Pyrmont, Ohio. I can remember when it was a small grocery store. The row of windows testify to it having been a small hotel at some point in time.

and the wind chill is -30º

Tuesday morning in Brookville, Ohio. The temperature is -7º F and the wind chill is -30º below zero. It is so cold that the dog cannot go outside very long to pee or would have to be rescued as he gets so cold and stiff that he can't walk.

Brutally cold -25 below zero wind chill

Brutally cold at 3 degrees with wind chills of minus twenty-five degrees ( -25º ) below zero today, Monday and Tuesday (tomorrow). Stay warm. Remember wildlife with a handout.

Pepper Jax likes Patty

Pepper Jax likes Patty. He likes girls and follows them anywhere. He has to be coaxed to come to me and then I give him a few raw peanuts or small carrots as a treat for coming or doing what I ask him to do. He can be laying on the sofa, asleep or minding his own business and anybody that comes into the room ends up beside him.

My Photos of Japan

The photos I took when I was in Japan were accepted by the mayor of Sendai, a few years ago, and are now housed in the Sendai City Museum of History and Folklore. Part of the reason for this is that during the war years, the people did not have cameras or couldn't afford them and/or processing film costs, so the city was anxious to see some of the photos or have them to display to editors or just individuals who wanted to see what the good old days were like. So my photos are housed in this museum and visitors can ask to see the pictures I took and they will show them. They often display them in the museum in cases and hanging on the walls as shown in this photo they supplied to me.

Exotic Creature on PBS

oldmanlincoln never looked so good

This blonde wig was just laying on a shelf and I slapped it on my head and I came out looking like this. A kind of exotic creature from Brookville, Ohio on my television show — a 13-week Public Broadcasting Series (PBS) series back in the day in West Palm Beach, Florida.

That was the first time I ever set foot in a television studio and it was the first time I went through the experience of writing 3 books and doing 13 one-half-hour shows about using brushes, paint, pen and ink on television and all in a week. Honest.

Flat Top Hair Cut

Flat top hair cut is back. I wore one in the US Army in 1953.

The Alphabet in Bronze

The Neighbors Say I Am Nuts!

The bronze piece contains the modern capital alphabet, after Trajan's Column, in Rome; to the evolution of the alphabet from the cuneform;  through different styles, to our modern alphabet. The bronze piece is one of those things I had to have back in the day when calligraphy and lettering were the most important things in my daily life. I made a living on the alphabet and lived very well.

Some people wish they could do things with their life and some will do them. Many are afraid to start because failure is not an option but if you do not fail then you have not made it. My problem was and still is that I do the things I think about and try to make a success out of whatever it is.

From carving names and words and letters in stone, that I had never done before, to writing books, newsletters and hosting my 13-week television series of half-hour shows and I had not done any of those things either. I think of something and then do it.  So it leads to my office being changed from the way it is to the way I think it might look better.

And the office measures 24 feet long by 26 feet wide and has 2 entrances plus separate heating and air conditioning, windows and one large skylight. It was paid for using a cash advance that I got from an English Corporation for a book that I wrote for them.

I have dug up and moved all the soil in my backyard -- the neighbors say that when they talk about me. He is generally nuts when it comes to growing flowers, trees, bushes and shrubs and he has planted them all from oak to maple and dug up and chipped up nearly everything he ever planted except those few things that are now too large to dig up or move.

In the end, the dust will still be on the floor and the stones in the yard -- leftovers from times when dirt was hauled in and dumped and spread out by me using a garden shovel.