It's December, where's the snow?

The days of fall linger on. A year ago there had been several snowstorms and winter was upon us and stayed until late March. This year is different and most everyone is pleased that winter is taking its sweet time getting here. The annual Metolius Tree Hunt sponsored by the Deschutes Land Trust was held in 50º weather and one group of youngsters from a church youth group was heard singing carols as they carried out their tree.

I have yet to even start my holiday greeting cards although I have every intention of getting them done. After all I have a streak of 16 years going. I hung a few lights on the house, Diane found a nice tree and we decorated it, put up Allison's collection of Nutcrackers and called it done. Ho ho ho.

The Obama victory has given a little hope that the future will be better. I'm not one to go overboard and think that the ship of state will right itself any time soon. Mr. Lameduck Bush can't leave Washington fast enough.
There have been more layoffs in the newspaper industry, the Big 3 ask for bailouts, the stock market can't settle down, no one is buying anything and with Christmas a little more than two weeks away the spirit of the season is about as robust as the housing market.

I am not without some energy. In fact, I've completed a project that was long overdue. I began photographing Yosemite National Park in 1988 in advance of the 1990 centennial of this marvelous place. A book "Yosemite, A Landscape of Life" was published and I continued to shoot there for several more years. Yet, all the film, transparencies and digital files were not in a single location. A few of the best pictures had been digitally archived but the vast majority of the material was dormant. No longer. For the past month I've looked at every image and scanned the essence of a decade long project. It's a relief to know
where everything is. I've compiled a gallery on my website http://archive.jaymather.org/c/mather/gallery-list. Viewing the images is about the same as reading a short story in a magazine or an in-depth article in your Sunday newspaper. People still read don't they?

Now, if I can just get excited about the holidays...