Adding Birdie to the Team
I have added a new player on the team!!! Her name is Birdie and she joined Gracie & I this week. Her job is to allow us to see beyond what we can see with our own eyes!!!
Birdie is spectacular in all her beautifully intelligent compactness. From what I can tell, with my limited scientific knowledge, she is from the Animalia kingdom, the Phylum of Chordata, and the Class of Aves. To further break it down she is part of the genus Dronus and her species is Minius … yep, that’s right she is a Dronus Minius! … more commonly named a DJI Mini 3 Pro. I am in complete awe as I have never known one of these creatures before.
So, Gracie & Birdie and I went happily off to the property, all tucked in the Miata with the tools and cart. Top down, singing at the top of my lungs, zipping down the road … off to my new happy place. [NOTE: This came at the price of an extra $131 for the speeding ticket I got along the way … my first speeding ticket in over a decade … ruining my Good Driver status. Alas, I thought I was watching the speedometer but, not well enough obviously. I did it, I accepted it and I over road the old sense of “being a bad girl” and apologized to the nice office who was doing his job. I slowed down the rest of the ride & let it go. The day was way too joyous to get all bitchy about anything.]
When we arrived I loaded the cart … Gracie and Birdie safely inside and away we went through the land. I found a perfect mostly cleared area and put down my landing pad and cleared the remaining weeds and brush around it. Then the fun began!
Humbleness is an extraordinary thing … the need to expand it shows up constantly these days. Patience … it’s sister characteristic … is always right there showing me the need to expand it also. First it was present in getting the property, then in even taking my first walk on the property, then it moved to learning how to use the tools I had never used and in figuring out how to use my iPhone and tripod to capture images and videos. Now, Birdie was here with her lessons!
I must be clear, it is one things to continue to learn things I have never done and have no relationship to but it is a whole other level to feel so inept at things I think I somehow “should” know even though I technically have not done them the way I am doing them now. That is how anything that has to do with photography and video is for me. I have this BFA degree from back in the ice age in Photography & Film Making. Somehow my ego tells me that this means I “should” be able to pick up anything camera-like for the rest of my life and be able to gracefully and easily roll with it and produce high quality art with it. LOLOLOLOLOLOL … OMG that concept bites me in the butt so hard.
So, I get the landing area clear and I hold the control in my hand and I attempt to fly Birdie. Now, you need to know I have watched dozens and dozens of YouTube videos where expert flyers present how to use every control/setting, what to avoid, how to do every move and have even seen them crash their drones to show what happens when you don’t do it the way they show you to. I, on the other hand, “should” be able to absorb all of that excellent teaching and fly flawlessly the first time. NOT!!!
Birdie ascends slowly, I get her above me then above the trees and I begin to try to navigate her. She flies so fast that the video is a blur … and my heart is in my throat. Nothing smooth or gracefully happening at all. Jerky moves, zipping side to side, wobbling and spinning in circles was the theme as I take her a little further each time, testing my fear-of-crashing-or-losing-her factor. I am awkwardly moving the dials, the control sticks, looking for settings on the screen and I manage to forget to record several flights, even the one where I have her following me for a little while. Poor Birdie … she is going Up, Down, Forward, Backward, Right, Left … and I am going in circles, staring at her in the sky and feeling something between absolute Joy and sheer Panic.
I finally calm myself down and focus on the Joy and release the fear and, no-surprise, I get her far enough out that I can move her almost to the four corners of the property. I was even able to move her a little slower so the land becomes more visible. WhoooooHooooo!!! Yep, Humbled!! OMG, so very humbled. Finally I brought little Birdie down and thanked her for being so great with me no matter how much I jerked her around. Next time, I will continue to bring patience and humbleness and I will learn more about how I can get out of her way so she can fly at her full capacity. Stay tuned!!!
Wanna see Birdie’s flight videos? You can get to my YouTube Channel & see them by clicking HERE!
MY FREEDOM SONG
The other exciting news is that a woman artist who I love and have had the honor of knowing for years, Jerri McElroy, created a poem/song for me called Your Freedom Song. I was so moved when I heard it that tears started rolling down my cheeks. THANK YOU SO MUCH, JERRI! I will be working on using it as my Freedom Acres theme song, etc … coming soon!
Want to hear it on YouTube? CLICK HERE
