Foxcatcher Farms Bridge

We completed our automobile self-tour of Maryland's covered bridges today.  Last week we went to see the bridges in Frederick County, today we drove to Harford and Cecil Counties which are north of Baltimore near the Delaware and Pennsylvania state lines.  Once again, we packed a lunch and just enjoyed exploring a remote area of our state where folks are few and far between.  

This particular bridge used to be on a farm that is now a Maryland Natural Resource Area and so the bridge traffic is limited to horses, bikes and pedestrians.  There was a nice hiking trail along the river where I was able to get this shot.  I got another shot, but it was severely lacking an interesting sky, so I tried replacing the sky using Photoshop's "blend-if" mode and it worked like magic.  I probably could have chosen a better sky but it was all I had and it was a fun and surprisingly easy exercise.  I have included that shot in the extra.  Let me know if you see any errors, so I can figure out if I might have done this better. 

I made an inventory of all the photography courses online that I want to take.  Some are through my camera club affiliation, some I have purchased through Creative Live when they were on sale and still haven't viewed, and some are free.  Now I am trying to make my way through them while trying to learn how to use the Wacom tablet.  It is a very steep learning curve for me.  Even though the courses repeat many things that I already know, in each course I have picked up a couple of tips that have given me a "Eureka" moment making the time invested all worthwhile. 

We have rain expected for the next day or so before a POLAR Vortex hits us with near-freezing temperatures, which is unheard of in May.  I have ordered some perennials and annuals for my pots from the local nursery and there has been a delay because they have so many orders, and now I am glad I didn't get them planted yet.  They are close by, orders are made and paid for online, then the nursery employees gather your order and call you to come to pick it up.  They load it into the car so no contact needed.  It will be different not having picked the plants personally, but this will have to do this year.  

I have been trying some meditation through an app called "Calm."  It is very hard for me to still my busy anxious mind, but I am going to do it daily in the hope that I will have another tool to deal with anxiety and sleep difficulty.  So far so good. 

We had a lovely Zoom last night with #3 and #4 sons and their families from NYC and Las Vegas respectively.  It is so good for the morale for all of us.  

As I sit here in our bubble of safety and security, I have decided I will continue to post the COVID 19 stats so there is no chance of becoming numb to it all, and I have some context for the horrifyingly high and rising numbers. Our governor opened our state parks yesterday as well as the beaches but the beaches are only open for walking and running as long as social distancing is still practiced. As our beaches are not close to the most populated areas of Maryland, it will probably only be the locals who will be using the beaches. 

This is being posted a day late so these stats are for midday 5-8-2020

Covid 19 as of 5/8/2020 - 
Montgomery County  6316 confirmed cases, 324 deaths 
Maryland  30,485 confirmed cases, 1453 deaths
U.S.   1,295,673 cases,  77,092 deaths