February Photos

February Photos

I saw my first 35mm single lens reflex camera in the 1970s; It was a Canon AE-1, and I eventually bought it from the friend who had been foolish enough to show it to me. When it eventually broke and I could find no one to repair it, I bought a Minolta Maxxum. Although the Maxxum had autofocus and automatic metering, I never really warmed to it and didn't take many pictures with it. It was stolen in the early 2000s when someone broke into my house.

I replaced the stolen Maxxum with a digital camera, but never really warmed to it. So when I retired a year and a half ago I used a bit of my 410k money to buy a used AE-1 (just so I'd have a good film camera), and  a first-generation Canon Rebel digital SLR-- both on eBay. I bought a bigger zoom lens, a flash, a set of filters, and a couple of extra batteries and memory cards-- also on eBay, and I was in business.

Or so I thought. I didn't take many photos the first year. But this year I've been carrying the camera as I walk about in Pine Lake and have been taking a lot of pictures.

Although film aficionados swear emulsified celluloid is intrinsically superior to the charge-coupled capture devices of electronic cameras, there's a lot to be said for my Canon Rebel. It will shoot automatically, and yet it will allow me to compose my own shots, setting exposure time, lens opening diameter, ISO, focus, and white balance. I can take hundreds of photos before I need to replace the battery or will fill the CompactFalash memory card that holds images-- and best of all, when I get home I simply remove the memory card from the camera and insert it into a slot on my computer and I have instant access to the images-- instantly and without writing a check to Walgreens.

Below the fold are a few of my photos of Pine Lake, all taken February 2011. (Click READ MORE, just below).

This Little Place

Pine Lake, 1950s. Photo by Claude Suttle

This Little Place

If you happen to be reading this blog and know nothing about Pine Lake, GA, let me tell you about my little city.

Pine Lake is an incorporated city in the middle of Metropolitan Atlanta. It has its own city hall, court, government, maintenance workers, and police force, and an elected mayor and city council. The little city lies about 10 miles east of downtown Atlanta, in Dekalb County, just off Rockbridge Road. With a population of around 800 and a land area less than .25 square miles, it's a tiny place. Many people who drive on Rockbridge every day have no idea Pike Lake even exists.

Created in 1937 as a planned resort for people eager to escape the city, the developer offered tiny 20' x 100' lots for $69.95. During its first decade, the city consisted of one-room cabins, tents, and trailers with wells and outdoor plumbing. Over time the trailers and tents disappeared and rooms were added to the cabins, turning them into cottages. City water, sewer, and gas lines were run and property owners began to live in the city all year round.

Pine Lake was long ago enveloped by bustling Atlanta. Today, the Metropolitan area stretches a good 30 miles east of downtown Atlanta and at ten miles Pine Lake is considered "close in," but the city retains the girl scout camp ambiance it had at its birth.

Many of the houses date from the founding of the city, and every one of the approximately 200 homes is unique. Builders of newer homes have for the most part had the good sense to build to fit the aesthetic, and new structures blend into the quirky ethos of the city. Houses fill the bulk of their lots and trees are everywhere. Lawns, in the rare places reached by the sun, are pocket-sized and surrounded by flowering shrubs and trees. Homeowners paint their already unusual houses unusual colors and express their individuality with yard decorations ranging from pterodactyls on their roofs to painted mannekins half-buried in the ground.

Most of the homes are small-- they have to be to fit on the tiny lots. Minimum lot size today is 60' x 100', but many homes sit on 40' wide parcels, and one (it happens to be mine) fits on a single original 20'-wide lot.

There are no McMansions in Pine Lake, no huge lawns, no three-car garages. Instead there are single family dwellings and a half-dozen or so small apartment buildings, lots and lots of trees, and of course Pine Lake.

The lake is the jewel of the city and lies at its center. It's not a big lake, maybe .1 square mile in area, but it provides a focal point for recreation and city events. Residents and visitors can swim in the summer, fish all year round, launch canoes or kayaks, or walk the trails that encircle the lake or the paths in the newly-acquired-and-landscaped upstream and downstream wetlands. A city-owned gazebo, a beach house, and a newly-renovated clubhouse provide space for activities; city-sponsored and private events are also held in the park that spans the southern shore of the lake.

The Residents of Pine Lake are diverse. There are lots of professionals, many artists, single people, couples, and families with children. Residents are gay and straight, black and white, and of many ethnicities and religious backgrounds.

Unlike most communities in twenty-first-century America, almost everyone in Pine Lake knows almost everyone else. There are plenty of opportunities for residents to meet one another-- at festivals, concerts, and potlucks, while enjoying the lake, at city hall meetings, or at city meetings, online via the three active newsgroups, or through the Pine Lake Association for Involved Neighbors. Social activities are frequent, and unlike most places, attendees can and do walk to events. There are parades, pancake breakfasts and international suppers, an Octoberfest, an annual lighting of the lake, concerts and art shows, a city-wide yard sale, and any number of classes and special events.

Despite its serene and homey look, Pine Lake has not been without its political and financial problems. During the early 90s the city's police force was far too large and far too overactive in stopping and ticketing residents who passed through the city on Rockbridge Road, giving the city a reputation as a speed trap. Several mayors were removed from office, and at times the city was broke and unable to pay its bills promptly. Today many citizens struggle to pay property taxes, which are higher than those of surrounding unincorporated Dekalb County. The area outside the city has been hit hard by the recession, and crime has always been considerably higher in neighboring unincorporated Dekalb than in Pine Lake.

Pine Lake still struggles with its budget, but government has been stable for the past ten years under the leadership of Mayor Greg Zarus. The size of the police force has been reduced and the city has been successful at acquiring federal, state, and county funds for development and expansion of its waterways and assorted city projects.

Pine Lake is a wonderful and surprisingly affordable place to live that is still unknown to most Atlantans.

She's Ba-ack!

So jeez, I got sidetracked for a couple of years and totally forgot I had made this blog. So sue me, already!

But I'm back, and will post regularly, promise.

Sorry for the lapse.

The Palmetto Bug

Written 2 November, 2007

The Palmetto Bug

If you took an ordinary house cockroach, pumped it full of steroids and growth hormones, and sent it to the Arthropod gym for six months, you’d wind up with the insect equivalent of the Governator.

You would have a palmetto bug.

It’s also called water bug. Both names are euphemisms. It’s really just a giant roach. Think two inches. If you live south of Atlanta, think three inches.

Than the goddess, it’s not a hungry roach. Well, maybe it is, but unlike the brown roach and the German cockroach it doesn’t dwell in the dark corners of your house and come out at night in hordes to look for delectable crumbs. Or at least I don't think it does.

No, these guys just wander in, look around, and die.

It’s the period between wandering in and dying that makes me hate them.

There’s nothing like sitting at your desk, absorbed in the electrons dancing across your computer screen, and feeling chitinous feet making their way across your bare feet.

Let’s face it, it could stop your heart.

It doesn’t matter how often I have my house treated, palmetto bugs find their way inside. They don’t appear in great numbers, I’m happy to say, just singly, and there are never more than two or three a week, but they’re creepy, and I wish they would go away.

I’ve not read up on the history of the palmetto bug, but I suspect we’re at the northern limit of their range; I once watched hundreds covering the carport of a friend in Augusta, but I only rarely see them outside. They’re more-or-less nocturnal, although I often see them in the daylight. And they’re pretty fast once alerted by a flying shoe or when narrowly missed by a rolled-up magazine. They scurry into corners, then come out later, when you’re asleep, and die so you’ll step on them as you sleepily make your way to the kitchen for your morning tea.

I’ve learned not to trust upside-down palmetto bugs. Often, they’re not yet dead. So I routinely crush them, pressing with a rolled-up paper towel until I hear their carapaces pop. And you have to press hard, since they're armored. And the little buggers can fly! Sooo creepy!

Having done what I could to get rid of them (put down boric acid, had Colleen the bug lady out to treat the house), I’m resigned to the occasional presence of these nuisance bugs.

But I really wish they wouldn’t walk across my feet while I’m at the computer.

Mr. Possum Has a Close Call

Mr. Possum Has a Close Call


There are eight million possum stories in the Naked City. This is one of them.

Call me an irresponsible person. I rarely fold up the handles of my trash can so the top is locked on securely.

I’m usually lucky. My trash is undisturbed.

No so one night a few weeks ago, after I took out a load of especially delicious smelly garbage..

When I got up, some critter—I figured a dog, but I was wrong—had knocked over my can and papers and plastic were scattered everywhere.

I picked them up and took the can to the curb for emptying. It was garbage day. Tuesday.

When I came home from work Wednesday evening, I retrieved the top of the trash can from the ivy bed (the garbage man had once again missed my glass globe; he likes to take it out), stuck it on top of the can, and dragged the can around to the side of my house.

Some time after dark I went outside to get something from my little pickup truck; on the way back in, I thought to myself, “You know, there’s nothing in the can, but I should make sure the lid is on top, because something really liked the garbage that was in it.” And so I pull the handles up around the lid, locking securely in its place.

On Sunday, I took the trash out.

Sunday

That’s Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And the highs had been in the high 80s.

I took off the lid and there, in the bottom of the can, was the most bedraggled, miserable-looking opossum I had ever seen—and possums always manage to look miserable. It’s fur was greasy and wet-looking, and it looked up at me with a “okay, eat me now!” look in its eyes.

OMG! The poor thing had been there for five days in the heat! It had to be on its last legs!

I did what I thought would be best for Mr. Possum (no babies clinging to its fur, so probably Mr.). I tipped the can over and went back inside.

I came back out 30 minutes later and there was the possum, still cowering inside the garbage can. It hadn’t moved an inch.

Possums aren’t the brightest of animals, and I knew that. I raised the bottom of the can and rolled it gently until Mr. Possum slid out and he made his way with great possum dignity across my yard and into the kudzu and ivy that will one day strangle my absentee landlord neighbor’s firstborn.

I couldn’t stop thinking about how thirsty and how hungry and how hot and how cold that poor thing must have been all the while it was trapped in that garbage can. And I somehow knew if I had taken one day longer, I would have found an expired possum in that can.

Mr. Possum, wherever you are, the best to you. And I won’t be locking the tops of my garbage can any more. Promise.

Welcome to My Blog!

Written 28 October, 2007

Hi there and welcome to my blog about the tiny town of Pine Lake, GA!

Pine Lake, population between 600 and 800 (there is some disagreement between the U.S. Census Bureau and our mayor) is an incorporated city right in the middle of the huge metropolitan area of Atlanta.

Atlanta is a huge metropolis with the world's businest airport (sometimes Chicago's O'Hare pulls briefly ahead), a population of early 5 million, about 4 million of whom are yuppies, and more McMansions than you can shake a stick at.

In the middle of Atlanta's hauteur and grandeur lies Pine Lake, full of little houses and quirky people, looking like a summer camp in stark contrast to the "chateaux" (that's actually the name of a nearby subdivision).

I moved here in 1998, when I bought my first-ever house, an edifice that began life in 1936 as a one-room cabin with outdoor plumbing and a well. It was built when Pine Lake was a vacation spot, a blue-collar resort in which bitsy 20x100 foot plots of land were priced at $69.95 and the world was experiencing the lead-up to World War II.

My house has grown since then, and so has Pine Lake. I'll be writing about both, and more, in this blog.

Feel free to comment, and here's to ya!

Dallas