I’ve really been making an effort to keep my camera with me in the truck lately. Sure, it’s a little risky; things do get stolen around here, but it lets me catch some of those cool moments that I seem to always be tripping over.

Like this enormous cloud of blackbirds the other evening:

That’s a five-story hangar, to give you some sense of perspective. The bird cloud swirled up and around it like a giant black amoeba. I’ve never seen one so huge.

Having it let me hang my head out the window and actually capture a sunset, instead of just thinking about it like I usually do. And since I had the kids with me, it gave Seamus a little eye-opener about taking pictures when you see them.

It let me document the concept that two collies really are better than one. I’ve got Jeff’s dog Ringo now. He’s not very happy about being away from home, and I’ve had to keep him tied up in the yard or he’ll jump the fence the moment my back is turned and hide in the truck. Since I feel bad about that, I’ve just started bringing them both to work in the afternoons when it’s not so bone-chilling cold. They’re both very fond of their truck, and not fighting over it at all, although Angus will give him the smack-down if Ringo loves up on me too much. I guess it’s nice to know that I do rank above the truck with him after all.

Ringo’s kind of a shy dog, and his down-ears make him look even more mopey when you’re used to an up-eared dog, but he smiles from time to time and I think he’ll find his place pretty quickly. He’s already smarter about unwinding the chain from the porch posts than Angus is, and they’re sleeping together in the laundry room with no squabbling.

But I think the best part of having the camera on me was getting to document the water tower overflowing. Twenty-five thousand gallons of water spilling down like a massive thunderstorm all at once was a little spectacular. Without looking at it with a photographer’s eye, it would only have been a pain in the ass. No, it wasn’t my fault, but I was the operator on duty and standing right there, and I was the one who got to field the somewhat bemused phone calls from management. I do wish it had happened an hour or two later so the light was better, but I’m lucky to have seen it at all, and even luckier to be seen as the person who took care of it, since the water hadn’t been running at all for the previous two days.

And hey, at least my tower’s all clean and shiny for the New Year! Do you think they’d buy a monthly tower-washing schedule?