Sometimes I specifically plan on taking pictures of things, other times I just hope my camera is nearby when that perfect photo-op presents itself to me.
When there is a planned event I will shoot perhaps a hundred or more—gotta love digital cameras, and I download them right away. I’ll click my way through them, delete the total duds and him-and-haw over which ones I’m going to share. Whether it is for my website, Facebook, or perhaps to a few friend and family, I’m anxious to get them out there.
But in-between those specific events, it’s not uncommon for me to snap a picture here, a picture there, and not download them right away. I know they will be waiting for me when the time comes to do something with them. Perhaps they are the before shots of a project, or the final result months later. I might be working on a new story and the pictures I’ve taken so far will be a part of that. And then there are the ones, where for just a moment it unfolds before me. Those ones that after the fact I’m glad I don’t have to say, “Dang, I wish I had taken a picture of that.”
In the last couple of days I’ve had reason to take pictures of three very separate, unique, situations that all start with the letter B—Bees, Blocks, and Baby.
Bees!
This one falls in the category of support material for a new story. On the Island of Roatan, bees do their part to keep our jungle paradise looking like, well, paradise.
You know, they go around pollinating the flowers—don’t you love it when I wow you with my technical descriptions?
On occasion the bees get a little confused and set up camp in people’s houses. I totally understand those people not wanting to share their homes with bees, but at the same time, killing the bees is not a good thing to do. Fortunately we have Brion James, world class musician, and bee whisperer, who will come in and somehow convince those bees out of your house, taking them to a new location, where they can keep doing what bees do best.
The call went out for Brion to work his magic with some bees at Sundancer. I grabbed my camera and headed toward the cabana in question. As it turned out the bees had started a new hive in a tree knot, not in a cabana.
Brion explained that was a perfect location for them and they should be left alone. So for now, I just took some pictures of the honeycomb peaking out of the tree.
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Blocks!
Here are some of the ‘after’ pictures for a project I’m working on at the library in French Harbour. I will be posting a few stories about this one, but for now—a few blocks.
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Baby!
Oh Baby, I thought someone was trying to break in, upon hearing scratching and scraping noises coming from the kitchen! I creep to the railing and peer over. There is no menacing character at the door, nothing out of place. And then I hear you meowing from in-front of me. How can that be, I’m in the loft.
“Oh-oh, Baby, what have you done?” I ask my cat, clinging to the louvered wood slats, high on the wall. “How the heck did you get up there? Why the heck did you go up there? …How am I going to get you down?”
I did the most logical thing—I went and got my camera!
After satisfying my need to take pictures of my terrified cat trapped high on the wall, I consider my options for getting him down. My choices are few. With no ladder at my disposal, I set a barstool on the bar, and climb on top. Baby is still too high for me to grasp.
“Come on Baby. You can do it!” I try to convince him to meet me half way.
Baby extends one paw toward me, starts to lose his footing, and pulls back, while pleading with his eyes for me to rescue him. I glance at the beam that Dave had installed for the light fixture hanging above the bar. Will that hold my weight? I press my hand against the beam.
Like that’s going to prove the beam is secure enough to hold my full-body weight. Will Dave come home from his gig to find me crumpled on the floor, crushed under a barstool and beam? Of course, Baby will have found a way down before Dave returns home, leaving no clue as to why the beam had crashed on me. Poor Dave will think the beam had just randomly given way! 
Sensing my hesitation, Baby howls a pathetic, “please help me,” in a cat voice, of course. Oh, to heck with it, I’m going up!
I stand on tippy-toes, raising my leg, far more than my hip appreciates, to get one foot on the beam. Hoisting myself up the rest of the way, I too am now clinging to the louvered slats, while balancing my feet on the beam like a gymnast might. I release one hand from the slat to grab him by the scruff. Baby, digs his claws deeper in the soft wood. As I tug, his body stretches like taffy, but he won’t release his grip on the slat.
“Come on Baby, you’ve got to let go,” I plead with him.
Without warning, Baby retracts his claws, and leaps towards me, uses my head as a landing pad to nimbly launch himself to the beam! I’m now the only creature left clinging to the louvered slats on the wall, high above the floor below.
I really can’t help but giggle at the predicament I find myself in, while Baby sits at the other end of the beam preening, completely oblivious to my plight.
I wish I could get a picture of this!
Knowing that my hip is not going to appreciate the trip down, anymore than it liked the trip up, I shift my position, and lower one leg off the beam, reaching with my toe for the barstool below. A few grunts, a couple of groans from my hip, mixed in with some more giggles, and I am on solid ground again.
Originally from Ontario, Canada, Genny Ross-Barons moved to Roatan, Honduras in 2007 where she shares a cabana with her husband and island dog Mona in Sandy Bay, Roatan.
She spends her day-to-day life and ‘positive initiatives’ on Roatan, sharing untold stories through her blog ‘Life & Writing, on Roatan’
