Mal*Hart: One of nine faux front postcards. Liquid paper correction pen, black pigment pen on Advantix grocery-store developed photos (from a disposable camera that had likely been too long at the store). Two Mr M definitive stamps with cork cancels of red eye and blue Maltese cross. The digital versions of the photos can be found here.
I took the photos at the Los Baños State Wildlife Refuge and the Merced National Wildlife Refuge on 2005-03-26. The wetlands were full of bird song, birds, and water (it had rained quite recently). We saw the endangered marsh rabbit, ibises, butterflies, egrets and herons, ducks and other waterfowl, and numerous California ground squirrels.
It was always a shock to pull out from the refuges and realize how much land was consumed by farms; how small the refuges were. It’s not really accurate to point to big box stores as changing this landscape — first the land goes under the plow, then the sprawl arrives.