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Here and There…Now and Then |
Donna and Calvin
Gretchen and Henry
Katie and Calvin
Greta was at church this evening and had her two boys with her. Henry and Calvin have appeared here before but I couldn’t resist adding a few more of them.
First we have Donna with Calvin, then Gretchen and his older brother, Henry, and finally Katie with Calvin again. As you can see, Calvin hasn’t quite got “smile for the camera“ figured out, but it won’t be long, I’m sure.
Moon After Sunrise
Looking out our back door this morning I enjoyed the view of the moon, as it slowly descended into the west. The sky was a beautiful blue with a few scattered clouds. By the time I left for work, the sky was totally covered with clouds and the moon was no longer visible. It wasn’t as spectacular as a colorful sunrise but the moon suspended in a clear blue sky was still quite lovely.
Oakleaf Hydrangea
I really should have more than one of these. I think it would make a nice, open screen along the front edge of a portion of our yard. Oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) is a native to the south-eastern United States and does quite well here. The large, lobed leaves are attractive all year and are particularly beautiful when they turn a deep claret (or bordeaux, if you prefer). They bloom, but their flowers are not particularly showy, at least not compared to some of the other hydrangeas.
Amur Honeysuckle
On Wednesday, September 25, 2013 I took a photo of Lonicera maackii, the Amur honeysuckle. As I mentioned at the time, it’s an invasive weed and not something that needs a lot of encouragement. Still, it has sweet smelling flowers followed in the fall by wonderful red berries that, I assume, the birds enjoy. As the days start to shorten and get cold, the leaves also start to turn a deep red-green mix that is quite lovely. So, here’s another dose of Amur honeysuckle, Lonicera maackii, berries and leaves.
Mushroom
Our back yard has a lot of mushrooms right now, mostly in a ring around the trees that were taken down this summer. I assume this means the roots are rotting nicely. The mushrooms are certainly happy enough. This is one of them from an ant’s eye view (or I suppose a bird’s eye view, if it’s a small bird and it’s standing on the ground next to the mushroom). I like the light from the afternoon sun shining through the top of the mushroom.
Hannah
On Thursday I got a text message from Dorothy at school asking me (in all caps) why I didn’t tell her she was in town. I played dumb and pretended that I didn’t know what Dorothy was talking about. Dorothy isn’t a big fan of surprises. Still, it isn’t always about her and I had been asked to keep it quiet, so I kept it quiet.
On Saturday we were fortunate enough to have Hannah visit us for a while. Not long enough for Dorothy, but we’ll take what we can get. During the day I decided the red leaves of this dogwood tree would make a good backdrop for Hannah’s flaxen hair. She was nice enough to let me take a few pictures of her and this is one of my favorites.
It was nice to see you, not-daughter.
Dahlia
Back on Memorial day weekend Cathy and I visited the wonderful Heritage Rosarium in Brookville. Nick and his lovely wife Roseanne share their garden but it’s also about visiting with them. For a while now, in addition to Roses, Nick has been growing dahlias. This year, they had packaged up some dahlia tuber and gave each of their visitors one. Cathy planted ours out back and it is starting to bloom. This picture was taken in the evening, so the light is not terrific, but as you can see, the flower it a wonderful, rich, saturated red.
Evening Sky
There was another beautiful sky this evening. It didn’t turn as brightly colored as it has on occasion but it was still quite dramatic. I found a place to pull off the road where there was a reasonable view of the sky to the westward and took a few pictures. I love these blues.
Donna and Preston
When the only pictures I have for a particular day are taken at church or school or another “gathering” event, I often go through them with Cathy and Dorothy to select the best picture to post here. It’s fun, of course, to take pictures of people making funny faces but in general (and this isn’t a hard and fast rule) I try to post pictures here that are not going to embarrass anyone. That’s not to say that the people in them are going to like the pictures, of course. If that was my criteria, I’d often have a hard time posting pictures of some people because some (or many) people don’t like pictures of themselves as a matter of policy.
Donna generally doesn’t like having her picture taken but was happy to pose with Preston her son, who is one of those people always happy to have his picture taken as long as he can make a face or strike a pose. In this case, they were both relaxed and happy and I think you’ll agree, it’s a pretty good picture.
Dorothy at Maureen’s
With Cathy away for a few days, we had to make special arrangements for Dorothy’s after-school pick-up for some of this week. Tuesday’s, however, are relatively easy. Starting sometime last year, Dorothy would go to her friend Julia’s house after her piano lesson on Tuesday and they would work on homework together. Well, this year, Julia is away at college. Also, Dorothy isn’t taking piano this year, because she needs as many evenings free as possible for homework. If you think these changes have altered Dorothy’s schedule significantly, you’d be wrong, however. Julia’s mom, our wonderful friend, Maureen, has been picking Dorothy up many Tuesday’s and she spends the evening with her other family, working on homework, ready assigned reading, and otherwise enjoying herself. So, this picture is of Dorothy when I went to pick her up later this evening.
Phalaenopsis Orchid
We’ve had a few orchids for a long time but they were not doing all that well. They got watered irregularly and probably not often enough. More recently, since early this year, I think, I’ve been watering them regularly, every Saturday. I put the four that we currently have in the kitchen sink and fill it up, letting them soak for about 20 minutes or half an hour. They seem to like that and are all growing and looking pretty healthy. I think that having the trees down in the back yard has helped, as well, because there is more light in our kitchen, which is where our houseplants are gathered. There is a fifth that was nearly dead when I started paying more attention to them and it has two small shoots, although if it is growing, it is growing very slowly and it may not recover.
This is the largest of the plants and it has been in bloom for about a month now, which is very nice. I suspect it had a variety name but if it did, it’s long since been lost.
Begonia Flowers
This afternoon I was sitting on my front stoop enjoying the fine afternoon. The roses, which have been battered a bit lately by the rain, were filling the air with a wonderful sweetness. It was a wonderful place to be. There is a little pot of begonias sitting on a concrete bench opposite the door and, since I happened to have my camera with me (aren’t you surprised?) I took a few pictures. They are not so showy as the roses and they don’t have the heavenly fragrance but they were pretty and deserved some attention. As Dorothy and I would say, “sometimes we should love the little dome.”
Peace, Karol, Maggie, Olivia, and Dorothy
The annual WCA Banquet was this evening and we had a great time visiting with friends. Dorothy played piano and provided vocal accompanyment (along with Peace, Karol, and Maggie) for Olivia who did a great job singing for us. One thing that’s difficult when Dorothy is performing is that I want to get both still photographs, because that’s what I do, and video, because a recording is so nice. I can’t do both at the same time. Well, I can take a still photo while the video is recording but it will drop about a second from the video, which is annoying. I could also use frames from the video as still images. In this case, I took the photograph as they are just about to start playing and then switched over to video quickly and recorded the song.
Lake Needwood
It rained pretty steadily starting Wednesday evening and continued pretty much all day yesterday. This morning was continued to have rain. I went to the school to have some fun with the first graders (shhhh! they aren’t supposed to know it was me) and I got good and soaked walking around the school dressed as a cowboy (a sheriff, actually). On the way to work, when I was done, I passed Lake Needwood and decided to stop for a few pictures. It’s not as impressive a view on an overcast day but the colors, particularly the grass and weeds in the foreground, are quite vivid in the gloom. The trees are a bit late in turning this year, it seems, but it should be here before long.
Tomatoes
Somehow I missed posting this and didn’t notice until more than a week later. Sorry about that. I took a few random pictures around the house today, none of which will win any awards. I like the reds of these tomatoes, although I should have turned them so that the stem was behind them instead of out in front. I also have an acorn squash, which you can see on the right, and need to do something with some evening soon.
Dead Woodpecker
My apologies to those of you who are a bit squeemish. As I left work today, this is what I found on the sidewalk outside the back of my building. I’ve posted pictures a few times of the mirrored glass on the back of my building — January 31, April 02, and June 20, 2012. I have to assume this fellow (or lass) saw an ideal perch in a tree that was simply a reflection in that glass. I felt sad, of course, but that didn’t stop me from taking a few pictures. Have I been doing this too long, do you thing?
Update: I labeled this as a flicker without really stopping to think. It is, as Albert so quickly pointed out, a red-bellied woodpecker, not a flicker. Thanks, Albert. I hate it when I do that.
Sunset
I love it when there are beautiful sunsets on consecutive evenings. Same with sunrises on consecutive mornings. I was at my mom’s this evening and hadn’t taken any pictures today when I got there. I was wondering what I should take and started looking around. It wasn’t long, though, before I realized I’d have a good view out the front door of the house. This was taken from the front steps of mom’s house. Pretty nice, eh?
Sunset
There was a beautiful sunset this evening and I took some pictures from my back yard. One nice things about having fewer trees is that we have a much better view of the evening sky from our kitchen and dining room. This sky was the sort to make it worth while. In addition to the vivid oranges in the sunset, even a clear, deep, blue sky at dusk is beautiful to me. I think that’s one of my favorite colors, the blue that’s almost black.
Willow Oak Leaves
I like the colors of fall, and that generally inclucdes the less showy colors of the brown leaves collecting in corners of the yard or against the curb in a parking lot. There are willow oaks (Quercus phellos) planted in the parking lot at work and their leaves are starting to fall in significant numbers. The leaves on healty specimens turn a lovely yellow but because of their constraints on their roots, these trees are not particularly healthy and their leaves mostly turn a simple brown as they fall, somewhat prematurely, to the ground.
Chrysler Minivan Engine
It didn’t though. We were the last to leave church today because I had “door duty.” I walked to our car as the last two cars other than ours pulled out of the drive. I got it and “click, click, click, click, click.” The car wouldn’t start. I expect this sort of behavior from our oldest car. Even the middle car, which has over 229,000 miles. But this is our newest car. Of course, new is relative. It’s a 2000, it’s a Chrysler, and at 190,000 it’s not exactly a low-mileage car, either. Fortunately, our friend and one-time house sitter Tim came to our rescue. Turns out all it needed was a little more juice and a jump start got it going. When we got home I attached a charger and we shold be fine.
