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Here and There…Now and Then |
Dried Samaras
Another beautiful day today. I had a meeting in the next building over and I decided to take my camera with me. On the way back I wandered a bit along the woods and took some pictures of colored leaves, some honeysuckle berries (Lonicera maackii), and these maple samaras. I like the pattern of the veins in their wings.
Still Life, Wires
I took more fall color pictures today but decided to post this picture, instead, for a change of pace. These are telephone wires, I’m pretty sure, on the back of a shopping center. We were waiting for a pizza that the girls bought for lunch. They had planned on empanadas but the place that sold them has closed although the sign is still there.
Dogwood Leaves
You can always tell a dogwood by its bark. But this time of year, the leaves are fairly easy to spot, as well, because they turn such a beautiful, deep, rich red. These are on a small dogwood that self-seeded in the front garden before we bought the house. It’s actually one of the few trees in our yard that I have no complaints about. It’s in a good spot for a small tree and it gives us a couple good seasons, with flowers in the spring and the wonderful fall color now. This one is a keeper.
Rain
I stayed home from work today because my back had given out. Eventually I was able to get up and once up I was a bit better. Getting up and down was still pretty hard, though. A little after 5:00 PM it started to rain quite heavily. I took this picture of the rain pounding on the glass table in our back yard. Taking pictures of rain isn’t very easy because if you focus on the rain, everything else is out of focus. If you focus on the background, you cannot really see the rain. Also, if you use a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the rain, it doesn’t look like rain. If you use a slower shutter speed, it’s just grey. In this picture you can at least see the water splashing on the table.
Rose ‘Perle d’Or’
Most references I’ve seen list this rose as growing to a size of three to six feet tall and three feet across. With the mild winter we had last year and the hot dry summer, mine has grown to about seven feet tall and nearly as far across. Actually, it’s getting a little too big and I’ll probably prune it back fairly hard this winter. On the other hand, I don’t think there has been a time since spring when there weren’t at least a few flowers open on it and there have been a few times when it was absolutely covered. The fragrance is wonderful and strong. On warm, humid days (not too uncommon here) it hits you as you walk up to the front door.
I don’t think this is a great picture but I do like flowers with sunlight shining through them. It’s hard to capture, though. I wanted to get a back-lit bloom but without a lot of past-their-prime flowers around it, so there were only a few to choose from. This is the best I got without going in for secateurs. If I had done that I would have missed the light, in any case.
Fall Color
The wonderful fall weather has continued and the trees are starting to take note. There is still a lot of green but more and more yellow. Here and there are splashes of early red. I love the red trees. It used to be that I only really liked the bright, orange-red of (for example) the maples. Now I like the purple-reds, the clarets, the maroons, and even the deep rusty-reds of the oaks. Still, there is something to be said for a happy red maple on cool autumn morning. Even nicer that it’s right out my back door.
Ardea herodias (Great Blue Heron)
In addition to the various berries and leaves that I photographed on our walk around the block today, we happened to see a heron fly overhead. I barely had time to get my camera up and snap off a shot before it went behind a tree and then over my office building and out of sight. It’s not a great picture because I needed to crop it down a bit, but it’s better than nothing. I love to see these huge birds wading in the shallows but I think my favorite thing is to see them take off and fly.
Ampelopsis brevipedunculata (Porcelain Berry)
What a beautiful day it was today. Cathy called and asked if I wanted to go for a walk during lunch time. We walked around the block from work, which is about a mile and a half around. I took a few pictures of deep red sumac leaves (both Rhus copallina and Rhus typhina), Virginia creeper berries (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), and, as shown here, porcelain berry (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata). It was named Vitis heterophylla but is now classified in a different genus to the grapes, which are similar plants.
Messiah’s Covered Bridge
Dorothy had no school today because it was the end of the quarter and teachers were doing grading. She took the opportunity to spend a couple days with her friend, Stephanie, at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. Saturday evening the campus was pretty quiet because it was their fall break, as well, but she was able to get a bit of a taste of college life. Today she went to classes with Stephanie and then I drove up to pick her up after work. Messiah has a pretty campus and before we left I took a minute to take a few photographs including this one of the covered bridge across the Yellow Breeches, which runs through the campus.
Hookahs
I love living in a fairly cosmopolitan area. In particular, I’m glad that we can get ethnic food from the four corners of the globe. Whether we have a hunger for Thai, German, Iranian, Jamaican, Chinese, Ethiopian, Greek, Brazilian, Afghan, Japanese, Italian, or even Burmese (to name only a few), we can easily find it close at hand. There are also small groceries and specialty shops where a surprising variety of products are available. For instance, only about three miles away we can shop for a hookah. It’s not something we shop for often, but if the situation arises, well, we know where to go.
Cathartes aura (Turkey Vulture)
After church this morning I was outside enjoying the beautiful fall weather. The sky was blue, the clouds were puffy and white, and there were turkey vultures all around. They aren’t the most attractive of birds, I know, but I like them anyway. Their huge wings and the way they soar give them a bit of majesty that their bald, red head cannot quite take away.
Dorothy, Passing The Test
Or should I title this, “get off the road!” We spent a relaxing (not!) five hours at the MVA but at the end of it all, Dorothy was awarded a permit to drive a motor vehicle (with considerable and reasonable restrictions). She got her learner’s permit. Woohoo!
Edgar Allen Poe, by Dorothy Hartley
In her art class, Dorothy has been looking at the works of an artist named Vik Muniz (http://www.vikmuniz.net/, requires Flash). He is a photographer whose photographs are of art that he creates with unique media. For instance, he reproduced a photograph by Hans Namuth of the artist Jackson Pollock making a drip painting. His reproduction was done in Bosco syrup. He “drew” Marlene Deitrich (among others) out of diamonds. And side by side Mona Lisas out of peanut butter and jelly.
In that vein, Dorothy did the portrait shown here of Edgar Allen Poe out of bits of his works. I think it turned out quite well.
Cosmos
It’s great to have flowers booming this late in the year. We have a frost warning out for tomorrow evening but so far, we’ve been spared. This cosmos is growing in a pot on our driveway and it’s a cheerful sight. I have a rose that’s still got a lot of blooms, as well. How can you not love that? Won’t be much longer, though.
Water
A man once said, “if there is any magic in the world, it’s contained in water.”
Seeds
It was a beautiful day today and I decided to get out of the office for a few minutes and wander in the empty lot next to my office.
I’m not sure what these are, actually. I didn’t really look at them well enough to identify them. They’re pretty though. I didn’t have a tripod with me, but I used a nearby tree branch to help steady the camera. Still, not as sharp a picture as I’d like.
Cuddles
This is Cuddles. Cuddles is a red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans) and he’s happy this evening because a new heat lamp was bought for him. Now he’s nice and warm. Nothing says “let’s cuddle” like a warm, semi-aquatic turtle, don’t you think?
Anaheim Peppers
I didn’t take many pictures today. That happens when I’m in my office all day and don’t really do much else. So, this evening I took a few pictures of Anaheim peppers that were left over from the chili I made on Saturday (for Sunday).
Birthday Cookies
For her birthday, our good friend Spencer gave Dorothy a dozen custom made cookies. They were made by a young woman named Mariel who does business as Belle Vie Cookies. I’ve had a lot of cookies in my time and I have to say, these are really, really good. In fact, a couple times we’ve cut one cookie into four pieces because a whole cookie is too much. They are made without preservatives so they won’t last long, although they won’t last long in any case.
Most Of The Party Guests
Well, we did it. We planned and gave a surprise party for Dorothy. Lots of people say that don’t want a surprise party. Dorothy meant it. We did it anyway and she wasn’t particularly happy with us. Still, look at how many friends she has. And of course there were others who couldn’t be there (and a few who had to leave before I took this picture). It was a beautiful, cool, breezy day and everyone, except possibly Dorothy, had a good time. Thank you all for coming.
