Miscellaneous

Spigelia marilandica (Indian Pink)

Photograph taken on Sunday, June 21, 2020 by Henry
Spigelia marilandica (Indian Pink)

Spigelia marilandica (Indian Pink)

Here’s a second photo for the day. After our walk in the park, we went to the Agricultural Farm Park and walked through their demonstration garden. It’s really changed since we were here last, about two months ago. There was one plant in bloom that really caught our collective eye. It’s a Maryland native commonly called Indian pink (Spigelia marilandica). What a beautiful flower. This is something I’d really like to get. I’ve done some searching and it seems like finding seeds will be difficult. There are a few mail order places that have the plant but most of them ship in the fall. Hopefully I’ll remember to order some then.

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Dorothy’s Quilt For The Yorks

Photograph taken on Wednesday, June 10, 2020 by Henry
Dorothy's Quilt For The Yorks

Dorothy’s Quilt For The Yorks

Dorothy and three of the folks she’s living with came down for a three day visit. It was really nice to have them here and we had a really good time with them. They left this morning and stopped to see friends in two different places on the way home. One of those stops was to see Andrew and Rachel. Dorothy had made this quilt as a wedding present for them and wanted me to take a few pictures of it before she gave it to them, so we’d have a record of it. I think it turned out quite nicely and of course they loved it. I took one picture with Dorothy looking over the top of it, but we decided to feature just the quilt today. I also took pictures of Dorothy with Peter, Marissa, and Renee before they left (I know you’re shocked that I’d do that).

Beyond simply having them here, which was really, really nice, I really enjoyed our trip to Pennsylvania. It was a lot of fun and yet quite poignant. Memories.

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Day Lily Leaves

Photograph taken on Friday, June 05, 2020 by Henry
Day Lily Leaves With Rain Droplets

Day Lily Leaves With Rain Droplets

We had rain today. I have no complaints as we could use the rain. I didn’t go out much, though, so only got a few photos today, taken at about 8:20 PM as it was getting on towards dusk. The droplets of rain on leaves are a favorite subject of mine and today’s are on day lily leaves, right outside our back door. I took others, including some on tiger lilies in the front yard, but those didn’t turn out very well.

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Rose ‘Dr. W. Van Fleet’

Photograph taken on Monday, June 01, 2020 by Henry
Rose 'Dr. W. Van Fleet'

Rose ‘Dr. W. Van Fleet’

Last year my second cousin, Lyn, gave me a cutting of a climbing rose he has growing behind his house in North Carolina. It’s been in a pot since then but I finally got it planted this weekend.

Lyn said that the rose this came from was it turn taken from a rose that was given to his mother by Virginia, the wife of my grandfather’s (and Lyn’s grandmother’s) first cousin, Archie.

I’m pretty sure this is the rose ‘Dr. W. Van Fleet’, a repeat flowering sport of which became ‘New Dawn’ and was the first plant to receive a patent (i.e. plant patent ID #1). Interestingly, another rose on his property, one which has been there since it was his grandparents’ house, is almost certainly ‘American Pillar’, a rambling rose bred in the first years of the twentieth century by Dr. William Van Fleet (in Glendale, Maryland).

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Woodwardia Frond

Photograph taken on Saturday, May 23, 2020 by Henry
Woodwardia Frond

Woodwardia Frond

I’ve had a few fern photos this spring but here’s another. This is a Woodwardia of some type but I’m not sure which. It’s growing in our shade garden at the north end of our front yard and is quite happy there. We went to the garden center today and I bought a royal fern (Osmunda regalis) to plant in this part of the garden. My thought is to move the Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum) to the front of the bed, because it’s too short to be seen well where it is. The royal fern should be plenty tall so that will be nice. It’s something I’ve wanted a while.

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Mertensia virginica (Virginia Bluebells)

Photograph taken on Sunday, April 05, 2020 by Henry
Mertensia virginica (Virginia Bluebells)

Mertensia virginica (Virginia Bluebells)

Like most folks, we’re mostly confined to our house and to walks in the neighborhood. We figured that we could go for a drive so yesterday we went out and about. One place we went was the Montgomery County Agricultural History Farm Park on Muncaster Road. I didn’t take my camera with me, which is pretty unusual, so we went back there today with my camera this time. There were a few others there but everyone kept their distance from one another.

They have a small, woodland garden that is particularly nice right now, with mostly early spring blooms. These Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) are just starting to open and are so lovely.

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Water Droplets

Photograph taken on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 by Henry
Water Droplets

Water Droplets

We had another rainy day today, to end March. It’s been so warm and sunny lately that it was a bit of a shock to stay indoors all day. I did get outside long enough to take a handful of pictures, but really not much more than that. These are daylily (Hemerocallis) leaves with rain on them, and the rain continued to fall while I was taking it. I probably should have spent the time to get a tripod and really focus carefully, but I just needed to get a picture. Maybe next time. Sorry.

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Rainy Day

Photograph taken on Saturday, March 28, 2020 by Henry
Rainy Day

Rainy Day

After a week of mostly beautiful weather, today was grey and rainy. It was nice to be home from the office, meaning I didn’t go into the basement much, but mostly I just read and dozed and did this and that all day. I did go out in the evening to take a few pictures but there wasn’t much to see and I didn’t feel like walking around in the wet to find something more interesting. This is the view to the southeast from the front of our house, looking past a few large oaks to more trees at the end of the block. The maples are mostly in bloom, which accounts for the rusty red shades. The oaks will be out soon, adding a bit of yellow and then everything will be dusted heavily with pollen.

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Dried Amaryllis Flower

Photograph taken on Monday, March 23, 2020 by Henry
Dried Amaryllis Flower

Dried Amaryllis Flower

This is the same amaryllis flower that I posted a photo of a week an a half ago (see Thursday, March 12, 2020). As you can see, it’s dried out but interestingly has retained some of it’s color. Since taking this photo, I’ve cut the stem so we won’t get any seeds. They are so easily available in bulb form late in the year that we buy one most years. This one came back into bloom, a little later than expected but without much of any attention having been paid to it in the meantime.

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Spiraea prunifolia

Photograph taken on Saturday, March 21, 2020 by Henry
Spiraea prunifolia (Bridal Wreath Spiraea)

Spiraea prunifolia (Bridal Wreath Spiraea)

Our spiraea is in bloom and it’s really pretty as a background plant. It’s flowers are small but borne in a profusion of white. There are little bits of green in the flowers, but that can really only be seen close up. Spiraea prunifolia, bridal wreath spiraea, is a native of China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan and has been introduced in much of eastern North America. Interestingly, this double-flowered plant has the species name while the single-flowered variety, discovered later, is classified as a variety or form of the species. The name of the genus Spiraea comes from the Greek word speira meaning wreath.

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Log Cabin

Photograph taken on Sunday, March 08, 2020 by Henry
Log Cabin

Log Cabin

It was such a beautiful day that after church we decided to stop at Meadowside Nature Center and take a walk. Shortly after we parked we heard a hawk call out and saw it land in a tree overhead. I was able to get a few photos of it—either a Cooper’s or sharp-shinned—but they were from such a low angle they aren’t really all that good. We continued down past the pond to the Pioneer Homestead, where this photo was taken. There are two log cabins, a smoke house, and a corn crib. From there we walked down to Lake Frank and saw one of the eagles on their nest, which was cool. All in all, a very nice outing.

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Cut Tulip Flower

Photograph taken on Monday, March 02, 2020 by Henry
Cut Tulip Flower

Cut Tulip Flower

Cathy bought some tulips at the grocery store over the weekend and we have them in a vase on our dining room table. The stems were a bit long and the flowers drooped a bit. She was looking for deep red flowers but they didn’t have any that were just right so she settled for these very pale pinks. I think they’re quite beautiful and a flower here or there and now and then is worth the cost. Daffodils are starting to bloom around my office building and one or two are about to be blooming in the yard but the tulips are a litter further behind. Spring it on its way, however, and we’re looking forward to working in the yard.

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Bobble Head Dogs

Photograph taken on Wednesday, February 26, 2020 by Henry
Bobble Head Dogs

Bobble Head Dogs

Not much to brag about today, in terms of my photographic exploits. There are days I just struggle and even when I find something to photograph, it’s only worth posting so I can keep up my photo-a-day thing. This is day 3,344 and this photograph is number 174,241, which is an accomplishment, anyway. We used to have a small collection of these dogs in white, brown, and black. They were in the back window of a car but eventually they went the way of all things, returning to the dust from which they were made (or they’re in the process of that, anyway).

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Linda’s Retirement

Photograph taken on Tuesday, February 25, 2020 by Henry
Linda's Retirement

Linda’s Retirement

A co-worker is retiring and we had a party for her this afternoon. Not everyone rates a party but she’s been here a third of a century and certainly deserves one. In spite of all the years and although we have the same supervisor, I’ve never actually worked with her, but we’ve seen each other from time to time and we have quite a few friends in common. I changed supervisors in the last year when my previous boss retired and we’ve only had the same supervisor since then, so it’s perhaps less surprising than it might be. Anyway, this is Linda (I’ll let you guess which one she is) with five of our co-workers, including our shared supervisor, Bryan (second from the right). I’ve worked quite a bit with Terry, on the far right and he asked if I’d come and take pictures, which I did and which is why this is my photo of the day.

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Tear Catcher

Photograph taken on Monday, February 24, 2020 by Henry
Tear Catcher

Tear Catcher

The story is that this is a tear catcher or tear bottle, used to collect the tears of mourners in Persia (i.e. Iran and Afghanistan). According to tradition, bottles like this (and in other shapes and from other places) were used to catch the tears and the more tears the more regret over losing the loved one. The shape of the opening, theoretically, is meant to fit over the eye, although it doesn’t really fit very well and I can think of much better designs if that’s really what it’s about.

I’ve never been terribly comfortable believing that they were ever actually used for this, but that’s the story. I’ve never found any convincing proof that they were actually used for this purpose. Interestingly, the Wikipedia page on them has very inconclusive and even somewhat conflicting statements about them and most of the statements are tagged as needing a citation, so even those are pretty suspect (not to mention that nearly everything you find there is suspect).

I don’t think this bottle is terribly old. If it is, it’s in terrifically good shape. It is, however, a remarkably beautiful, cobalt blue and regardless of the veracity of it’s origin and original use, it’s a beautiful example of the glass blower’s art.

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Leica 35mm Rangefinder Camera

Photograph taken on Friday, February 21, 2020 by Henry
Leica 35mm Rangefinder Camera

Leica 35mm Rangefinder Camera

I generally try not to repeat the exact same subject in photographs. That’s not to say that once I’ve posted a photo of a sunset, for instance, I’ll try not to post any more. But things like this camera, I try to post only once. I posted one of this same camera in January of last year, I’m afraid so I have to break my unwritten rule (not for the first time, I fear). I mentioned it recently in a post about a Uniflex twin-lens reflex camera. It is a Leica IIIc, which was made from 1940 to 1951.

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Portrait Print

Photograph taken on Wednesday, February 19, 2020 by Henry
Print, 'Henry', by Dorothy

Print, ‘Henry’, by Dorothy

Dorothy gave me a set of four prints for Christmas. Three of them are portraits of the three of us, herself, Cathy, and me. The fourth was also of her so technically a portrait but it’s her walking and not facing the viewer. Anyway, she asked me to take photos of them for her and I did. She also said I could use one of those as my photo for the day. So, while I took this photograph, the actual content isn’t mine.

Of course the actual content of most of my photographs isn’t mine. I just photograph what I see. Sometimes it’s a man-made object and sometimes it’s something found in nature. Rarely is it a me-made object and even then, I only make things with materials that already exist. I like these prints and I think I like the one of me the best, which sounds egotistical but I think it’s the best of the three technically and I just like the way it looks.

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Topaz

Photograph taken on Tuesday, February 18, 2020 by Henry
Topaz Crystals

Topaz Crystals

In 1974 we took a trip out west as a family. We drove first to Denver where Ralph and our dad met us, flying out a few days after we left so Ralph could finish a class he was taking in summer school (if I remember correctly). We had also stopped in Kansas City because George’s braces broke and he needed to be seen by an orthodontist. Anyway, after we were all together we stopped at a place called Topaz Mountain but now I don’t know if it’s the one in Utah (southwest of Salt Lake City) or in Colorado (southwest of Denver). My memory says Utah but the Colorado site is more likely based on the route we took. I know we went to Mesa Verde and then Four Corners and it would have been on our route out of Denver. Anyway, we spent a good while searching for topaz in the stream beds and these are the nicer crystals that I found. None of them, really, are very suitable for jewelry, although I made a tie-pin out of one but it’s just out of the photograph at the top. I like them, anyway.

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Advertising Thermometers

Photograph taken on Friday, February 14, 2020 by Henry
Advertising Thermometers

Advertising Thermometers

Cathy has a small collection of advertising thermometers and they are on the wall in our front hall (you can see the bottom of our doorbell in the upper left). They have been collected over the years from various antique shops and generally have been bought for under $10 or so. We’ve seen some that didn’t really fit the pattern and that we passed on. Just being an advertisement isn’t really enough. It needs to have a photo or illustration and preferably that should be mostly unrelated to the company being advertised. So, for instance, a thermometer in a bottle shaped frame with a Coca Cola logo would not qualify. From left to right (roughly), we have Quina & Miller Co. (furniture), B and B Milk Transportation, Santoni Furniture and Salvage Co., R.M. Pile & Sons (manufacturer of concrete septic tanks!), Geo. D. Deoudes Co., Inc (commission merchants), Randolph Market, and Dr. Beegle’s Chiropractic Health Offices.

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Uniflex II

Photograph taken on Monday, February 10, 2020 by Henry
Uniflex II

Uniflex II

This is one of the first cameras I used, back in the early 1970s. It wasn’t new then, as Uniflex cameras were made between 1947 and 1950. It has an aluminum body and a pair of 75mm lenses. I learned to develop the black and white film I used with the camera, winding it onto a reel that goes into the developing tank. I honestly don’t know if any of the photos I took back then are still around. Even if they are, I doubt many are worth looking at. But you have to start somewhere and this is where I started. We had a few old cameras available to use, as my grandfather had upgraded to a Leica and my parents had used both a Canon rangefinder and then a Minolta SLR.

Not surprisingly, I moved to 35mm and in 1979 bought the first of quite a few cameras. It was a Canon A-1. A few years later I got an F-1. That was my workhorse for quite a few years and went around the world with us in 1988. I bought a Nikon body so I could share lenses with my father-in-law. When it came time to move to autofocus and then digital, I went back to Canon and that’s where I am now, having started this “picture-a-day” thing right after getting my current camera, an EOS 60D.

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