Miscellaneous

Reflections

We had a nice long weekend away, tracking down some of Cathy’s family history. We also got to see some pretty sights, including the Delaware Water Gap, the Quiet Valley Living Historical Farm, three very different cemeteries, a train museum, and we even went to a coal mining museum. The Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour and Anthracite Heritage Museum were closed by the time we got there but we were able to walk around a little and saw such things as a 13,000 pound chuck of anthracite and the adit where tours go down into the old mine workings. If we’re ever back in Scranton, particularly if it’s as hot as it’s been this weekend, that should be high on our list of things to do.

This morning, I went down to breakfast early and then was back in our hotel room, doing a little writing in my journal. I opened the curtain just enough to give me a little light to work by and these four stripes appeared on the wall. The sun was reflecting off the windscreens of four cars parked outside and shining up through the hotel room window, which was covered with condensation, giving the light the speckled appearance you see here. I took this picture as an abstract, really. It has no real meaning, but I think it’s a pretty pattern.

Glitter

It was a slow day photographically. That happens fairly often, I suppose. This take-a-picture-a-day thing is great in theory. If I didn’t work or was able to get outdoors to different places every day, it would be a lot easier. As it is, my life isn’t all that interesting. Nine days out of ten there’s nothing of any note to photograph. Oh, taking pictures of flowers, insects, and the occasional sunset is all well and good but some days, even that doesn’t happen. So, I look around the house for something a little different. There was some glitter on the dining room table, left over from a recent baby shower (well, the ‘baby’ is 8, but whatever). So, that’s what I photographed. I like the fact that this one star-shaped piece is standing point down in the tablecloth. You can also make out the reflection of the tablecloth pattern in the center of the star.

Shadows Of The Past

With David and Maggie in town and having had our fun outing yesterday, today was more work than play. That’s not to say we had no fun together, but we spent much of the day going through Cathy and David’s mom’s shed and throwing away old, sometimes mouse eaten papers, among many other things. There was a metal cabinet outside her kitchen door that at one time had gardening tools, a few buckets of paint, and some small bottles of pesticide, among other things. Many other things, actually. As is often the case with cabinets of this sort, it eventually became a little less organized and there were things there that were long since forgotten and which needed to be tossed. In fact, we decided that the entire cabinet was ready for the county’s metal recycling program. This is the top of one shelf. You can clearly see that there was a can of something brown, viscous, and oily, which leaked out and held some other items in place, including two small packs of fasteners, which still remain firmly attached.

I took two trips to the dump plus one before this, with some yard waste that I had loaded into the van last week. In the evening we came back to our house and I fixed grandma’s famous chicken and pilau recipes, which turned out pretty well. At least no one pushed their plates away in disgust.

Charcoal Embers

I know that on the Fourth of July I should be able to come up with a better picture than this. In years past I’ve had pictures of fireworks or of people celebrating Independence Day in various ways. This year we stayed home and had a pretty low key celebration. I marinated flank steak and grilled it, along with some slices of fresh pineapple and we had our two moms over for an early dinner. It rained pretty hard and we never really even considered going out to see fireworks. After dinner, I took some pictures of the leftover ashes and embers in the hibachi, but that’s about it. Maybe we’ll do something more exciting next year (but you won’t put any money on it, if you are wise).

Chrysler Town and Country, 210,000 Miles

Our 2000 Chrysler Town and Country reached 210,000 miles today, which is a milestone, I suppose. It happened to get there as I pulled into my office parking lot so I took a picture. Actually, I the mileage was 209,999 when I pulled into the lot and I took a picture of that before driving around my building a couple times to click it over to 210,000.

I should say, we have two minivans and this is our low-mileage van. The other is a 2007 and has a little over 240,000. Lately I’ve been alternating driving the two of them, one week for one, then a week in the other. Once it really gets hot, though, this one will get less use, as the air conditioning isn’t working. But lately it hasn’t been too bad.

Rockville Town Square

I met my family in Rockville Town Square this evening for what we have taken to calling TND (Thursday Night Dinner). We met at Gordon Biersch but I got there a little early and took a few pictures in the square before heading over to the restaurant. This was taken from the stage, with the camera sitting on the edge of the stage and with a slightly long shutter speed to get some blur into the water (1/13 sec. at f/16.0). I think I should have lightened it up a bit more, but it’s not terrible. Anyway, that’s where I was this evening.

Wooden Dog Toothpick Holder

Okay, how about a break from flowers and other pictures from the yard? Well, we don’t have any choice because I didn’t take any pictures outside today. I was in the kitchen and I saw this little, carved, wooden dog toothpick holder and though I’d take his picture. It’s a nice little thing that is mostly unnoticed in our kitchen but sometimes I like to celebrate the little things. We don’t actually use toothpicks that often, but when we do (when serving hors d’oeuvres, for instance) we really need to put this little fellow out.

Watermelon

Today started out quite warm and steamy. I did some heavy yard work (cut a dead branch from a maple tree, about 25 feet up the trunk) and was exhausted by the work combined with the humid heat. In the afternoon, however, a front came through and it cooled off and the air became much drier. After church we had a picnic in the shade behind the building and it was one of those perfect evenings we sometimes have in June. High 70s, breezy, clear, and wonderful. The company and the food contributed to the mood, of course.

Rose ‘New Dawn’

The Rose ‘New Dawn’ against my back fence has come into bloom. Looking back at prior years, my pictures of this rose have all been in the first week of June but that doesn’t mean it’s actually blooming much earlier this year (June starts tomorrow, after all). I had to cut this rose back hard this spring and actually need to take it out completely. it has become infected with rose rosette disease, which is caused by a virus (Emaravirus sp.) that is spread by a very small, eriophyid mite. There is no cure once a rose is infected and the rose must be destroyed to prevent the virus from being spread to other plants. So, this will be the last ‘New Dawn’ in my yard, at least for a while. Sad, as it’s such a lovely flower and blooms off and on all summer.

Gordon Woods

We drove up to Gordon to pick up Dorothy today. We had heavy traffic getting around Boston (as expected) but otherwise had an uneventful 9 hour drive. shortly after we got there we went for a walk to Gull Pond and then on from there to Round Pond. This picture is from where we turned around, in the woods around Round Pond (which isn’t round).

I love the quality of the light and especially the colors in the reflection on the water. It was a very beautiful, clear sky day and of course better for us being with Dorothy again. Shortly after I took this, there was a big splash in the pond and we all looked to see what had caused it. An osprey had caught a fish about 25 yards from where we were.

After our walk, we enjoyed hanging out with a few of Dorothy’s friends and taking most of her things from her dorm room to the van. A long day—we left home at 6:15 a.m. and got to our hotel after 11:00 p.m.—but a good one.

Tradescantia (Spiderwort)

The spiderwort (Tradescantia) is starting to bloom. This is a great plant to put in your garden if you want something that blooms well into the summer, is very tough and hardy, and that won’t run wild as many tough and hardy perennials seem to do. This will spread but slowly enough that it’s easy to keep up with. It’s also lovely both in and out of flower, although it’s the deep blue (or sometimes pink or purple) flowers that are its real attraction. These are the first flowers we have so far and this plant is in a particularly warm place, right by the west side of our house.

Toad Eye

I’m somewhat fascinated by eyes in general and by the eyes of frogs, toads, and other amphibians in particular. We were at the Elwood Smith community center in Rockville today because our church was meeting there (the church where we normally meet is having renovations done). As we unloaded the sound equipment from Marc’s truck, Chris noticed this toad (which I assume is an eastern American toad​ (​Anaxyrus americanus americanus, in family Bufonidae, the True Toads). Not surprising to anyone who has been around me in such a situation, I got out my camera and took some pictures. The eyes, in particular, drew me in. I think they are quite beautiful. Yes, even on a toad.

Redbud and Forsythia

We went for a walk along Lake Frank again today, shortly after noon. I got a few pictures of a female eastern bluebird (Sialia sialis) but is wasn’t all that great of a picture, so I’m not posting that here. I also took a picture of the first mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) we’ve seen and some marsh-marigold (Caltha palustris). As we left the park and headed back into the neighborhood I took this picture of redbud flowers with a background of forsythia (Cercis canadensis and Forsythia × intermedia).

Cassandra (right) With Her Parents

Our friend (well, Dorothy’s friend but I think she can be our friend, too) Cassandra had a show in Gallery Edit in Richmond this evening. We’ve known it was coming up and this morning as I was driving to work I thought, maybe we should drive down and see it. It would be nice to get out and even though I made the not-so-fun drive to down interstate 95 to Richmond last week, I was up for it again. Also, we wanted to show Cassandra our support. So Cathy picked me up at work at about 2:15 and we headed down, taking about 3 hours 15 minutes to make what could be a 2 hour trip. But we also got to have dinner from Alamo BBQ with dessert from Proper Pie Co. That’s a treat even without the art. This photo is from shortly after we arrived, as the gallery was just opening, and Cassandra was visiting with her parents, who had also come to see her work (and her). Definitely worth the drive (and coming home took the correct 2 hours).

In case you are wondering, the title of this post, ‘Fight’, is the title of her exhibit. It really has very little to do with this photo (i.e., no one is fighting in the picture).

Ethan And A Chicken

We were at Laurie and Dave’s this evening for our bi-weekly Bible study and prayer meeting. Ben and Erin came with three of their kids, Grace, Ethan, and Hope. They enjoyed chasing the chickens in the back yard and Ethan was able to catch one. He had it long enough for me to get a few pictures, including this one, which I think is pretty good.

Ethan seems to be settling in quite well and getting along with his siblings. Of course any change like this is going to be an adjustment and will continue to present them all with challenges but we’re so happy it’s been reasonably smooth so far.

Keeping chickens in a suburban setting seems to be something of a thing these days. I don’t know how long Laurie and Dave have been keeping them but I suspect it’s been longer than it’s been a thing. They certainly are not your average, hipster couple. No, definitely above average.

Japanese Garden — Maymont

It was a longish day today. I went to work in the morning and got a few things done. A friend brought her two children to work (because it’s spring break) and I was able to get a few nice pictures of them. Shortly after that Dorothy came and the two of us drove down to Richmond, Virginia. Traffic was pretty horrible but we finally got there. I dropped Dorothy off with a couple friends and went off to spend some time seeing things by myself.

I started at Maymont, a 100-acre, municipal park that was the estate of James and Sallie Dooley, which they began building in 1893. It is on a very hilly site and quite varied. There is an Italian garden near the top of the hill and a steep walk down from there to the Japanese garden, which features a number of connected pools, large evergreen and flowering trees, and the waterfall pictured here. There are also some wildlife exhibits and a fairly broad collection of farm animal.

Rusty Chain

After work and before I drove home I walked around outside my office a little, looking for things to photograph. It’s spring and leaves are starting to appear all over. The maple trees are in full bloom and that gives the trees a beautiful red glow, particularly when the sun is shining on them. There hasn’t been much of a change to the oaks yet, but they tend to come a little later.

One thing that caught my eye this afternoon, however, was the dumpster in our parking lot. I posted a picture of a rust spot on it the other day (see Rust Feather, Thursday, March 10, 2016) but today I noticed this chain is attached to a door on the end of the dumpster. I like the lines in this photo, particularly the arcs made by the chain as it swings, presumably when the dumpster is in transit (it doesn’t move much on its own and it would take a pretty significant wind to blow this chain around). Anyway, I like it.