Miscellaneous

Diana of the Chase, by Anna Hyatt Huntington

Live Oak Allée

Cathy and I made Dorothy and Karlee come with us to Brookgreen Gardens today. I posted pictures from Brookgreen taken on August 2 of last year so I’ve tried to make this years pictures different from those. The first picture is of a circular pool with water lilies growing on it and with a sculpture called Diana of the Chase, by Anna Hyatt Huntington, in the center. The sign describing this bronze from 1922 says,

The Roman goddess of the hunt has just released her arrow as a hound leaps at her feet. Considered among Huntington’s finest works, and one of the few where the human figure is primary, Diana of the Chase was so popular that Huntington eventually created a second version some twenty years later to satisfy public demand. The example at Brookgreen was the sculptor’s own casting, originally located in the Huntington’s Fifth Avenue townhouse in New York City.

The second photograph is of one of the huge live oaks (Quercus virginiana) that lines the allée that was the land-side approach to the original Brookgreen Plantation house, which is no longer standing. They were planted as early as the 18th century. The trees are decorated with Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) and the branches have resurrection fern (Polypodium polypodioides) growing on them. This spring, 60,000 caladiums were planted under the live oaks and I must say it is a very impressive display.

Boat Reflections

One evening when we’re at the beach we all go to dinner at Dockside, a seafood restaurant in Calabash, almost into South Carolina. Because with a part of more than 20 people we generally have a pretty significant wait to get in, we all walk around on the nearby dock. This picture is of the reflection of a fishing boat.

Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina

Our summer was mostly only busy for Dorothy up through this weekend. Cathy and I continued to work. On July 27, though, we began three weeks of vacation, which is something I’ve been looking forward to for a few months. We started with a week at the beach. The beach, for us, generally means Ocean Isle Beach in southern North Carolina. On the day we arrived it was cloudy but very pleasant out. We went for a short walk on the beach just before sunset and I took a couple pictures of the ocean. This one is nice because it has a few birds in it — Least Sandpipers (Calidris minutilla) and a Willet (Tringa semipalmata).

Cinnamon Toast Crunch

This isn’t exactly the breakfast of champions. Nor is it the most spectacular picture for reintroducing my blog after a month. It is, however, one of only a handful of photographs that I took on July 25. The others have a bit more color in them but aren’t much more interesting. I’m just hoping that I’ll be able to keep your interest. Don’t worry, though, because I have some travel pictures coming soon.

I was a few days behind in posting pictures here because I was at the beach, enjoying myself and not thinking too much about responsibilities. While I was in that mode, my server crashed. That actually happened sometime on August 1 or 2. Then, we returned from the beach and left about 36 hours later for two weeks in England. The server was down all that time. I have it mostly back up and running and will begin posting pictures from the missing days.

Rest assured that there are pictures for every day, although, as usual, I don’t promise that they are any good.

Phoropter

I went to the eye doctor today. All seems well and I did very well on the peripheral vision test. He said he doesn’t see a lot of perfect scores but I got one with one eye and only missed one dot with the other, so that’s good news. He’s following two issues but said that neither is causing any problem and I don’t need to come more than once a year. While I was waiting, though I took this picture of the phoropter, although he didn’t actually use it this visit. My eye sight hasn’t really changed since I got my glasses.

Wild Raspberries

The other day I mentioned that I picked and ate some wild raspberries and that I planned to go out to pick more when I had the chance. We’ll, I finally got out again today and picked a nice big tub of them. It was pretty hot out but fortunately I was working mostly in the shade rather in bright sun. Still, I worked for these. I think it was worth the effort, though. Don’t they look good? They aren’t huge but they are very tasty.

Fountain Splash

For those who don’t like pictures of the creepy crawlies, here’s a non-insect, non-spider photograph. It’s interesting that people who are given the willies by spiders or most insects often don’t have any problem with butterflies. They are pretty, to be sure, but they are still basically just bugs with big wings.

In any case, this is a picture I took in the evening after dinner. We went to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream and then sat watching the fountain. There were no children playing in the fountain, as there so often are, but Cathy and Dorothy at least put their feet in the spray.

This picture is of a spout of water against the darkening evening sky. It’s a photograph that makes me strangely happy.

Rockville Fireworks

We decided to walk with Albert and Brady to see the Rockville fireworks this year. As it turns out, we stopped walking a bit sooner that we probably should. Ralph and Tsai-Hong went on and saw them much more closely than we did, although we got a reasonable view. We were a bit surprised at the brevity fo the show. Well, it turns out that it was due to a technical fault. The City of Rockville put out the following notice:

Due to technical difficulties, the annual Rockville Independence Day fireworks show was shorter than anticipated.

The show, planned to be about 20 minutes, experienced technical difficulties about six minutes after it started.

Unable to diagnose the problem, the fireworks technician made the decision to move directly to the show’s three minute finale, which was unaffected.

Thank you to everyone who attended. We will be working with our fireworks vendor to do everything possible to avoid this from occurring in the future.

Still, considering how little effort we went to, the show was fine and we were with family and good friends. You really cannot ask for much more than that.

Leather Tiles

I happened to be in Bethesda this evening and ran some errands before finding a place to get a quick dinner. There are lots of choices in terms of eating establishments but most of them would probably have taken longer than I had time for. Nando’s Peri Peri looked like it was just what I wanted. It’s name is a misspelling (I assume intentional for trademark purposes) of piri piri, the Portuguese hot sauce made with African bird’s eye chilis (Capsicum frutescens) and often containing some or all of the following: citrus peel, onion, garlic, coriander leaves (cilantro), salt, pepper, lemon or lime juice, paprika, pimiento, basil, oregano, and tarragon.

I found the decor of the place interesting and I took a few photographs with my camera sitting on top of my camera bag to hold it steady in the dim light of evening (and it was raining outside). This column in the middle of the restaurant is covered with beautiful, brightly colored tiles. It turns out, though, that they are not ceramic, as I first thought. They are made of colored leather. I also liked the assortment of incandescent light bulbs. Somehow, compact fluorescent lamps wouldn’t have given the same feel. I wonder where you have to go to get those. They’ll probably be a black market item, soon.

The chicken was delicious, by the way. I got it “hot,” which I recommend.

Raining Cats and Dogs

Downed Tree, Near Miss

Since most of my followers are reasonably local, most of you probably already know of the severe storm we had here. For those of you seeing this from further afield (I know there are a few folks in Alaska and England, to name a few places) we had a small tornado touch down about a mile and a half from our house.

We had little or no damage to our trees. The cap blew off the top of our furnace chimney. That chimney isn’t actually used any more, so except for keeping water out, it’s not that bit a deal. There were a lot of trees down in the neighborhood, though. Around the corner the road was blocked and in the evening crews were working. Up at the end of a court a tree was down on a van, but thankfully no one was hurt. Our friends had a tree fall between their house and the neighbors’ house, doing only minimal damage and barely missing one of their cars. Yes, this one could have been a lot worse. To add great news to the good news of it missing their house and cars, it turns out the tree belongs to the county so they won’t even have to pay to cut it down.

Some people were not so fortunate, of course, and our prayers go out for them.

My Hand with IV Tube

Sort of unexpected turn of events. I had hernia surgery just over a month ago. It wasn’t healing well and seemed to be infected. I went to see the doctor yesterday and we decided he should get in and clean things up. So, I’m back in the O.R. to be reopened. Would have been better if he put a zipper in me so he didn’t have to use a knife this time, but that’s the way it goes. The nurses got a kick out of me taking pictures of the pre-op area and of my hand with an I.V. tube going into it. I didn’t know if I would feel up to taking pictures later in the day, so I figured I better get something done before they put me out. As it turned out, I didn’t take any more pictures, so you’re stuck with this one. The surgery went well and I’m home, recovering.

Rain On My Window

We had a bit of rain today. I hadn’t realized it was coming because my desk is situated so that I’m facing away from my window most of the time. I also have a fan running most of the time because it’s always pretty hot in my office. A particularly strong gust of wind blew the rain against the window loudly enough that I noticed, so I pulled out the camera and took a few pictures. Rain on a window isn’t all that interesting, I suppose, but it represents today pretty well. If you happen to like water on glass, as I do, then you might enjoy the work of this painter. I have to keep reminding myself that these are oil paintings, not photographs. http://www.gregorythielker.com/Under/unmindingsky.html

Headless Rabbit

I took a fairly wide variety of pictures today, as well as some video and I wasn’t sure what I should post but in the end I decided to go with something a little off beat. Dorothy and I were coming home from a church meeting and decided to take the scenic route. It doesn’t exactly cross the moors or go through mountain passes but it’s different to our normal route. This picture is something we spotted on the way. I don’t really have any explanation for it or comment on it, though. It is what it is.

Back Patio

This isn’t much of a photograph, I know, but it’s probably going to be an off week for me. I’m home because I’m recovering from outpatient surgery (which went well, thanks) and I’m not supposed to life anything more than ten pounds for a while. Cathy asked me to take pictures of the front corner of our house, because we have some work being done and they will be digging up a little of that part of the garden. Those pictures are fine in terms of documenting what it looks like but they aren’t much to speak of. I also went out back and took a few pictures of the containers on our patio. They are not any great shakes, either, but that’s what you get. Maybe tomorrow will produce something better.

Water Droplets on Daffodil Leaves

Well, yesterday I commented that I wanted a good, soaking rain. We are getting it and it is lovely. It was still wet this morning so you get to see another picture of water droplets on leaves. This time, the leaves are the long, strap-like leaves of daffodils. The flowers are gone (from these, anyway, there’s one variety still finishing up its blooming) and it’s time for the leaves to do their job of converting light energy into chemical energy, which can be stored in the bulbs for next years blooming. In terms of this photograph, I like that there are water droplets clinging not only to the top surface of the leaves but to the edges, as well.

Tree Cutting

When we bought our house almost seven years ago I said I’d really like to take out the two trees in the middle of the back yard. They are poorly placed and the larger of them, in particular, makes me nervous every time the wind gets strong. If it were to fall, it would definitely fall toward the house and it would do serious damage. This morning they came down. This is one of the crew up in the tree cutting off a largish limb. This was taken from out front, looking over the top of the house as I left for work.

I like trees, really I do. But when it comes to small, suburban yards, they need to be the right trees in the right place. If I had a couple acres (or more), I’d be planting trees. But this huge tree this close to the house was an issue.

Stinky Cheeses

I picked up Dorothy this morning in Bethesda and we stopped briefly at Balducci’s, in Wildwood. I don’t shop there often, or we’d be broke, but it’s fun to go there once in a while. I do splurge and buy some expensive cheeses from time to time. Today, I got a little Stilton, some red Leicestershire, and some cheese called Jasper Hill Landaff, which I knew nothing about. It is made from raw cow’s milk and comes from Landaff Creamery on Springvale Farm in Landaff, NH. I took a few pictures while we were in Balducci’s, including this one of the “stinky cheese section.”

7-Eleven

When I started this project I said that I couldn’t promise that any of the photographs I took would be worth anything. I flatter myself that there have been some pretty good photos among the considerable amount of chaff. I’ve taken and used my camera in places I never thought to take it before — the dentist office, getting a CT scan, the grocery store — but I recognize that some days it just doesn’t work out.

Frankly, my life is pretty pedestrian and the pictures I take are for the most part pretty run of the mill. Today, I was in my office all day. I looked up and it was 6:10 and I had to be set up for a Skype-based interview at 7:00. I rushed home to get my computer and then to the church and by the time we were done it was after 9:00. I took this picture on the way home. I think it’s safe to say that this one lives down to my promise of not being worth much. But, I took a picture today, my 826th consecutive day taking a picture.

Corvette

It’s a little bit funny. I don’t think that I’d be interested in a Corvette even if I could afford to be. On the other hand, I think they make good photographic subjects. I happened to be passing Criswell Chevrolet this morning and decided to stop to take a few photos. Partly it’s because they have a nice, curving line of them along the road. I suppose their bright colors and sleek lines also contributes. Anyway, this photo is a bit more red than I remember the car actually being, which seemed more orange but perhaps that was because of the deep, dark red car that was next in line.