It was a hot and humid day today. After church, we were home for a while but then decided to drive to Rocklands Winery for the late afternoon. I’ve been asked to take some photos for them, so we wandered around a bit and I took a few of the back of the sandstone house. We enjoyed a beautiful, if somewhat sticky evening before returning home. It’s supposed to cool off in a few days, so we may go back next week. If you’ve never been, I can recommend it. https://www.rocklandsfarmmd.com/
Miscellaneous
Rocklands Garden and House
Mini Art Gallery
We were over at Dorothy’s this evening and enjoyed dinner and a short visit. I only took a few pictures, because it wasn’t really a picture sort of evening but I did take a few. She has put up a fair amount of art in the bathroom nearest her bedroom. This picture doesn’t really do it justice and I’m not sure any would, unless I did a 360 panorama. And even that would be tough. As you can see, it’s a fairly eclectic collection of things, from a key chain to a partially painted deer skull, with various prints and photographs as well. I’ve been to a few art galleries that were more like this, with a wide variety of things on the walls, not just one painting after another, evenly spaced and all at the ideal height. The old Barnes museum, before it moved into downtown Philadelphia was something like that, although it’s collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings are clearly in a class of their own. Nevertheless, it uses a lot more wall space than in a more traditional gallery. I have no idea if the new location has preserved that look and feel, but I would assume so.
Another gallery with the walls more crammed with things is the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. This is one of my favorite museums and I highly recommend it to anyone visiting Boston, unless of course you don’t care for art. But I love it. Of course, I’m not saying Dorothy’s bathroom reaches the level of the Barnes or the Gardner. But it has that same feel to it.
Phyciodes tharos (Pearl Crescent)
Our outdoor church service has been moved forward from 10:45 to 9:30 because of the heat. After church we decided to go for a walk on the Blue Mash Trail on Zion Road, behind the Oaks Landfill. We enjoyed being out, although it was a warm day, close to 90°F. Thankfully there’s a fair amount of shade. In addition to this daisy, there was a purple flowered vetch (Vicia species) and a few other wildflowers showing off for the insects. After our walk we stopped at Johnson’s because Cathy wanted to get some black mondo grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’). They didn’t have any. Then we had a picnic lunch at Olney Manor Park with sandwiches from Jersey Mike’s before coming home.
Seneca Bluffs
As mentioned in today’s earlier photo, we walked on the east side of Seneca Creek today, on the Seneca Greenway Trail from Seneca Road to a little ways past Berryville Road. Actually, we went off the main trail shortly after Berryville Road and walked along a smaller trail just beside the creek. That’s where the photo of Rob, Susie, and Cathy was taken and also where this photo of the Seneca Bluffs was taken. There is what appears to be a wier or the remains of a small dam across the creek a little below where this shot was taken. You can see the Canadian hemlocks on the bluff, which doesn’t look nearly as high as it did from the top.
Meadowside Spring
Cathy and I went for a walk near Meadowside Nature Center this afternoon, heading upstream on North Branch Rock Creek. On the west side of the creek, back into the hillside a little, is this spring. I have no idea how long it’s been enclosed in stone but it has the look of something done quite a few years ago. For all we know, it predates the nature center and was built when there were homes or farms along the creek. There wasn’t a lot of water coming out but there was some, possibly enough for a small home if you work it right.
Lake Wiles
On the first of January we stopped at this little park owned by the Lake Wiles, Isaak Walton League. We came here again today with Dorothy and walked around the pond again. It was raining both times we visited but I suspect we’ll come again on a nice spring or summer day and it will be a little different. The island in the pond has a sign that says “Lake Wiles”. It’s a pretty place and the trail connects with the Muddy Branch Trail, which goes all the way to the Potomac, apparently.
Ice
We went for a walk today and I took a very few photographs, including a few of ice along side the path. It’s melting and everything is very wet and cold but there are already signs of spring. Snow drops are coming up and before long there will be witch-hazels (Hamamelis) in bloom. Winter won’t be over for a while yet but the first signs of spring are already staring to appear.
Rocklands Meat Photo Shoot
Dorothy is working on the web site for Rocklands Lifestock Company, the meat and egg business of Rocklands Farm. One thing she needed was product photos. I took the day off work and met her at the farm and we took a nice assortment of photographs. Food photography isn’t necessarily my thing, but I’m reasonably pleased with how they turned out. We’ll have to do some more, but it was a good start. And I love any chance to be out at the farm. It’s beautiful even in winter and of course, being in the country is almost always better than being in suburbia.
February Snow
Still catching up on old photos from the winter. It seems weird to be posting pictures of snow when it was nearly 90°F yesterday, but that’s the way it goes. This past winter was pretty mild and we didn’t really have a lot of snow. Writing this in the first week of May, I know how the rest of the winter went and it did seem more like winter in February and and March than it had in December and January. We even had a freeze in the second half of April, although it didn’t do as much damage as the late frost last year, which was even later.
C&O Canal Rocks
These rocks are south of Pennyfield Lock on the C&O Canal. The photo was taken on the same walk as the previous one of the great blue heron. It’s an HDR composite photo made from three images taken with different exposures. This allows the camera to capture more detail in the shadows and highlights than it would normally be able to do. As amazing as our modern digital cameras are, they still have a ways to go before they can handle the extremes of light that we take for granted.
Bird Tracks
We had snow overnight and today and this evening there were lots of bird tracks on our back patio. It was getting dark when I took this, so it’s not as nice as it might have been, but there you are. Also, it feels strange posting this almost three months late, with temperatures in the upper 80s this week. But, it was cold when I took the picture and that’s life. I have ore than 30 pictures to post before I’m caught up.
Patuxent River
We went up county today and to the border with Howard County. This photo is of reflections in the Patuxent River, which here is the boundary between Montgomery and Howard Counties (taken from the Montgomery County side). We were on Annapolis Rock Road and stopped where it crosses the Patuxent. A little further along we found the parking area for Annapolis Rocks, which we’ll return to at some point. It’s a really pretty area and one we’ve never been to before.
Rusty Gears
Cathy and I went for a walk at the Montgomery County Agricultural History Farm Park today. There’s an area with old farming machinery on either side of the road and I took a few photos there. I’ve always liked machinery and sometimes think mechanical engineering would have been a good career choice for me. If I had been a better student when I was a student, it might have been possible, even. There’s not much use playing the What If game, though, I suppose.
Note, I generally try to post photographs at least reasonably close to when thy were taken. In mid January I ran out of space on one of my hard drives and it’s taken me until mid April to get the new one installed (laziness, mostly). It’s finally up and running and I’ll see what I can do about getting caught up. Thanks for your patience.
Sandy Spring
We went out for a walk this morning, going somewhere new, but it turned out that W.S.S.C. property requires a paid permit. The signage was very ambiguous, giving regulations for walking on the trails but then with big “No Trespassing” signs, but without an explanation of what constitutes trespassing. We decided to walk to Sandy Spring and enjoyed the walk very much. There is a champion white ash (Fraxinus americana) on the route, as well, which is a very handsome tree. There were other people out but no so many that it really affected our walk. The last time we came here we walked from Woodlawn Manor on the Underground Railroad Trail.
Our New Roof
The roofers finished late enough yesterday that it was a bit dark to get a good photo of the front of our house, which faces eash-northeast in any case. So, here’s a photo of the front of our house taken this morning and without anything in the driveway. Getting a new roof is one of those things you don’t notice unless you’re specifically looking for it. Or I suppose if the old roof was leaking and now it’s dry inside when it rains. But when we bought the house the inspector told us the roof was pretty warn and we should plan on replacing it pretty soon. Soon became 14 years, but we beat the odds and haven’t had any significant problems. And now we should be good for a long while.
I compared this photo to one taken when we bought the house and the two holly trees, one by the driveway and the other at the left corner of the house, are much larger than they were then. Otherwise, the house doesn’t really look at that different.
Roofer Madness, Day Two
Continuing with our ongoing roof replacement, the contractors were back this morning to handle the “bump” and the garage. Some of the houses in the neighborhood have a one story piece between the main part of the house and the garage and others—like ours— have a two story section. We call the two-story version a “bump”. Anyway, the roofing went on that and the garage today. The garage roof needed more repairs to the plywood but the joists were sound, anyway. Once they finished they spent quite a while on clean up. There’s a fair amount of debris, although they put drop cloths down, it didn’t catch everything. They also went around with a magnet picking up nails and staples. Tomorrow I’ll show you the finished product.
Roofer Madness, Day One
As mentioned yesterday, we are having our roof replaced. The materials were delivered yesterday and the crew showed up this morning and got to work. Of course, getting the old roofing material off is a big part of the job and we had two layers of shingles that had to be removed. The plywood on the front half of the roof was in pretty good shape although there were a couple places on the back that needed to be repaired with new plywood. We also had them remove the chimney from our furnace, which is no longer being used, so that’s one less opening in the shingles to worry about going forward. It’s a noisy business, especially when they are tacking down the underlayment. Then they start up their compressor for their nail guns and it’s blam, blam, blam, for the rest of the afternoon.
New Roof Rising
The kid in me still loves big trucks and heavy machinery. Put a crane on a truck and lift pallets of shingles onto a roof, and I’ll watch. Needless to say, I enjoyed the process of preparing for our roof to be replace tomorrow. The truck needed a surprising amount of space, because it has seriously long outriggers so they can reach the crane out to the side as far as this, positioning the materials as close as possible to where they will be needed. We had work done on our chimney in December, so we’re all set to have the roof replaced now.
Burke Lake
We met our good friend Jean at Burke Lake this afternoon. We’ve never been there before but it was quite nice. There were a lot of folks there but we walked along the shore on a trail that was less used and it was very nice. The wind coming across the lake was fairly cool but the sun was shining and there were birds and it was lovely. Of course the main thing was seeing Jean, and that would have been nice anywhere, but it’s always better to be outdoors, if you can (unless the weather is really nasty, and then it’s great to be somewhere cozy, instead).
Rain
It was a rainy day today, a quiet way to usher in the new year. In spite of the rain, though, we wanted to get outdoors. We went to a small park owned by the Isaak Walton League and walked around their pond and into the woods for a while. There were hooded mergansers (Lophodytes cucullatus) on the pond and I got a few photos of them, good enough to identify them conclusively but not really that great. One of these days I’ll get a long lens but today is not that day. We also saw a hawk of some kind, which flew away from us in the woods. We’ll probably come back here in the spring or at least when it isn’t raining.