Monthly Archives: August 2013

Welcoming The Martins

Photograph taken on Sunday, August 04, 2013 by Henry
Rock Creek Church

Rock Creek Church

It’s a pretty exciting time for us. We had a nice, relaxing week at the beach, returning yesterday. Tomorrow we leave for England. But today has excitement of its own. Our church has been without a pastor for over a year. In some ways it’s been a good year. There has been a lot of looking at and assessing needs. It’s also been a fairly hard year in a lot of ways. There has been a lot that needed doing and fewer people to do it. I was blessed to be involved in the pastoral search process. Now, I celebrate along with the rest of the church that God has brought us a new pastor and his family. This is much more of a beginning than and ending and there is plenty still needing to be done, perhaps more than ever, but this is a change I’ve been looking forward to for a good while. Welcome, Martin Family!

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The End of Beach Week

Photograph taken on Saturday, August 03, 2013 by Henry
Dorothy and Karlee

Dorothy and Karlee

As I mentioned when I posted the family picture from a few days ago, Karlee has been with us at the beach every time we’ve gone since 2006. Dorothy’s second cousins consider her to be an honorary relative. She’s become so much a part of the family for that week that we don’t so much ask if she can come as assume that she will.

It’s hard to know what will happen next year, as both girls will have graduated from high school. The years after that are even more uncertain, of course, when they are away at college. Time will tell, of course, and Karlee will always be invited.

This photo was one of only a few I took today. We spent the first part of the morning packing and loading the car and then spent most of the day driving home. It’s about 425 miles, including getting Karlee home, and when you add stops and heavy traffic on I95, it’s a pretty long day. I made sure to take a few, though, including this of Dorothy and Karlee, ending beach week.

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Willet (Tringa semipalmata)

Photograph taken on Friday, August 02, 2013 by Henry

Willet (Tringa semipalmata)

Willet (Tringa semipalmata)

Willet (Tringa semipalmata)

Willet (Tringa semipalmata)

Willet (Tringa semipalmata)

I’m not particularly thrilled with my pictures from the beach this year. I got some nice pictures from the Green Swamp and from Brookgreen Gardens but the pictures I actually took on the beach are not really much to speak of. The sunrises and sunsets this week were not very colorful and during the day it was hazy and the light was harsh. Also, the girls didn’t play in the sand too much or they did it when I was in the sand with them, so there are not pictures of that. Pictures of them out in the water are fine but they aren’t fine art.

I did go out specifically to take bird pictures at one point. These two make me happy and have very different feels. They are both of a Willet (the same Willet, in fact). I like the first of them because it feels calm and ready for something to happen. The bird is a watcher. The second one, though, has a fair amount of tension and action already happening. He’s ready to move in either direction, depending on the wave that’s rolling in.

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Brookgreen Critters

Photograph taken on Thursday, August 01, 2013 by Henry
Hummingbird

Hummingbird

Dragonfly #1

Dragonfly #1

Dragonfly #2

Dragonfly #2

One thing I always enjoy about Brookgreen Gardens is the variety of insect, reptile, and amphibian wildlife I see there. Because it is on the water there are always a lot of different dragonflies darting about. We saw a little tree frog as well as two different types of lizard (a Green Anole, Anolis carolinensis and a Southeastern Five-lined Skink, Eumceces inexpectatus). There are huge Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers, Romalea microptera.

Pictured here, though, are two of the dragonflies and a hummingbird. I can identify the bird as a Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) because that is the only hummingbird found on the east coast. This one was darting around the white blooms of this Cleome-like flower (I’m not actually sure what it is) near The Fountain of the Muses (by Carl Milles). I managed to get a few photographs before it darted off.

As for the dragonflies, Albert and Brady are the experts so consider my identification tentative until they confirm or correct what I’ve said. I think the first, which looks to me like it is wearing a flight helmet, is a Red-tailed Pennant (Brachymesia furcata). The second, perched on basil leaves, looks like an Eastern Pondhawk (Erythemis simplicicollis). This picture makes me happy for all the green in it, as well as its symmetry.

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Brookgreen Gardens

Photograph taken on Thursday, August 01, 2013 by Henry
Diana of the Chase, by Anna Hyatt Huntington

Diana of the Chase, by Anna Hyatt Huntington

Live Oak Allee

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.

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