Monthly Archives: June 2025

Roadbody

Photograph taken on Thursday, June 26, 2025 by Henry
Roadbody (Dorothy, Andrew, and Vince)

Roadbody (Dorothy, Andrew, and Vince)

It was a busy day today, starting with work where I had a few long meetings as well as getting a copy of a website that we’re moving from government servers to ours (the company’s, not mine). These sorts of things take a fair amount of planning and that’s good, but it can also be draining.

Cathy and I then left at 5:00 and drove up to Gettysburg, where Dorothy, Andrew, and Vince (a.k.a. Roadbody) were playing at Ploughman’s Taproom on the square. We sat with Jeff, Anna, and Rachel and enjoyed the show. I prefer when Dorothy plays the acoustic guitar rather than the raspy electric guitar, since the latter tends to drown out her voice, which to me is a big part of her songs. Nevertheless, we know her songs reasonably well, so even when we could not hear her voice or make out the words, we could sort of sing along.

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Tire Swing

Photograph taken on Saturday, June 21, 2025 by Henry
Tire Swing

Tire Swing

All of the ‘local’ family met up at the Pennsylvania property today. It was a hot and humid day, but still really nice to all be together and outdoors. Dorothy and Jeff had just finished putting up this tire swing on the walnut down near the pond. The old tire swing was on a large maple tree that we had to have taken down in August 2023 because it was threatening to fall on the cabin. The kids (and some of the adults) really enjoyed the new swing and the kids in particular played well on it for hours.

The adults mostly just sat around and talked because it was too hot to do much else. Dorothy and Jeff didn’t come until mid-afternoon, having been with some friends earlier in the day. We cooked dinner over the fire (in spite of the added heat) and then headed home around 8:40. Cathy and I stopped at Rutter’s to buy bottles of refrigerated water and enjoyed the air conditioning in our car on the way home.

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Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)

Photograph taken on Sunday, June 15, 2025 by Henry
Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)

Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)

We went to Pennyfield Lock on the C&O Canal today, walking upstream just a little less than 2 miles. We took it fairly slowly and stopped to listen for—and even occasionally photograph—birds. The Merlin app identified four vireos (red-eyed, white-eyed, warbling, and yellow-throated), as well as indigo buntings, orchard oriole, and a few different fly- and gnat-catchers. I got a few nice photos of a great egret (Ardea alba), a couple great blue herons (Ardea herodias) and this turkey vulture (Cathartes aura). I also got photos that aren’t all that good but at least allowed me to identify a ruby-throated hummingbird (Archilochus colubris), an immature male orchard oriole (Icterus spurius), an indigo bunting (Passerina cyanea), and some black vultures (Coragyps atratus). The three smaller birds were way up in tree tops so the photos were not very good at all. Google lens tried to convince me that the orchard oriole was an Asian golden weaver (Ploceus hypoxanthus). Even when I included ‘Maryland’ in my description, it insisted that the picture was not from Maryland because that bird doesn’t exist here. The Merlin app did a better job with it.

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Van Gogh Puzzle

Photograph taken on Wednesday, June 11, 2025 by Henry
Van Gogh Puzzle

Van Gogh Puzzle

We finished another difficult puzzle recently. This is (as you almost certainly know) Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Similar to the puzzle of Monet’s Water Lilies, there are a lot of shades of blue in this. Also, the swirls make it hard to know which way is up for many pieces. Eventually, however, we got it done. We’ve been given a bunch of puzzles by a friend and we’ll work on a few of those next. They are mostly 500 pieces, instead of our standard 1,000 piece puzzles, which makes them considerably easier (but still a lot of fun).

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Longwood Gardens

Photograph taken on Saturday, June 07, 2025 by Henry
Longwood Gardens

Longwood Gardens

We had a great visit to Longwood Gardens today, going there with our good friends Krystal and Mike. It was drizzling when we first got there but we were equipped for it. If you like gardens and have never been, I highly recommend it (or even if you have been, truth be told). I picked this weekend because I knew the roses would be in bloom, and they really were. It’s a pretty good drive, or we might go more often.

As you can see, the weather cleared and it was a beautiful day, getting warm later in the day. Then it started raining as we were leaving and we saw a nice rainbow.

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Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis)

Photograph taken on Sunday, June 01, 2025 by Henry
Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis)

Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis)

We went to the Agricultural History Farm Park today and, among other things, we saw a lot of eastern bluebirds (Sialia sialis). We also saw a couple song sparrows (Melospiza melodia), European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), a mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos), and an eastern kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus). Not bad for a short visit. The photos of the bluebirds turned out quite well, I think showing off their colors really nicely. This is probably out best place to go to see those, although we’ve seen them even in our neighborhood.

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