Monthly Archives: May 2026

The Wedding!

Photograph taken on Saturday, May 30, 2026 by Henry
The Wedding!

The Wedding!

When they first announced their engagement and picked a date for their wedding, it seemed like it was a long way off. Lately, however, it seemed like there wasn’t going to be enough time to get everything ready in time. With a lot of help—and I cannot thank cousin Mickey enough—we got to the day and everything went wonderfully. A few weeks ago there were highs above 90°F. Up through Wednesday it was raining, sometimes quite hard. But today we got up to clear, blue skies and a high of 68°F, fairly warm in the sun but blissfully cool in the shade. The wedding was outdoors and there were a lot of moving parts, but pretty much everything went according to plan. I lost count of the folks who told me that this was the best or one of the best weddings they have ever been to. I know that some people will say that no matter what, and of course I’m highly biased, but I have to say, it was pretty grand.

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Apple Country, Pennsylvania

Photograph taken on Friday, May 29, 2026 by Henry
Apple Country, Pennsylvania

Apple Country, Pennsylvania

Dorothy came to our airbnb this morning and we drove into Biglerville, parking at the National Apple Museum. We walked from there along University Drive, past the Penn State Fruit Research and Extension Center. This is apple country and the home of Musselman’s (now a part of Knouse Foods). They specialize in apple butter, apple sauce, and apple juice. We’ve been coming to this area for over 60 years, mostly to the property my parents bought. I know that Wenatchee, Washington takes the title of the apple capital of the country, we do have the National Apple Museum, which is something. Anyway, it was a beautiful day and a relaxing walk before a busy day preparing for tomorrow’s wedding.

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Lone Star Tick (Amblyomma americanum)

Photograph taken on Thursday, May 21, 2026 by Henry
Lone Star Tick (Amblyomma americanum)

Lone Star Tick (Amblyomma americanum)

I found this tick on my and decided to take a few pictures. I started by putting it under the microscope, but the lowest power of that wouldn’t let me get the entire tick in the frame, so they are less helpful in trying to identify it. The depth of field was also quite low through the microscope (which is to be expected). So, I switched to a 24mm lens attached to a bellows on my camera. The bellows was for my old, non-autofocus Canon cameras (F-1 and A-1). With a lens mount converter, I’m able to mount it on my autofocus EOS 90D. The body on the EOS is thicker than the F-1, meaning that any old lens I attach won’t be able to focus to infinity, but since this is a macro shot, that doesn’t matter. It was identified as a nymph of the lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum)

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Bgraamiens Succulent Puzzle

Photograph taken on Wednesday, May 20, 2026 by Henry
Bgraamiens Succulent Puzzle

Bgraamiens Succulent Puzzle

We finished this puzzle last night. Early on there were some fairly easy parts but it got harder as we got more done, because it was hard to see where things went. We even had a few large sections done that seemed like they could only go in two or three places and it still took us a while to get them situated.

As I suspect you can tell, we like puzzles and we generally have one being worked on at any given time. When we get near the end of our puzzle hoard, I’ll buy a few more so I’m ready when we finish the last one. I think I’ve also mentioned that we do puzzles without reference to the photo on the box. We sometimes look at it briefly when we open a new puzzle, but then it gets put away. Yes, it makes the puzzle harder. But it also means we get greater satisfaction when we finish.

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Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor)

Photograph taken on Tuesday, May 19, 2026 by Henry
Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor)

Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor)

We don’t actively follow the birding web sites but Cathy happened to be looking at one yesterday and it mentioned that there were some swans on the pond near the Blue Mash Trail. We figured our chances of them being there today were low, but not zero, and we decided we’d go there, anyway. As expected, there was nothing on the pond. We did see orioles, however, and quite a few tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor), mostly around the bluebird boxes, most of which seem to have been taken by the swallows. This one let me get quite close and this is a full frame photo.

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Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus)

Photograph taken on Sunday, May 17, 2026 by Henry
Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus)

Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus)

We walked on Seneca Bluffs Trail today, parking in the area on Montevideo Road between River Road and Rocklands Farm Winery. We walked downstream, although for most of that part of the trail Seneca Creek isn’t very visible. This section of the trail is on the top of the bluffs in fairly deep woods. We heard quite a few different birds, including several vireos. One bird that we didn’t hear but then suddenly saw, was this yellow-billed cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus). It flew across the trail ahead of us and landed behind some branches. I got a few pretty poor photos of it there before it flew to this more exposed location. The strong back-lighting takes away considerably from the photo, but I was still excited to get what I got. These are not the easiest birds to spot in the woods.

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Emberglow

Photograph taken on Friday, May 15, 2026 by Henry
Emberglow

Emberglow (Mo, Julia, Jeff, and Keisha)

Cathy and I drove up to Pennsylvania today to do a bit more work on the property, getting ready for the wedding in about two weeks. We brought more things with us and while Cathy weeded the garden, I cut brush around some trees to make it a bit less wild. It’s been a lot of work and there’s a lot more to be done around the trees that Dad planted in what he called his arboretum, but I’m enjoying seeing these trees that are all considerably younger than me but that are now quite substantial. Anyway, Cathy and I went into Gettysburg after our day of work and enjoyed music by one of our favorite bands. They were playing on the square, outside Ploughman’s Taproom.

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Rosa davurica (Amur Rose)

Photograph taken on Monday, May 11, 2026 by Henry
Rosa davurica (Amur Rose)

Rosa davurica (Amur Rose)

In 2021 I posted a photo of this same rose, which I believe to be Rosa davurica (the Amur Rose). It’s one of 29 roses I planted in 2005 in an area of what we call the ‘picnic field’ and my dad came to call his ‘arboretum’. Most of them had died by 2021 but there were two that were doing quite well. Since then, the area became a dumping ground for tree trunks and other brush that was being cleared from another part of the property. We are trying to clear up that part of the field and have moved most of the brush pile and I hope to dig up a few of these to transplant to a more suitable area before we turn this part of the field into a parking area for Dorothy and Jeff’s wedding.

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Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea)

Photograph taken on Sunday, May 10, 2026 by Henry
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea)

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea)

Today’s walk was along the C&O Canal from Violet’s Lock, upstream from Great Falls. It was raining as we drove there but stopped before we got to the parking area. As we started walking, however, the rain picked up again and we returned to the car to get an umbrella. We were glad we did, because it rained quite hard for a while. I don’t mind getting wet so much but I worried about my camera and long lens. After the rain stopped, the birds started singing and we heard quite a few. We saw a Baltimore oriole (Icterus galbula) and I got some photos of that, but it was a long ways away so they aren’t that great. This one, of the blue-gray gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea), though, I think is nice.

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National Bonsai and Penjing Museum

Photograph taken on Thursday, May 07, 2026 by Henry
National Bonsai and Penjing Museum

National Bonsai and Penjing Museum

We’ve gone to the National Arboretum each May since 2022 and three of those times were on May 7, which is when we went this year. The roses were a bit later this year, so we got to see a few that are generally done when we’ve been in prior years. After the National Herb Garden, which includes the roses, we walked through the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. This was first opened in 1976 when 53 bonsai trees were given to the United States by Japan to commemorate our bicentennial. It has grown over the years and has some really lovely miniature trees. The oldest, I believe, is the Yamaki Pine, which has been in training since 1625. In 1945, this tree, 320 years in training at the time, was about two miles from the epicenter of the Hiroshima blast. The tree pictured here is unlabeled, so I cannot tell you anything about it, but I think it’s lovely, as well.

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Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus)

Photograph taken on Tuesday, May 05, 2026 by Henry
Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus)

Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus)

Today we walked through Flower Valley Park and then along Rock Creek to Lake Frank. On the Rock Creek trail we heard and then saw this eastern towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus). We hear them quite often but don’t usually get to see them, much less when they are so openly visible and close. When we got to Lake Frank we saw a family of wood ducks (Aix sponsa) with quite a few ducklings, an osprey (Pandion haliaetus), and the quite a few solitary sandpipers (Tringa solitaria). It was very humid and warm, but as usual, we were glad to get out into the woods.

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Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis)

Photograph taken on Friday, May 01, 2026 by Henry
Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis)

Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis)

Cathy and I happened to be driving to Hyattsville today to drop off a package for a friend and decided to go to Greenbelt Park and then Lake Artemesia. Greenbelt Park is nice, but a fair drive from home, so not somewhere we are likely to go unless we’re already in the area. Lake Artemesia is also nice, although with the train tracks running beside it, it wasn’t as quietly peaceful as it might have been. Still, for a suburban park, it was nice and there were a lot of folks enjoying it. We saw a few birds including an oriole (but I didn’t get any photos of that). This eastern bluebird Sialia sialis posed nicely for me on a post as we were returning to our car.

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