No Dunkin' Donuts - Week 18

Can you believe this, it has been 18 weeks since the coronavirus lockdown began.  That just seems unimaginable.  I started doing these Tuesday posts because we could no longer sit in Dunkin' Donuts and have our breakfast.  I really didn't think about how long this might go on - I was mainly worried watching the graph that Governor Cuomo posted each day, headed up hill, and I wondered how long before the graph flattened, and then how long before it headed downhill.  That was my focus. So we are enjoying our Tuesday breakfasts out at the beach, instead of inside the Dunkin' Donuts, and that's a good thing.  We will not be sitting here in the winter, however.  I took this shot today because the beach is starting to get more populated with people as July progresses.  It's hotter and for so many people, the beach is the place to be.

The Layered Garden

I call this photograph "The Layered Garden."  We were sitting in chairs up on the raised part of our side yard, and I noticed these purple flowers leaning out toward the lawn, across the red and yellow flowers in the background.  I have done a lot of garden photography in my career, but I have never taken a photograph like this.  I like to think of this photograph as "layered" with the purple flowers in the foreground, and then other flowers behind.  Normally I would take photographs where all the flowers in the frame would be sharp.  I just think that this is interesting because is is more complex.

The Comet!

A newly discovered comet is racing through space, from far out beyond the solar system.  It seemingly came from nowhere and raced toward the sun, around the sun and is now on its way back out to the far reaches.  It takes 6,800 years to complete its orbit!  In contrast, Halley's comet is a short period comet that reappears every 76 years. But for about two weeks NEOWISE is visible to those of us on Earth as it races by us.  It is officially called C/2020 F3 NEOWISE, and it was discovered by a space telescope.  Amateur astronomers have been waiting for clear weather to get a chance to see it.  Early Sunday morning it was forecast to be clear, so I set my alarm for 2:45 AM, got up and headed to Stehli Beach in Bayville which is north of us.   The comet is very faint - it took me about 5 minutes to see it even though I know where it was in the sky.  So I used my 300mm lens for the photograph above.  As you can see, it is a beautiful comet with a long tail.  The comet rises about two and one-half hours before the sun, and then after about 45 minutes or so, the first light of dawn obscures the tail and we can no longer see it.  Below is a wide-angle photograph of the comet at seen above the horizon of Long Island Sound, taken about 40 minutes after the above photo.  Seeing a comet like this is just magical!

The Maple Tree in Different Light

I was backing out of the driveway, late in the afternoon when I saw this light on the Japanese Maple tree.  So I used my iPhone to take this photograph.  I thought the spotty light on the tree was interesting and something I hadn't seen before.  Just something different.

Finally! Rain Today!

It has been dry here for so long.  We have had lines of thunderstorms come through from time to time, and I would watch their approach on radar, and time after time the cells would go west of us or north of us and we would only get some sprinkles.  But today there were bands of rain from a big system coming up the east coast, and we had several hours of moderate rain, which was wonderful.  Finally some water for the gardens and the lawn!  I tried photographs of branches with water drops on them, but this view of water running out of the end of the gutter on the front porch was a better sense of all the water that came down.

Sailing Class

I was down by the water when I saw a whole bunch of these sailing dinghy's go by, each one skippered by a youngster.  I am assuming this is a sailing class from the yacht club.  There was an instructor in an outboard boat shepherding them.  These are Optimist Prams, one of the most popular boats used to train young sailors.  And as you can see from this picture, one of the skippers is better than a bunch of the others, well ahead of the group.

A Change in the Landscape

I was on my way over to get some KFC for dinner.  OK, OK, so we don't do that very often, but once in a while for a change of pace!   :-)   I drove by where the old power plant was and saw this site at the bend in the road.  I am sure I have driven by this place going in this direction, but tonight the change in the landscape jumped out at me for some reason.  Oh, it's BRIGHT YELLOW!  So I stopped and took this photograph.  They are building 48 luxury condos here.  I saw the construction work when they first started, and got my drone and went and photographed the site, which was cool.  I kept meaning to go back there and photograph the site as it progressed.  But I never got around to it.  But you can see what a huge project this is.  I will try and get back with my drone to photograph the construction as it looks now.