Fun at the Photo Expo

A couple of weeks ago Stan wrote me and said we should go to this new Photo Expo event at the Javits Center that would have all the manufacturers of cameras, lenses, lighting equipment, and accessories like tripods and camera bags and backpacks and so on, on display. So he invited Grace as well, and the three of us had a nice time walking around ogling all the gear!  Just what we all need, is more gear!  Here Stan and Grace were discussing the merits of some different geared tripod heads.

One manufacturer had this "tunnel" of light which people attending could walk into after handing your phone to one of the representatives and they would take your photo.  So we figured we really needed a photo of us in a light tunnel.  I forget why we thought that...   :-)   So, here, for posterity, we all are!  There were also photographers giving talks about their work and we attended a couple of those talks as well.  It was a great day just hanging out with friends together.

 

Tiny Girl on Beach

 

On our visit to the beach with our Dunkin' stuff on Tuesday I saw this tiny young girl on the beach, with her grandfather, I think.  She was really enjoying being at the beach and would pick up a handful of sand and throw it in the water.  She was really enjoying her time, running up and down the beach under the watchful eye of her minder.  I only photographed her for a short time when she was down by the water and honestly, I never did get any kind of great shot.  But I thought she was so cute that I decided to post a photograph of her, even though its not the greatest. 

The Ham Radio Antenna Comes Down!

I received my Novice Class Amateur Radio License on June 3, 1978 and began contacting other amateur radio operators using Morse code that evening with the call sign KA2AOL.  I put up a long wire antenna, about 125 feet long, between two trees, one in the front yard and one in the back, and used that for a couple of years.  But I longed for a rotating directional antenna, a "yagi" and two years later installed one.   Larry, our neighbor at the time, had a fence business and at my request brought home some heavy steel pipes which were welded together which gave me a mast about 50 feet tall for my new antenna.  It was a Cushcraft ATB-34 for the curious among you and it would transmit and receive on the 20, 15, and 10 meter bands.  It would rotate 360 degrees so I could aim it at Texas or Australia or England to make contacts.  By that time my license was General class and my new call sign was N2AQQ.  The antenna has been there ever since.  I haven't used my amateur radio equipment in probably 30 years, but the antenna and mast have remained.  Larry asked me recently if I wanted to have all of that removed and I said "Yes!"  So he had a crew come by and they got it down.

Here one of the workers is removing the collar that fastened the antenna to the facia of the garage.   It was also anchored to a pipe I installed in the ground that was buried about 4 feet down.

Then the bolt was removed which now allowed the whole mast and antenna to rotate at the base and come down.  Here three workers are stabilizing the mast with a rope.

One of the workers started the descent of the mast and antenna with a healthy push and you can see that it has moved to the right from where it was anchored.

And down it did come!  All over the yard and driveway.  It is much bigger on the ground than it seemed when it was in the air!  They had gasoline powered cut off saws which made quick work of cutting up the mast so it could be carried away, and the aluminum antenna was worth something for scrap I am guessing.

And here it all is, loaded on the truck which took it all away.  I must confess that the garage (and yard) looks so much nicer without the antenna!

 

The Wasp Nest!

I don't remember when I first saw this wasp's nest, which is in the Japanese maple tree on branches that overhang the driveway.  But it is way up high, probably 12 feet off the ground, so its not a problem for us.  When I did see it I was stunned at its size!  So get this, because it is night and the insects usually sleep at night, I went out with a long piece of 1x2 inch lumber and tied a string near the top of it about 18 inches below the end. I went to hold the stick up to compare the lengths, and this nest is at least 18" long! When I shown the hand held spotlight on the nest, I was stunned to see two large groups of wasps all packed together on the outside of the nest, a group on either side, and when I examined all that with my binoculars, I realized that they are building the nest at night!

And what builders they are!  Look at this magnificent construction with gray and brown layers of "paper" laid down on the nest.  All species of social wasps construct their nests using some form of plant fiber (mostly wood pulp) as the primary material, though this can be supplemented with mud, plant secretions (e.g., resin), and secretions from the wasps themselves.  This is just stunning to see.  And I also looked up wasps and they are really beneficial for us.  Many of the solitary wasps lay eggs on or in other insects (any life stage from egg to adult) and often provision their own nests with such hosts. Unlike true parasites, the wasp larvae eventually kill their hosts. Solitary wasps parasitize almost every pest insect, making wasps valuable in horticulture for biological pest control of species such as whitefly in tomatoes and other crops.  That was a relief to hear.  They have never bothered us at all, which is more than I can say for the yellowjackets, which are also a member of the wasp family.  They have nests down in the ground and are a constant bother flying around us.  Don't you love coming here and finding out things like this?

 

Grace Misses Kathy

Kathy decided we should have our Sunday breakfast out on the patio on our picnic table. She got a tablecloth and we toasted our bagels and brought coffee and tea out to the table. While we were having our breakfast we heard some mewing!  It was Grace, sitting behind the screen in an open window.  She was missing Kathy and sat in the window quietly mewing the whole time we were having breakfast.  When we came in Grace was sitting in the chair by the door, and Kathy picked her up and she was in her happy place again.

Here is Kathy with the Sunday paper and a cup of tea, as she looks at Grace.

 

How Does It Get Down?

I have driven by this construction site numerous times because it is on my way to so many things in Glen Cove.  Usually the doors to the fence surrounding the large site are closed.  My sense was that this excavator was sitting on top of a dirt island, way up in the air, after a lot of earth had been removed all around it.  I began to wonder how they would get this excavator down off the little mountain top it is sitting on!  Well, one of the fence doors was open so I pulled off on a side street and I walked down to the open door with my camera, and I photographed this.  What I hadn't realized is that apparently this is not an island, but rather a peninsula sticking out from more high ground behind the machine.  So there is no longer a mystery.  This machine will just back itself up to more high ground when the time comes.  So there is no mystery at all.  Sorry...

 

A Bonus!

As I mentioned yesterday, I had to walk a mile and a half down the beach from where I was allowed to park, and that took me about half an hour.  When I walk on the sidewalk along the harbor at home, I can walk 3.5 miles in one hour, and that includes the uphill walk up Laurel Avenue!  Anyhow, while I was walking down the beach I was looking all around and saw these delicate cirrus clouds behind me, to the north.  So I had my toy camera with me, and I started shooting.

What was amazing was that the sky seemed to change by the minute.  I think because the high clouds were the sign of a clearing of the skies and the clouds were constantly changing it seemed.  

I kept walking, and the clouds appearance kept changing and I kept shooting.  As they say in New England, there's more clouds here than you can shake a stick at!

Fortunately with digital photography, the camera keeps an exact record of when each photograph was taken, as well as the camera type, the lens type and the f/stop and shutter speed.  So I know that the first photograph in this series was taken at 7:18 PM, and the last photograph was taken at 7:48 PM, just after the moon should have been visible, but wasn't because of the clouds on the horizon.  I love this photograph because there is a tiny figure of a man in the image.  See if you can find him by the water.

And it was growing darker as well, as this photograph shows, and the sunset colors are the most intense.  All these cloud and sunset photographs were such a bonus, after the photograph that I did manage to get with the moon and the smokestacks.  Lucky me!