Captain Dusty's Bookcase

The house that Amy and her friends rent in Montauk was owned for years by Captain Dusty, who was captain of a charter boat that sailed out of Montauk for years, bringing fishermen out to the sound and the ocean.  He raised his family here, and his daughter owns the house today.  The house is a time machine - everything in it is from the 1950's and early 1960's  This is just one shelf in the bookcase in the living room, and it is so much fun to peruse.  Also, you have to love the plastic lobster and the fish.

Montauk Moonrise

We are out visiting Amy in Montauk.  We were sitting in the living room when Amy said, "Look at the Moon!"  Out the window was an absolutely deep orange moon, rising among the silhouettes of the trees.  I ran and got my camera and a tripod.  The thing is, to our eyes, you could see all the detail on the Moon's face.  But if I exposed to show the detail in the moon, you couldn't see the silhouettes of the trees.  So I made a much longer exposure that burned out the Moon's detail, but gave us the outlines of the trees, which retained the sense of what we saw.

1/1600 second at f/1.8

I walked over to the next door neighbor's house to ask if she had seen the mother cat or either of her feral kittens.  We haven't seen any of them in weeks.  While we were standing talking, I happened to look down and see her Purple coneflowers.  I have photographed these flowers before in the same place, but at a different time of year.  What made them striking today was the beautiful rusted gate.  The deep rust color was perfect with the color of the faded flowers.  Oh, the technical stuff in the title?  I photographed this with my toy camera, but the background was too sharp - it was too confusing.  So I came home and got my Canon 6D and a 50mm lens, and then used it "wide open" at f/1.8 and the background was completely blurred.

The Ordinary

It was an absolutely beautiful day today, and so I decided to go by the water.  I have photographed this scene so many times before, but I couldn't resist photographing it again.  Something about the blue sky and puffy white clouds that grabbed me, and then, of course the green marsh grasses.  It makes me thankful for the ordinary in life, and the beautiful.

A Trip to the Vet

We had to take Bebe to the vet for a checkup.  We use this plastic cat carrier to transport the cats safely because they are carefully locked in during the trip.  Bebe knows that when the cat carrier comes out, she is due for a trip, and she doesn't like trips to the vets.  She usually curls up in the very back of the carrier as far from the door as possible.  Kathy likes to get up really close to the carrier so she can look in, see how the cat is doing, and talk to her in hopes that the cat will be more comfortable.  It was then that I realized that I was looking at a picture for the blog!

The Insides

I thought it was time to show you what the inside of the new addition looks like.  We are thrilled with how it is coming along.  The top photo is looking from the fireplace end toward the door to the kitchen.  You can see the bathroom on the left in that photo.  It looks really small from this distance, but it is a nice size.  The bottom photo shows the fireplace at the far end of the room.  In the ceiling there are high hats for lighting, and there will be a ceiling fan.  Stay tuned.

Why is This Comfortable?

I will never understand cats.  But they are wonderful to watch because they do so many interesting and cute things.  This is Grace, the abandoned kitten that we saved.  She is really growing as fast as a weed - she is now really long and thin and athletic.  Her ability to jump long distances is astounding.  I saw her like this and couldn't imagine why she thought that this was a comfortable way to rest.  Her tail end is on the window sill, and there is a gap large enough for the radiator, and then her head is on the easy chair.  I cannot imagine that it is comfortable, but she stayed like this for quite a while.  Or at least long enough for me to capture this in a photograph.