Microclimate

We have Daffodils on our property that are hardly beginning to show, while our neighbors across the street have them in full bloom, which is where I photographed these.  Other neighbors on our side of the street two houses up the hill have them as well!  You know why that is?  Right!  Microclimate!  Seriously.  We don't get the sun as the other houses do.  In the wintertime, and I am not joking our neighbor Judy's property and our property get more snow than the people on the other side of the street!  I am serious.  The street is in a very shallow valley because the land behind us goes uphill, as does the land on the other side of the street!  Anyhow, our Daffodils will come, but meanwhile I have these beautiful flowers that grow at the curb across the street.  Happy Spring!

 

Before and After

The other day I showed you a photograph of a small ranch house behind a chain link fence, which I think is about to be demolished.  Let me take you back a bit to this house which I posted on the blog.  I always thought it was a nice house, a bit modern, on a large lot with tall trees all around.  What a lovely place to live!  This is a close view.

The wider view shows dumpsters on the property.  So there is trouble ahead for this nice house.  Little did I know!  I took this photograph last August.  I photographed some heavy equipment digging a foundation since then.  

Oh man, look at this!  They started the framing a month or so ago I think.  Look at it now!  "Mcmansion" is an understatement!  Yikes.  But here is the killer.  Remember all the trees?  All gone as well.  What a difference in "place" this is.  It changes everything...

 

A Beautiful Crescent Moon

After supper I went outside to see what the sky looked like.  I wanted to play with my new, old refractor telescope from the 1970's that was a gift from a long time ASLI member.  It was still light in the sky and I knew the moon would be a crescent, but I wasn't sure I could see it because sometimes it is really low in the sky.  I was stunned to see this beautiful crescent moon high in the sky.  So I quickly ran inside, grabbed my camera then went to the car and grabbed my tripod and finally managed to get this photograph.  I love how incongruous it is to see our old broken TV antenna still on it's mast on the roof.  Time to go up and take it down, but it does make an interesging foreground!

I continued watching the moon and then noticed a bright Jupiter up and to the left of the moon,  shining brilliant in the darkening sky.  If anyone is curious, the orange colored star down below Jupiter is Aldebaran.  And what is really cool is, that if you click on this photograph to enlarge it, just below the moon are a group of six stars or more - they are the Pleiades!  What a wonderful collection of objects in the night sky just after sunset!

 

Another One Down The Drain

One of the neighborhoods I ride my bike through is Roslyn Harbor.  There are or were a number of homes that look like this.  I have lost track of how many of them have been sold, then torn down and a "McMansion" has been built it its place.  I have been riding through this place almost 20 years now and have seen the same fates to so many homes.  I have shown you some homes that have been torn down, and the most recent teardown now has a completely framed new giant home being built on the property.  Stay tuned.

 

Fog Week Leftover

When I was doing "Fog Week" I never got around to posting this photograph of the Japanese maple.  I think I was getting bored with fog.  I was going through folders of photographs from my walks and realized that I had not posted this.  So here it is again, my favorite subject, in yet another weather condition.  I hope this doesn't put you to sleep.

 

The Crocus are Green!

Well, here are my "Rare Yellow Crocus" and they are as green as can be!  Whew!  What a relief!  As you might remember they had been covered with a mat of leaves left over from the Fall, and when the leaves were cleared away, the shoots were yellow.  I was not sure they were going to be OK.  Joan asked to see them in a few weeks, and here they are!  Green as can be!  I promise to be more conscientious next Fall and get the leaves cleaned out of the gardens!

 

Roots

This a curious thing.  Kathy has two giant Hosta plants in the garden next to the house.  One of them is huge and when cut back for winter, the low cut plant is 18" wide or more.  So it was crowding two other plants and so I took it out for her.  That was not easy.  I could not believe how packed the roots were together!  I had to use a narrow rectangular spade and only put half the width of the blade into the circle of roots and then stand on the shovel with both feet.  It took that much force to insert the spade into the remains of the plant!  So I went around the edge chopping up the plant in small pieces until it was all removed.  It was a deal.  What I could not imagine is the density of the roots.  There is hardly any room at all for soil between the roots, as you can see here.  This photograph is upside down - if you click on the photograph, you can see at the bottom, hints of purple from this year's blossoms.  This really is an astounding thing to look at, isn't it?