Maybe the Last of the Smoke?

This photograph is also from the walk yesterday when the smoke was still heavy.  I love how, in the background, you can see the trees that are furthest away from me, get lighter and lighter from all the smoke, and the closer trees are darker.  Because they are closer, I am not looking through as much smoke to see them.  Those trees, by themselves are not enough to make an interesting photo.  In this case, the long string of geese paddling by gives the photo a lot more interest.  Well, I hope it does!

 

Smoke is Still With Us

When I go to the bottom of Laurel Avenue, instead of heading south toward where the old powerplant was, I turned north and into a park that leads to a strip of beach with these kind of breakwater rocks leading out into the harbor.  It is such an interesting photograph looking out over all these rocks up to where boats are moored off Sea Cliff beach and Glen Cove Creek.  As you can see the two sailbots on the horizon like are barely visible through the smoke from the fires that is still with us.  But I think these rocks make a really interesting photograph.  If you click on the photo to enlarge it you will see many more sailboats moored to the right of these two.

 

Smoke from Canadian Wildfires

The skies and the air here on Long Island are terrible these days, because of smoke from Canadian wildfires.  This afternoon I could even smell the smoke. According to the EPA "AirNow Fire and Smoke Map this smoke is coming from Canada, where the fires are North of Wisconsin and Minnesota.This view is from Memorial Park, on the cliff overlooking Hempstead Harbor and Long Island Sound.

Here is a view from the little park down at the foot of Laurel Avenue looking over at Sands Point, partley obscured by the smoke.  

This is the AirNow Fire and Smoke Map, and you can see that where we live in the NY Metro Area we have some of the worst air conditions anywhere in the United States.  Amazing that we can be affected by something so far away from us.

 

Ancient History

I found this photograph of me, photographing a baseball game at Yankee Stadium.  I started at Newsday in November of 1966 where I shot sports, like the Yankees, and the NY Jets because of the days and hours I worked.  I think I was a general assignment photographer for 5 or 6 years, before the Sunday Magazine started and then I was the staff photographer for that from then on, until they folded the magazine, in 1990.  I cannot believe how young I was here!  And ask me if I ever saved any prints of my sports photos!  I photographed Joe Namath every Sunday home game and never saved a print!  What a dolt!

 

Behind the Greenhouse

My sister Betsey asked for more photographs from Cedarmere, so here is one more.  While wandering around the property and the gardens, I happened to walk behind the greenhouse after seeing all the formal gardens.  And this view really caught my attention.  Because it is not really an organized part of a garden, but rather random pots with flowers that kind of randomly ended up here.   I think this is a good photograph, but I am not sure.  Please let me know what you think, if you would.  Thanks!

 

The Weed

OK, this is a silly post.  It was a bit cooler today, so I decided to open some of the windows in the back room because it was cooler outside than inside!  When I went to open this window I was stunned to see the top of this weed, higher than the window opening!  "What the heck is that?  So I got my camera and went so I could look out and see more of this weed.

This thing is huge and this photo is only a small part of the top of the weed!  How long has this been growing here?  This is growing on the west side of our house, in the narrow section of lawn between our house and the hedge, which we share with our neighbor. I have not been as diligent mowing the grass on this side of the house, so that's why this weed got so tall before I saw it. 

So I told you this was a silly post, but look how tall this weed is!  I have never seen a weed like this anywhere in our yard before.  I wonder if perhaps a bird brought some seeds here in some way.  Anyhow as I write this, the weed, along with two others that are similar, is still growing out there.  I will pull them up tomorrow.

 

Flowers in the Garden

When we were all at Cedarmere the other day, I was seeing photographs everywhere!  So I did post five photographs of the home and mill and so on, but I found so many more photographs.  So I will take a couple of days to post some others for your viewing pleasure.  I photographed this scene because it was beautiful, and because I have never seen a garden quite like this.  Thats because the Hydrangeas are on a much higher level than the flowers in the foreground.  They are the orange daylily or ditch lily and except for one single blossom they have passed.  The hydrangeas here are just so numerous, just a blaze of wonderful colors!