An Astounding Coincidence!

You are not going to believe this story!  Stan and I were on our way to the Stellafane convention.  I had looked up Panera restaurants along the way where we could stop for lunch.  There were four choices in Connecticut and so we picked one in the middle in Wethersfield to stop.  The exit sign said "Rocky Hill" and when Stan mentioned that, I said "My sister Betsey lives there."  When we entered the store, there were about 5 people in line at the counter.  The woman in front of me was wearing a bright pink blouse.  I was talking to Stan while we were in line and suddenly the woman in pink says "I know that voice," as she turns around, it was my sister Betsey!  How can that coincidence even happen!  What are the chances, really! Stan was surprised when Betsey turns around, and sees me hugging a random woman in line!  Then I introduced them to each other, and we all had lunch together and had a wonderful time, but all of us stunned at how that could even happen!

 

Night Light

I went out to the garage the other night to look for something and then turned the light on inside.  There was an empty garbage can which was taking up room and I decided to put it behind the garage, with another empty can.  After I put the can down as I was backing away I suddenly saw THIS!  I can't explain why I suddenly saw it, but I realized that it was a photograph, and a very unusual one at that, because of the unusual place and strange light.  I just think that this photograph is really cool!  I hope you do too.

 

A Traffic Minder

At the top of our street there is a cross street.  I always turn left on the cross street, and then in about fifty feet is a sharp ninety-degree turn to the right.  Cars coming and going around this corner, in so many cases, are going too fast.  Crazy that at a blind corner, because trees block the view as you are turning, that cars go around it at high speed sometimes.  So recently the house on this corner was sold and the new people are younger, from what I have seen.  Then suddenly this little green flagman appeared on the corner.  And then later it would be dressed differently, depending on the season.  One time I saw the owner out changing the clothes, and I am sorry I didn't stop and tell him that I really love what he is doing with the flagman.  But it is a sharp corner and there was no place to stop.

 

A Pretty Good Sunset

I went down to the harbor because it looked like there was going to be a good sunset. And I was right.  Oh, wait.  Not Hempstead Harbor, but on the Island of Maui.  And this wasn't today, but in September of 2017.  Anyhow, it is a pretty spectacular sunset even if I shot it 6 3/4 years ago!

 

Wheelie

We were at the ball field flying the drone and I saw a group of bicycles on a street at a right angle to the street we were on.  So I got my camera ready just in case, and they turned the corner to come down the street I was on.  And I was ready with my camera.  What I did not expect was to see this guy do a wheelie as he came by.  That was such a surprise to see, but I reacted instinctively and fired off three shots.  This is the best of them.  It it not quite sharp, but goo enough to post.

 

Fun With A Drone

Stan came out yesterday afternoon to fly his drone.  You can't fly a drone in New York City, so after he bought it a couple of years ago, he came out here, and we went to the large baseball field in the center of town, so he could learn to fly it.  I taught him a few things, and he got it instantly and is a great drone pilot.  He is headed to Oregon and Washington state to photograph some "Assembly Sites" that were created at the beginning of WWII to take in Japanese people who were living in California and were forced to leave their homes and businesses to live in internment camps in the American west.  It was a travesty of justice - most of the people were American citizens and they were just taken away.  They lost their homes, farms, and business.  He has already published a book about the internment camps and now he is expanding that information on a website, thus he can show drone videos and still photographs.

Here you can see what is needed, and how tiny the drone actually is.  The blue thing is a "landing pad" which the drone can find from the air, and land automatically, if you tell it to do that!  The small rectangular thing on the landing pad, closest to Stan is the controller with two joysticks, which operates the drone wirelessly.

The FAA says you must keep your drone within your line of sight, and given that it is relatively tiny, it can be an issue to actually be able to see it when it gets up to altitude, or gets further away.

When Stan was finished doing his test flying, he changed the batteries, and I gave the drone a whirl.  Here I did a portrait of the two of us with the camera on the drone hovering above us.

When Stan was first flying, I took the first photograph in this post while he hovered the drone in front of himself, while I was shooting.  Of course he used the camera in the drone to photograph me!

 

A Storm's Coming In...

Stan came out from the city today with his drone to get some practice.  We always go to the ball field in the center of town because there is plenty of room to fly.  I will talk about the flying tomorrow.  The weather forecast had improved from the forecast the day before and showers and thunderstorms never materialized.  But I cold front did pass through during the hour we were there.  This was at the end of that time, and the clouds looked threatening, but we had no rain, and packed up and went home.  When I looked up and saw the faint sun through the high clouds, and then the lower black cloud, I really liked the feeling of the photograph, so quickly shot this.  Beautiful grays all over the sky.

 

Pearl Gray Skies

This was the first photograph I did yesterday, before the geese arrived.  I was taken by the pearl gray clouds, and the low clouds out in the distance out over Long Island sound, and of course framed by the tree and the benches.  I have only taken this photograph about a billion times, but the scene is the gift that keeps on giving, because weather is always so changeable!

 

Preening

Today was Dunkin' at the beach day, of course.  There were a number of geese in the water which we noticed and then after a time they all came ashore and started preening their feathers with their beaks.  What's funny, of course is how so many of the geese look headless!  So I looked up "preening" and this is what Wikipedia says:  "Preening is a maintenance behavior found in birds that involves the use of the beak to position feathers, interlock feather barbules that have become separated, clean plumage, and keep ectoparasites in check. Feathers contribute significantly to a bird's insulation, waterproofing and aerodynamic flight, and so are vital to its survival. Because of this, birds spend considerable time each day maintaining their feathers, primarily through preening. Several actions make up preening behavior. Birds fluff up and shake their feathers, which helps to "rezip" feather barbules that have become unhooked. Using their beaks, they gather preen oil from a gland at the base of their tail and distribute this oil through their feathers. They draw each contour feather through their bill, nibbling it from base to tip."  (I was just going to quote a line or two, but couldn't believe how much I learned reading all of these lines!  Birds have to do a LOT of work on themselves!)

 

Our Ice Maker Doesn't Work...

We have had our refrigerator for a number of years now.  We never bought an extended warranty with anything, but we did for this fridge, fortunately.  We have had a lot of problems with our ice maker.  We have had it replaced several times, under warranty..  Then there was a problem with the freeze/defrost cycle.   So our ice maker no longer works.  So we use ice cube trays.  When Liz and Amy were here, we bought a bag of ice and put the cubes in baking dishes in the freezer.  But guess what...  The defrost cycle gets too warm, and all the ice cubes stuck together after a day or two.  So I took this baking dish with the frozen together cubes out by the back door and let them defrost before pouring the water on the lawn.  The minute I got out doors with the humidity, they frosted over and the whole thing looked so strange.  "Worth a picture," I thought...  Please click on this to see it larger - it is such an strange looking ghostly "thing." 

 

Well, I'm only a little bit red...

It gets pretty frustrating to not be able to ride my bike because of the heat.  I did go out the other day when it was 82 degrees and I thought I was going slow but when I got home after my 10 miles I was pretty red in the face, which is the first sign that I am overdoing it!  And I had regular times for my route.  So today I thought it was 82 and so I knew to watch my times really carefully to make sure I was really riding much slower.  So I watched very carefully.  I have a fast reading thermometer on my handlebars, and the surprise was that after a mile or so, the temp had gone up to 84, and half way through the ride it was up to 86!  Yikes!  BUT...  I was going SO slow it wasn't even funny.  I usually go up the steep hills at 5 or 6 MPH, but today I was only doing 2.5 MPH.  That is so slow that it feels as if I will fall over because I won't be able to maintain my balance when going that slow.  So today my 45 minute ride took exactly one hour and I took a photograph to see if I was red.  It is hard to tell the color looking into a mirror in the house.  As you can see, I did a good job because there is almost no redness at all in my face.  What is funny is, that because I was going so slow, it felt as if I wasn't really getting any exercise!  But even going slow was better than sitting on the front porch reading!

 

And The Reporter Asks...

And the 4-year old reporter asks me:  "Why are you wearing the same thing today that you were wearing yesterday?"  I guess that says it all, doesn't it!  From out of the mouths of babes...

 

The New JFK

Man oh man, JFK is a mess!  It is astounding what they are doing here, and how they do it and the fact that they are doing all this construction without shutting down the airport entirely!  Many of the roads to certain terminals are now only one lane wide, with concrete barriers on both sides. I cannot imagine how they are able to plan the changes as construction progresses so that traffic can still get around.  What they are doing is building two giant new terminals, expanding and modernizing existing terminals and streamlining roadways, including building new elevated roadways to get to them.

Here is a photograph I took when we pulled into a spot where I could stop and shoot this, while on the way to pick up Amy and Viv a week or so ago.

 

Just Another Sunset

When we were at the Gordon's for dinner a few nights ago with Liz and Amy and Vivian, the sun was setting, so of course I had to photograph it.  I thought that this was a different kind of sunset, because it is more about the arrangement of the trees within the frame, than about the sunset itself. It's not just another photograph of the sky with the sun going down. I am always looking for different ways of seeing things.  Some times I am successful, sometimes not... 

 

Towering Cumulus

I knew there were thunderstorms around this evening but I was not sure where.  When I stopped behind a couple of cars at a stoplight I found myself looking at this church steeple, which I have photographed before.  I was looking at all the wires again, when suddenly I saw the towering cumulus behind the steeple!  I quickly grabbed my toy camera, hoping desperately that the light wouldn't turn green before I could get a quick photograph.  Whew, made it!

 

Visiting Emily & Rico

We had an astounding day today!  We went to visit Emily, who lived next door to us for years, and who Liz and Amy grew up with.  She was going to the stable where she keeps her horse "Rico" to ride him and give him exercise.  I took so many photographs that it's not even funny, so I will post them all here and you can kind of figure out what is going on in each one.

Here is Emily and Rico in the exercise area where she works her horse.  There are bleachers at one end where we could sit and watch.

Here are two photographs of Emily riding Rico.  She competes in horse shows as an amateur and is a showjumper.  But she was not jumping today.

Kathy loves being around horses and started grinning the minute she got into the barn, and of course had to pet Rico in his stall when we met him for the first time.

Emily suggested that we could bring some carrots from the store, with the greens still attached, to feed Rico after his workout.  So here Vivian is the one to hold out the carrots for him to eat.

After their workout, Rico was rinsed with water from a hose in a special stall used for baths, and then soaped down, and then rinsed off.  Then Emily put a bridle on him and just took him for a slow walk around the grounds where he could eat some of the grass outside.  It was such a cool thing for all of us to see what goes into a workout with a horse and rider.

 

Exploring the Beach

We went down to the beach at the foot of Laurel Avenue this morning.  It was at low tide, which meant there was so much to see with the tide out.  Vivian found a couple of small dead crabs, for starters.  On the sandy shorelines of the Pacific Ocean, there is not much to find in the strong surf.  Here on the north shore of Long Island, when the tide is out we are left with a rocky and sandy beach with all kinds of things to see.

Here is a complete crab which was underwater until the tide went out.  I do wonder why this crab, and some smaller ones we saw, died here.

Vivian really enjoyed herself because everywhere she looked, there were new things to see and then to ask about.

And here is a fish that Vivian found.  I have never seen a fish like this.  I don't think it can be a "minnow" because they are so small.  Here Liz is holding it so I can photograph it.

I walked away from the group do some exploring, and when I looked back I enjoyed seeing how small everyone was at the beach.  Kathy is on the right in her beach chair.

 

The Interrogation

I was sitting on the front porch reading a book when Amy and Vivian came out on the porch, dressed like this.  Amy was wearing my Stetson Fedora.  She said "excuse me but we are detectives trying to solve a crime."  And then they began to interrogate me, and inspect the bottoms of my shoes, looking for "evidence."  Detective Amy did the questioning and Detective Vivian took notes during my interrogation.  They were really serious and professional.  Fortunately I was not arrested.  I had an alibi.

 

The Cousins Gathering

We had a family gathering that was for all the cousins to get together.  That is, our children and the children of Kathy's brothers and sister.  Adults were invited as well and my sisters who live not far away from the gathering in Cheshire.  So it was a wonderful crowd which assembled, and a bit of drama as both Vivian and Pat's daughter came down with ear infections.  So Pat and his daughter had to leave for urgent care and couldn't be there for the photograph.  But Liz photographed the two of them when they had returned after others in the group had left, so there was no do-over.  But, through the magic of Photoshop Pat and his daughter were added to the group!  Everyone is doing fine, I should add.  And what a wonderful gathering!  This is an extra large image so if you click on it you can see everyone larger.

This is Cormac.  He and I were sitting talking about things that interest him and he mentioned swimming and specifically the crawl.  I explained that I have no idea how to do that!  He is on a swim team.  He was headed to the pool and so he demonstrated the crawl as I walked alongside the pool and photographed him.

 

A Famous Tree

We are in Connecticut for a family reunion tomorrow.  We are staying at the Cheshire Welcome Inn.  When we pulled into the parking lot, the first thing I saw was this really old tree.  The shape of it and the thickness of the trunk and the gnarly bark and twisted branches got my attention right away.  So I grabbed a camera and studied it for a bit and then took this photograph, making sure there were no cars in the photograph on the road in the background, on Route 10.  The person at the desk was not sure of what kind of tree it was when I asked, but he did show me a beautiful photograph he took of the tree in the Spring when the entire was a beautiful pink. So I did some digging and I believe this is a Weeping cherry tree, and it is believed to be the oldest tree in Cheshire.  We need to come back in the Spring to see it in bloom!

 

A Dinner With Friends

We had a lovely "take in" dinner tonight with our friends where we watch fireworks.  Their daughter was home and Liz and Amy were home.  We have been doing this since Covid - we both go to a take out Chinese restaurant and buy our meals and then go to their house and have dinner!  Easy Peasy, no work cooking for either of us!  It was so special that our girls got together with one of their girls and could catch up after a long time.  They were thrilled to see Vivian as well, of course.

I started photographing this scene while the sun was still up.  I took a few photographs, and then sat back down to dinner.  Then I would get up 10 minutes later because the light had changed.  I guess I did this for 30 or 45 minutes.  This is the last photograph, and the best photograph!  The perfect ending for a perfect day, and dinner!

 

Observing The Moon

Liz is here!  We picked her up at JFK this evening!  After a late dinner we were in the garage looking for something and I thought that the moon should be up, so I stepped outside and saw a beautiful crescent moon setting in the west.  I grabbed this telescope which was the easiest to carry, and Liz and I spent a while looking at the moon. She rarely gets to do that, because even though she might spend a week with us, the moon might be in the wrong phase, or the weather might not be clear.  So we hit the jackpot tonight!

 

Concentration

Would you look at that beautiful face!  And the concentration as she paints the tiny bird house.  A face, cute beyond belief!  I am mesmerized, watching her at work.

 

Playing a Game with Grandma

All the toys we have for Vivian came out for her visit, and some of the games as well.   Vivian enjoyed playing it with Kathy.  This is that memory game where you turn cards up, and memorize them, and then turn them back over. Then you turn a new one up, and then try and match it with a face down card. Vivian is so smart and did well in the game.  They were having so much fun!

 

Mother and Daughter, at Work

I came into the dining room the other morning ready to have breakfast but there was no where to sit!  Amy was at work with her writing and Kathy had covered the dining room table with newspapers and set out plates for all of Vivian's poster paints.  Viv was painting a tiny bird house which had been a natural wood.  In addition to the colors, here she is adding glitter to the birdhouse!

 

What is the Surprise for Amy?

This is more like a movie than a series of still photographs.  We had a surprise for Amy when we arrived back from going to JFK.  What was the surprise, and was Amy surprised?  I will let the photographs speak for themselves!

Kathy had a brilliant idea for a surprise for Amy. I had spent a couple of hours trying to learn how to hand letter a piece of photographic background paper that afternoon.  I was doing well until the last line then I was rushing because we had to leave for the airport.  She was blown away by our sign!