The Sculpture!

This apple tree has been in the front yard of my brother-in-law's home since it was built.  After many years it started dying off, one branch at a time.  I had forgotten about it until our visit this weekend, but when I saw it, I thought it looked like some kind of modern sculpture!  Neil said to me he was thinking of getting a saw and cutting it down, and I said "No!  It is a great piece of sculpture!"  So he has decided to leave it, and so I photographed it today, just in case it happens to fall over in a windstorm some day soon.

 

3 Hours and 100 Miles in the Driving Rain

Today we drove up to Wallingford, Connecticut to visit my brother-in-law and his two daughters.  It was Neil's birthday today and we are here to celebrate!  But what a trip up!  It was pouring rain for the entire three hour trip.  Our trip usually takes only two hours in good weather and no traffic.  This is a photograph of descending the long hill approaching the West Rock Tunnel.  So it was a slog of a drive, but it is great being here to celebrate with Neil and family!

 

The New Streetlights

A month or so ago, a notice appeared in the village bulletin that new streetlights had been selected and were going to be installed.  They would be LED lights, which use less power AND they have the ability for each one to have its brightness changed if necessary, from some central control place.  So I  guessed they would be of the latest style which is called "full cutoff" which means the light fixture will only allow the light to shine straight down on the street, not sideways or up in the sky thus not wasting light in directions it is not needed, and thus reducing light pollution.  So imagine my disappointment when we got our new light and it is not shielded!  Our old mercury vapor light was a glass hemisphere and the light went everywhere, including into our living room!  I don't get it - EVERYONE now knows that all lights should be shielded!  Notice how the light is lighting up our front lawn!  To what purpose?

And this shows how the light is glaring to drivers - from this distance away, the light should not be shining in the driver's eyes, thus interfering with their vision at night.  This is beyond stupid!  What kind of consultants or lighting company doesn't know enough not to use shielded lights!  And notice how the front of our house is lit up as well!  I am really hacked off and so I will go talk to the village manager, and see if they can add a shield to keep the light out of our windows, and to keep our lawn dark so I can do astronomy without the interference of the lights!

 

Another Demolition

This is another demolition at what was once the Long Island Lighting Company generating station.  Many of you will remember my chronicling the demolition of that huge plant over what must have taken a year.  This much smaller structure is across the street from where the generating station was.  So this is what is called a "Substation" and it was a beautifully constructed brick building of perhaps 5 or 6 stories.  So the main structure was built around those heavy black I-beams you see at the top of the photograph.  To the left of that are thinner beams which are behind the main structure.  I think they may still be in use - there are all kinds of transformers and high voltage lines on huge insulators within that structure.  But I have no idea what was once inside the brick building.  They had removed everything before they began demolition.  And I photographed this in infra-red because there are those trees covering up parts of the building, and the infra-red helps separate the tree from the buildings.

 

The Faithful Kitty

I have been in the living room and heard this kitty, Grace, mewing in the back room.  So when I go to investigate, I find that Kathy has probably gone outside to do some yard work and Grace misses her and will sit there with tiny mewing sounds until Kathy comes back in the house!  On this day, Kathy was on the phone to her friend Trauti and so close to Grace, but because she was separated by the door, Grace was mewing.  Kathy has her iPhone ear buds in and that's how she can be on the phone but not visibly so.

 

Another Abstraction

So this is fun.  What do you think this is a photograph of?  It's an interesting pattern, right?  Maybe it looks like some mountain ranges?  So click on the photograph and see if the extra detail that is revealed will give you a clue at all.  I think in the larger size you will get some useful information.  Wait, the white stuff looks like soap suds, I think.  But what would make those overlapping patterns?  Give up?  For Mother's Day Kathy wanted to take all the furniture off the porch, and then take the rug up, and then wash the porch floor and get all the yellow pollen off.  So I used a car washing brush about 8 inches wide on the end of a handle and as I moved the brush back and forth and side to side, these were the patterns created.  It took me about 3 seconds to realize that this would make a really interesting photograph!

 

A Colorful Sky

Tomorrow is Dunkin' Donuts Day!  When I ran across this photograph in my library I remembered that I took this a week or two ago on another of our Dunkin' days.  It was raining and as I left the car to go inside and get the goodies, I happened to look down, and saw this oil slick on the macadam parking lot.  I guess there was a lot of oil on the pavement to give such bright colors.  The original image was relatively low contrast so I did increase the contrast, but I did not increase the saturation.  These colors seen by my eye were brilliant!