The 30th day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

MILE AND HALF OUT ------ MILE AND HALF IN

We had rain last night and evidently very early this morning.  And here is the rain drop to prove it!  Last night's rain was pretty hard and most of nature had a pretty good cleaning.  Including this crape myrtle here at the house.

Today I walked the Cayce side of the Congaree River.  It had rained earlier this morning, but evidently there wasn't much wind associated with it as the pine trees still had rain drops clinging to each needle.  The woods were quiet as was the walkway.  The smell was of a new rain and rotting vegetation of a new day through the woods after a rain.

A clean and promising new day!

As in most southern woods late in may, it was humid with the temperatures already pressing mid seventy.  The only real sound were those of the cardinals, red belly wood peckers, and Carolina wrens.  The wrens weigh only about three quarters of an ounce, but 90% of that is their vocal cords.  You can here them calling from five miles away.  Well, I probably exaggerate but it sure seems so. 

Early, dark, quiet, and alone I expected to find the tracks of the famed Southern Sasquatch!

  So isolated I felt.

  I am pretty sure that this is more like a USC, basketball player's, Nike, track, size 18.  And not one of that illusive creature found primarily in the swamps.  But who knows, Nike advertises everywhere and whose to say that old sassy didn't take a liking to an occasional jogger's shoes.  Not a pretty thought.  Sassy would have had a real tussle on his hands.

I'll leave you all with that thought!  Is there such a thing as a Sasquatch? 

Hummmmm!

Or is it all some figment of some ad man's imagination somewhere.

  These are the important questions of our time.

The 29th day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY

AND A HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL WHO HAVE SERVED!

I am not sure that I have posted this link in previous blogs, but it is worth doing again.

http://atlanticsecurityinc.com/video-large.htm

When I lived in Maryland, I built a platform on the top of a piling about fifty feet away from my dock.  I had a pair of osprey nest there the first year, which is amazing in itself.  For some fifteen years, that nest has had, only what I can assume, the same pair laying eggs and raising as many as three offspring each year.  These birds will migrate as far as South America each year and spend their winters in those warmer climes.  But on (almost exactly to the day) March 15th, they are back at the nest to have at it again.  They then have to have their young ready to head south again by mid November.  An amazing thing really.  Please check out this neat web cam and below is one of my birds learning to make his first flight.

The 28th day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

SOME SIGHTS ALONG THE WAY

I did three miles in about an hour today on the Columbia side of the Broad River.  Not a record by any means, but pretty good for an old fart like me.  It is a spot that is about 2.5 miles of paved walkway  stuffed between a canal on the one side and a river on the other.  A lot of people, but also a lot of other things going on.  One crosses an old metal bridge over the canal to get to the walkway and it is always interesting to watch the water for any critters, like gators, wading birds, human debris, and other things that use the waterway.

The paved walkway is beautiful but heavily used and this morning was no exception.  I was able to get one shot or two sans peeps.

Normally, these long holiday weekends are difficult for me as my kids are in Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.  And I miss em.  But some other friends showed up on my walk this morning.  Notably, a red tail hawk looking for his breakfast.

This is May, hence there was a large hatching (called Hatch in fishing parlance) of May flies.  These dainty flies were all over the place landing on my hands as well as the bushes all along the way.  In the more northern clime, these types of days would be a trout fisherman's dream....not to mention the trout's dream.  Good food and a great artificial fly to have on the end of a fishing rod.  But here, the brim and a few small bass seemed to be feeding on them when they dipped to the water.

Finally, and not necessarily a friend.  This snake, I take to be a black snake, was huge.  Not so fat, but long.  That, to me, makes him a black snake and not a water moccasin.  Either way he was going in one direction, and I in the other.  And that's a good thing!

The 27th day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellila

MEMORIAL DAY REMEMBRANCE

Memorial Day was first widely observed on May 30, 1868, to commemorate the sacrifices of Civil War soldiers.  Now, I fear that the meaning of this weekend is that it simply marks the beginning of summer.  Days at the beach followed by outdoor hamburgers, hot dogs, beer, potato salad and fresh tomatoes.  Not to mention some of the first sweet corn of the season.  Friends and family round out the dinning compatriots.

I fear that all to often, we forget the meaning of holidays such as this one upcoming and others such as July fourth.  This image was made at Gettysburg a few years back and offers the Officer's view from Little Round Top.  Gettysburg was a bloody part of the Civil war and the size of the area of that war site is dauntingly huge.  Most of what you see in the view above from Little Round Top was part of the battle site at one time or another.

Believe it or not, General George Meade shown below went on after the war to become on of the most noted lighthouse builders in the country.  He built the lighthouse at Barnegat Inlet in New Jersey.  Just some fiction and fact from my almanac of garbage knowledge.

I wish  all my friends and family a very happy and safe holiday weekend.  And just before we go to sleep each night, maybe give a little prayer for those people who fought so hard to create and maintain this free land.  And for those who paid the ultimate sacrifice as well.  Maybe it will make those hamburgers and hot dogs taste Oh so much better.  Can't wait. 

The 26th day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

EVER GET THE FEELING THAT EVERYTHING IS UPSIDE DOWN?

This reflection is upside down.  As is our lack of national leadership re: the oil spill and clean-up.

Nero fiddles, making photo ops and blowing smoke, while Rome burns.  The gulf states need federal help to clean up.  Not fix the spill, but to curtail it's spread. 

 And clean it up. 

Turn it around and make it right!

 It's been done before.  What's the problem Washington?

You're screwing up my environment with your ineffectual leadership and political games!

38 days and counting!

The 25th day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

SANDY HOOK LIGHTHOUSE

I took some time on my last trip to NH to visit some of the lighthouses in New Jersey that might have been repainted since I last visited them.  Sandy Hook is always a trip.  Almost in the dried mushroom sense of the word "Trip".  I guess the proximity to New York City lends a bit to the weirdness one can experience out there.  A nice experience, don't get me wrong but, if one looks hard enough and is open minded to what is going on, some strange, different, and interesting things can be found.  This time it was a hog nosed snake crossing the road.  It always weirds me out to find a snake at the beach.  At other times it has been the unexpected discovery the the local nude beach.  But this time I was on a tight schedule going from Navasink south to Cape May where I caught the Ferry to Lewes.  So I kept my clothes on while out there.  Probably a good thing that.

The oldest operating light tower in the United States, Sandy Hook Lighthouse has been in operation since 1764. The tower is 103 feet high with a diameter at the base of 29 feet and 15 feet at the top respectively. A third order Fresnel lens was installed in 1856 and is still in use today, flinging a white non-blinking light up to 19 miles at sea on a clear night.

British loyalists used this light as a base for raids on the countryside during the Revolutionary war. And in WW II, the light was turned off to protect New York Harbor. Located on National Park Service property it is within the confines of Fort Hancock at the north end of Sandy Hook.

The first lighthouse location in the country is of course Boston Harbor, but this light is the oldest existing tower at it's original location.  It is still amazing to me how these things were built.  The walls are thick, as much as eight feet in some cases, and were comprised either of brick or stone.  Just shaping the stone  would have been a huge chore.  In 1764, they just did not have the equipment we do today and all of it was hand labor.  Once the tower itself was built, the generally metal, circular,stairs had to be placed and the light room at the top, some 12 stories up, needed to be built.  Quite an engineering marvel.

I think that I finally got a definitive image of this lighthouse.  This photo pleases me and I did not have to go through to many contortions to get past telephone wires, cars, roads, and people to make the image.  The clouds were just right as was the lighting.  This one works and will be shown for the first time at the North Wildwood Maritime festival in July.  Dates and stuff for that show can be found on my website.

Wishing you all a good day.

The 24th day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

I DON'T NORMALLY DO THIS...................BUT!

This is an open letter to whoever wants to read it, and I pray that in some way it might help the current nature of man.  Chances of that are slim and none, and Slim just left town.

I live within three miles of this spot on the Saluda River and to which I walked this morning on the RiverWalk.  Does that mean I can now have bacon and eggs for breakfast?  He asks his cardiologist.

  Probably not, but that's the least of my worries.

For those of you who attended public school, this is a river which tries to clean itself every so many feet with filtering grasses and river bed stones.  It is a pretty much losing battle as too many people live on it and around it.  But as rivers go, it is pretty clean.  Trout thrive in it's upper reaches and landlocked striped bass in most of the rest, as well as small mouth bass and brim.  Also an occasional gator.  It really is a pretty spot within the shadows and city limits of Columbia, South Carolina.  A major city in the South.

Now for my grand kids, and someday great grand kids.  I am pissed!  By the time you are old enough to read this that will probably be one of the milder terms you learn in your modern places of education.  Webster says that the term means in British parlance, sometimes drunk.  That I am not!  In other translations define the term as downright angry.  That I am!  Now, they may change Webster's dictionary by the time you are old enough to read this, but right now in late spring of 2010, that is exactly what I mean.

Before I drop the hammer (writer's parlance for get to the point), we all have seen the semi-pristine beaches and oceans we are fortunate enough to live on or near.  This one at Assateague Island in Virginia.

Or seen a storm coming into the beach and putting an end to our beach side enjoyment for a while.

Or maybe lucky enough to experience the rocky coasts of New England and Maine.

And then there is this guy who is right now under serious threat!

To say there is a grave problem in the Gulf of Mexico is one of the understatements of modern times.  And I don't want to hear all the left wing ranting about "See what happens when you drill offshore".  I don't want to hear anymore hand wringing, inept, uninformed professional politicians saying "Well we expected the other guy to take care of this......and if George Bush had just ....yada, yada, yada."  Well, news flash....George isn't president, and neither is Bill, Ronnie, or even the peanut vendor.  AND, they are all at fault!  And yeah, you can note my tone of disrespect one and all.

The current administration is hell bent to destroy the economy, our democratic way of life, and now their inexperience or unwillingness to "Stop playing politics" is going to destroy an good chunk or our environment.  So kids this is what we leave you with.

I for one have gone online to find organizations who might need help in cleaning up the mess along the gulf coast and further if it gets to that.  There are the usual whiners like the Sierra Club and others who simply have political agendas.  I am not interested in them and would prefer to spend my time, money,  and effort with the likes of Audubon, or local home grown groups, who just want to clean up the mess.  Lets face it, Washington is just being Washington.  Too late with too little and always protective of their own political butts rather than problem solving.  Not to mention that the current bunch of "Elites"  simply  don't know what to do.  The answers were not in the text books at Harvard, Yale, et al.

Here's my answer Mr. and Mrs. congressman and women (deliberately without a capital C).  Give Bobby Jindal what  he needs to do the job, because the rest of you don't have to intelligence or the guts to find the solutions that the American Public elected you to do.

The 23 morning after the night before of the year of the Camellia

ANNUAL "N" AVENUE BLOCK PARTY IN MARGARITAVILLE

This posting has not a whole lot to do with anything!

EXCEPT----

Great friends and camaraderie.  Outstanding food and just a wonderful evening telling lies to each other.  I have refrained from printing the photos here out of courtesy to those who would yell at me for doing so.

EXCEPT -----

AMERICA'S HOSTS !

and they are first and foremost, America's Greeter....

Rudy!

Then there is Dan, America's Host, who was busy burning the chicken for

fajitas

That's Dan's brother in law in the prison garb!

And Finally, but not the least, America's Hostess

Jenny

The 22nd day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP!

I am filing shots in appropriate files and came across my very large file on clouds.  Why clouds you say?  Why not?  In this age of Photo Shop we can put clouds behind any photograph.  OK!  The dirty lil secret is out.  Years ago when people were taking pictures and developing them with a hammer and coal chisel, leading photographers did the same thing.

I remember a very renowned image maker who, worked for the Baltimore Sun in Maryland, did this  for years.  When he passed, his family found thousands of slides and film of nothing but clouds.  Back they we merged photos in the dark room......today on the puter!

Looking at my cloud photos, it dawned on me that I would have loved to have been a storm chaser.  You know the kind that they have on the Weather Channel?  I would have to have been much younger, even crazier, and much more wealthy to do it with any decent results.

  But to see a water spout or a non lethal twister.  Just a rush.

   I recall when my parents had a place on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake, I would sit on the patio watching a storm come across the bay.  I would try to time it so that the rain would hit just about the same time I would hit the back door.  

 Instead I have to contend with what I can find, like this shot from my front yard.

Or this shot from my Son's front yard.  We actually considered going to the basement as this storm approached.  Alas, just angry sky and no violent stuff.  But, the clouds were moving very swiftly amongst themselves.

I fully intend to do more of this kind of stuff.  It makes this old heart pound and is much simpler to get the cardio-vascular workout this way.  I'll leave the tread mill for tomorrow.

The 21st day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

The artist's pallet was filled with grey, white, and blue.  With the temperature in the low sixties and the water temperature a bit higher, a shroud of fog rolls off this tributary to the Chesapeake.

Twin bateaus floated sluggishly on their moorings, waiting for their captains to come and bale the overnight accumulation of water covering their flooring.  The bay itself is miles away, but the water here is still a bit salty.  Here the famed blue crab of Chesapeake lore still crawls the bottom of an underwater terrain.

Commercial fishermen of the Chesapeake are called "Watermen".  They are fiercely independent and some can actually scratch out a decent living on the bay.  The odds are against them, as in any entrepreneurial enterprise, but they would have it no other way.  They are their own boss and want it just that way. 

They rise before daylight to get to the "Spots" on the water that only they, their fathers, and grandfathers know.  Doing the job needed to catch a few bushells of crabs, they will keep only the "Jimmies" or males and discard the females who will produce the next generation.  If they are lucky, they will catch a dozen or two of the precious soft crabs to sell to the buyers at a premium.

  Crabs will molt their shells, or grow out of them, about four times in their lifetimes.  It is just when the hard shell is shed that the soft crab is immobile and to some the tastiest.  Including man and any number of finny predators.

Our day will be spent riding the boat over about a mile of "Trot Line", which is a simple rope weighted down on each end and baited about every foot or so with eel or chicken necks.  The line lays on the bottom of the river.  There is an arm extending outward from the boat with a roller that looks suspiciously like a rolling pin.  The trot line is placed over the roller, the boat moves along the line, and as it rises from the bottom it is hopefully festooned with live crabs.  The crabs are dipped from the water and deposited in bushell baskets.  This procedure continues until generally mid afternoon.  Unless you are attuned to your natural surroundings, this can be an awfully repetitive and boring process .  But most watermen know their water and surroundings.  Take delight in a diving osprey or eagle.  Look enviously at a bunch of fish feeding on the surface and the gulls diving to steal the remains.

These people rise early, work hard, and retire early.  Crabbing is only one of the many bay critters that supply these wonderful people with a way to make their living from the bay.  Other than crabs, there are fish of all kinds of course, clams, some oysters, and eels.  All are fished for with differing methods depending on their abundance and the time of year.   Regardless of the catch and the method, you can depend upon these folks to have vast knowledge of what is happening to their environment----and how it has a very direct impact upon their lives.

Arriving back at port, the crabs are sized, counted, and sold.  The boat washed down with the same salty water upon which she floats.  The trot line is baited for the next day and placed in a salt filled barrel.  Everything is made tidy so that the whole procedure can be repeated the next day. 

The artist's pallet is stowed and the images saved for a lifetime.

The 20th day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

OLD FRIENDS

Yep, we all have them.  But what about places and things? 

I walked on the River Walk for the second time in months and realized how much I missed this old friend.

The River Walk is friend!

Since my little wake up call with the cardiologist almost ten months ago, I have become retarded when it comes to walking.  If that term upsets someone, I am sorry but that's the way I feel about myself in this regard.  Telling myself I didn't have the time, while working on all the art work.  Well I figured that if I walked out a half hour to start, it would then be an hours worth of walking.  And as my muscles started to stop screaming, then each time I would walk a little harder and before long I would be up to where I was when I was a teenager.

  Right!

  Met all the usual suspects along the way and they all wanted to know where I had been.  Told them all that I had been spending my time setting up a series of illegal massage palors throughout the southeast.

  That stopped the conversation and I was able to walk and not talk.

Remember this is the Bible Belt down here.  Although I personally feels as if I am in the Rust Belt myself.

The River Walk is like an old friend to me.  I once was doing close to five miles a day down there and think I know pretty close to all there is to know about the area.  This morning it was clear and not hot.  Didn't see any wildlife critter types.  A homeless person was the only distraction which put me out of my comfort zone temporarily. 

 But no problem, I had my stick.

The stick is an old piece of wood about five feet in length.  On one end I have embedded a spike with which to pick up garbage left either by raccoons or people.  I have gained a great deal of respect for the raccoons.  They know how to get "Into" closed garbage cans looking for food.....but they spread everything around.  Have not reached the point where they "Know" they should clean up after themselves.  People on the other hand have evloved to the point of "Knowing" that rule.  They are just too damn something to do it!

  On the other end of the stick, I have embedded about a half pound of lead.  I was once attacked by a dog down there.  And he was on a leash!  Talk about the evolution of people.  The dog was doing what was in his blood to do, his master was just too dumb to recognize it. Next time they both will be on the receiving end of a half pound of lead.

 The stick is an old friend.

This is one of the spots on the riverwalk that has always attracted me.  An overlook on the river and the branches of this tree reaching out and over.  Just a friendly little spot that has some charisma.

This spot is a friend

I don't know what it is.  Maybe repetition that grabs us and makes us go back to the same spot day after day, or in the case of New Hampshire year after year.  Wildlife do it.  They return to the same tree to nest every year.  The same branch upon which to perch time after time.  Ospreys return to the same nesting site every year and on the same day.   Bluebirds us the same nesting sites year after year,  up to three times each year.

We all have a favorite chair in which we sit to watch TV or God forbid read.  The same side of the bed all the time.  Maybe that's why we like chocolate so much. 

Chocolate is a friend!

The 19th day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

THERE ARE SWANS, AND THEN THERE SWANS

Betchya didn't know that!

Some years ago (I am better at remembering that---than why I just walked into a room looking for something), whilst photographing different swan critters, I ran aground of the ones in the following photos.  When I was only fifteen years old, we spent summers in Rock Hall, MD.  What a place for kid to grow up.  Took our shoes off in June and didn't put them back on till September.  If we kids needed money, we went to a place on the bay called Eastern Neck Island.  I had a fourteen foot wooden runabout with a 25 horsepower motor on it.  We took that boat all over that bay----wonder we didn't kill ourselves.  We would go to the flats around Eastern Neck to wade with dip nets to catch crabs.  The water was less than waist deep and dip nets with long handles were or trap of choice.  Get a bushell of hard crabs and a few dozen soft crabs and we had our income for the week.

Oh and FYI, these are not swans!

We would then take the money we made from crabbing and then play the pin-ball machines at local restaurants.  These machines in Maryland paid money back for games won.  Kids will be kids.  We could take a five dollar investment and run up a couple thousand games for which we got a nickel each.  A couple of days like this we had our spending money.  Talk about a work ethic----we had it all.

It used to be, that great numbers of Tundra Swans, made long migrations from Northern Canada and even Alaska to spend the winter where I lived in Maryland.  In fact there are websites which track their progress every year from one feeding and resting area to the next along the migration routes.  These big birds are simply majestic.  Often as many as five thousand would winter over on the Chesapeake Bay around Eastern Neck Island, just south of Rock Hall, MD.  It was quite a site.

  Their wings do whistle when they fly overhead, although this species is not the whistling swans of that name.  These are the Tundras, and they are identified easily by their black bill.

Eastern neck was at one time winter home to as many as five thousand of these birds, but they have moved south to lower Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina as the bay grasses have been depleted in this area.

Below an adult tundra and a cygnet photographed on Assateague Island in Virginia.  Above is Eastern Neck in Winter.

Part of the reason the wintering spots in the Chesapeake have moved south is  due to the growth in the population of the Mute swans.  These critters, with the orange bills, feed on the same bay grasses as the tundra.  But unlike the tundra and Canada geese, they pull the entire plant from the bay bottom and thus destroy their own feed source in the process.  States have taken some drastic measures in recent years to limit the populations of Mutes.

The tundras winter over but breed in Canada and Alaska.  Here, the Mute will breed and raise their family on the bay and other pieces of convenient water, and thus increasing the resident numbers. 

This family of mutes above was photographed in southern Maryland around Deal Island.

No matter which family of swans we see, they are still a majestic and beautiful bird. 

A mute swan takes off from the Choptank River in Maryland's Chesapeake Bay area.

Now let's see-----black bill=Tundra-----orange bill=Mute.  Easy to remember for the written test next week.

THE 18th DAY OF THE FIFTH MONTH OF THE YEAR OF THE CAMELLIA

KNOTS AND NOTS

We go to a small Italian restaurant where they serve some of the best garlic knots.  I guess it is simply pizza dough baked up and served with melted butter and or red gravey.  Here's to you my cardiologist! Out of this world-----but that is NOT what I want to talk about today.

The KNOTS on a sailing vessel are simply amazing. While visiting the Nina (that's with a ~ over the second n),  pronounced Ninya and Pinta (no ~), I came accross the photos in todays blog.

This pulley shows some incredible work, just to attach the rope.  I know that today we make these ropes by machine, but back in the day they were all put together by hand or some antique twisting machine.  NOT an easy chore.  The blocks had to be cut and carved by hand, and of course closing off the ends of the rope with smaller line was an art in itself.  Today they use a tape to do that or just melt the nylon of which the rope is constructed.

Just keeping the rope from underfoot when under way would have to be a very desciplined chore.  The decks on the old boast were not flat, but rising in the bow and stern.  Ladders or steps are needed to get the "Poop" deck in the stern of the boat.  They were also not that wide and with water sloshing accross decks would cause very slippery conditions.

At approximately 85 feet in length, I can just imagine what the

life on board must have been, back when Columbus captained these things. And a storm at sea must have been a real treat.  They have rounded bottoms with not much keel, so slipping off course and rolling must have been real easy.  The thought gives real understanding of the term "Sea Legs".

They were asking for volunteers to sail with the two ships from Georgetown north to Philladelphia,

a week long experience.  I must say that briefly I considered making the trip.  But we were three hours away from my vault of medication and clean underwear.  The latter being very important during a week long sail with limited facilities.  Ten years ago, I would have done it in a minute and what an adventure it would be.  Alas, no guts so no glory and I passed.

The 17th day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

OK KIDDIES, THE PROFESSOR IS IN THE HOUSE!

Always wanted to say that. 

  The weekend, past, started out with a neighborhood garbage or garage sale at a number of houses.  Only ran from 8 to 12, but paid for dinner Saturday night.

Now for the 98.8% of you photographers, like myself, who aren't Annie Liebowitz and  never will be.....here's a flash.  Have an art/garage sale.  Cut your prices on all that old inventory from art work to equipment, and then cut that in half again.  Make everyone think they are getting the deal of a lifetime.  I sold some stuff and a few pieces of older stuff that I knew I would never sell to any discerning buyer.  Nobody left the place without having a shot at cheating me out of something.  It was great and some people actually got some stuff that every garage should have two of.  At other sales of this nature a friend of mine sold a whole bunch of his old inventory he'd already written off, and another had a $15,000 day.

Oh, and Annie Liebowitz (I don't even know if I spelled it right)-----if you don't know who she is----Google it.  I make some pennies when you search from here.  I think!

Sunday, we went to Georgetown, SC to see replicas of the Nina and Pinta.  Now gather your children and grand children around for some education.  Don't bother with the great grand children, they already refer to you as that old person sitting on the rocker in the corner a slurpin n a droolin.  There---you've already lost all your street cred.

These boats are replicas of, now let's hear it altogether now , the ones that founded America.  You know the Italian guy who sailed the ocean blue in 1492, that the modern media discredits because the Vikings might have been here first.  You know, Columbo!  No he was the guy who always had a lollipop in his mouth.  No, no, no ------ That was Kojack and another country altogether.  Columbo wore the trench coat.  Err, Columbus.

Here is a shot of the bow of one of the boats, probably the Pinta because I can't find the ~ thingy on my keyboard that goes over the second n in Nina.  Of course in the background is a boat that can best be described as one of the world's largest holes in the water into which one pours money.  These replicas were about 85 feet long and that yacht was bigger than that.

The harbor at Georgetown is really very nice and boats from all over the world seem to find safety there.

The smoke stacks in the background are those at a paper plant.  The odor produced by those plants have to be the original source of that produced by those little back kitties with a white stripe found mostly in residential garbage cans.

The town itself is really a nice place to visit and live.  Oak lined residential streets with all the southern charm of a Charleston on a smaller scale.  They even have one of the old tyme theatres.  Love the window above the sign.

It seems that no matter where I travel, I have become obsessed with pictures of the flag.  That is, again for the kids, the flag of the country in which we live. The country those original boats discovered.  OK, the kids can go back to their "Game boys" or whatever they call them today.

God bless Columbus and the Founders of this great country!  Lets not try to mess it up too bad.

The 15th day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

THE CONUNDRUM

On the one hand the act of man, on the other the act of God!

The 13th day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

A FREAK OF NATURE

 and other motivational factoids

I started out as a wildlife photographer and somehow weaseled my way into the Easton Waterfowl Festival in November of 1989 in Easton, Md.  Back then it was pretty prestigious to be asked to exhibit.  In fact somebody had to die to just get moved up the waiting list.  I guess they thought I had some pretty good local waterfowl images or the plague had hit and half of them died off.

My love of wildlife and nature can be traced back to age six or seven when living on a portion of my grandparents farm of 100 acres or so in southeastern Pennsylvania.  I thought the place was my personal Seringetti, and wandered all day every day.  Fields held rabbits and ground hogs, both rabid processors of vegetable matter into protein.  We had a couple of streams which held an occasional trout.  But it was what everybody called "The Big Woods" out back and on the edge of the property that held the dreams and day dreams of a six year old.  At six, property lines didn't mean much and in fact in the mid 1940's not too many people even posted their properties agains hunting, fishing or just plain trespass.  For a kid it was shangra la!

The play of light and how it changes minute to minute conjures up all the scenes that my parents and grand parents imparted to me though all the books they thought proper at the time.  I applied those stories such as (God forbid today) "Uncle Remus" and brer fox, brer rabbit, et. al.  Today, young readers are more likely to conjure up a white owl in silent flight through the shadows.  Or even Harry Poter himself racing through the stands of hardwood.  It doesn't make any difference if it is Brer Rabbit or Harry Potter.  It's the process!

These are places where young men and women with skulls full of mush can create the plans for a lifetime.  Leave them go, leave them dream, and our future leaders will be all the better for the experience.

  Reading (or being read to), learning, then trundling off to apply that word to what in whatever section of the universe the young person has handy, simply moves the fantasy closer to reality. 

I guess that is a long way around to simply say that I love to sit in a quiet woods, pretend I am a bushel of apples, watch the light change, and the animals go about their daily duty.  Seems the only place anymore to just sit and sort. 

I did that once on the opening day of deer hunting season in Central Pennsylvania.  It was a season that led me to put down the gun and stop hunting.  Because it was opening day and the woods would be crawling with hunters (maybe more than deer), I wisely climbed in total darkness to the top of the mountain.  The deer were down in the valleys still foraging as they do during the night hours.  They then look for cover during the day to safely chew their cud, ruminate, or whatever they do with their food.  As daylight finally broke I heard the scramble of a dozen or so deer climbing the mountain off to the left in a controlled panic created by the hunters below .  I had chosen a very large elm tree (wider than my own body) to sit below with my back against the trunk.  Virtually inisible when I sat still.  The deer, about a hundred yards away, started to work accross the ridge towards me.  Only one small fork horn buck in the bunch.  As luck would have it one of the does was coming directly to my tree.  Now I am sitting on the ground and she is nose to ground looking for acorns.  As her nose came around the corner of the tree, we were virtually eye to eye.  Could not have been more than six inches to a foot.  "Good morning lady" I said in a soft voice.  Deer's eyes like human's can widen to saucer size or so it seemed.  She immediately snorted and jumped backwards about three feet.  She was absolutely stunned that something else that smelled as bad as me was sitting on her ridge.  She didn't run too far and those deer milled around for a couple of hours.

  Good stuff!

The 12th day of the fifth month of the year of the Camellia

CAUTION: SUCCULENT WHEN WET

I made a sea food pasta dish for dinner last night which featured clams and shrimp.  It is amazing how the seafood industry can go out and harvest the critters in the sea, marshes, and mud and come up with stuff which is almost identical in size. 

I suppose that the clams we buy in the super markets or fish stores are all farm raised.  There is generally not a fraction of an inch in size amongst them all.  To a lesser extent the shrimp where at least you get a particular count per pound depending upon size.  Must not be farm raised.  I know that the shrimping industry is large and thriving off the coast of South Carolina because when we come back from the beach all the locals are on the roads selling shrimp.  Must be a Forest Gump thing.

Over a hundred years ago oysters were plentiful in the Chesapeake bay and Watermen (that's the name for commercial fishermen on the bay) were restricted to hand tonging for the succulent critters.  Hand tonging is tedious and hard work.  Long lengths of wood (poles actually)  are hinged about three feet from the ends on which have two opposing baskets of fingers are mounted.  The waterman lowers the head of the tongs into the water, sometimes up to 25 feet, scrabbles around with the head by opening and closing the poles until the basket is full.  The tongs are then pulled from the water and dumped on a culling board and the whole process starts all over again.  Most tongers have the arms and shoulders of an Olympic weightlifter and the waist of a female ballet dancer.

As the 1800's waned the oystering in New England was giving out,  the fishermen up there were looking for a new and fertile ground upon which to fish.  Their methods were more commercial if you will than those of the tongers in the Chesapeake region.  They employed "Skipjacks", or boats from which long metal lines held a metal and netting scrape affair.  Of course their boats were sailing vessels that needed to provide a stable platform for their work.  In fact, their boats were built one third wide as they were long.  Thus, if it was a 45 foot boat, it was 15 feet wide with a flat bottom enabling shallow water dredging.  By the late 1800's the invasion of the Chesapeake oyster beds was on.  Arguments, fights, battles, and even wars ensued as the time old method of tonging slowly disappeared and the dredgers increased in numbers.  The catch of oysters also increased and the argument was made that the natural supply of oysters could not keep up with these new methods of scraping up entire oyster bars. That fear soon proved to be a prophecy as the numbers of oysters in the Chesapeake have, a hundred ten years later, dwindled from millions of bushels a year to around a hundred thousand.

This is a long way around to tell you about the first oyster I ever ate.  It was probably twenty years ago and we were on a skipjack, the Elsworth, out of Rock Hall, MD to dredge for oysters and photograph the lifestyle of the independent men called watermen.  We dredged, the called it drudged because of the hard work, about a half bushel and the captain set about shucking a few for an on board oyster stew.  As I remember it was February and about forty degrees.  It was cold!  And a bowl of what I thought was going to be warm milk sounded good.  Asked if I ever had raw errsters (spelling correct and pronunciation as spelled).  To which I replied something like "ugh" as it brought back memories of the strange things I had to eat during college fraternity pledge years.

Long story short!  I loved it.  Yeah it was slimy.  Slid right down, but even with some homemade cocktail sauce I got the very simple taste of the meat as well as the fresh sea water.  It was colder than the ambient temperature and it was truly a delicacy.

The boats are called Skipjacks.  They are unique to the bay and five years ago there were only a few, like under ten, still working on the bay.  Most of them are now outfitted to take tourists on short day trips around the bay.  The demise of the boat was dependent upon a number of things like over fishing, lack of oysters, competition from new methods of fishing, and just a general declining water resource.