2 28 13

Monday is Laundry day!

 

Or at least it seems so.  Monday past I was in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  Travelling the back roads just free lancing for pictures, but knowing that the Amish country is always a hot spot for photographers.  One must in capital letters MUST respect their wishes to not be photographed.  They believe it to be against their religion to have an image made of them.  Therefore I always try to avoid their faces in one manner or another.  I would actually prefer that they not even know I have taken a photo.

 

 

It does appear that Monday is laundry day in the entire region.  Not sure I know why, but almost every farm I saw had laundry out on the line to dry.  It was a clear day, good sun and rising temperatures.  Maybe it was just the first day in a long while that they had a chance to hang clothes outside.

 

 

Most every farm had a really long line from the house to an outbuilding or barn.  Probably on wheels at each end so the pinned piece of clothing could be drawn away from the starting point and back.  And I mean the lines were long on some of the places.

 



It strikes me, every time I visit that area, that the Amish are the cleanest, neatest farming folk you will ever see.  Sure the cows can be knee deep in mud when it's raining or has rained, but the homes and farm buildings are always clean and freshly painted.  The fields are all groomed and orderly reglardless of the season.   I have flown over the region as well and from the air the entire community can be defined by the fields and white barns.  It is really a credit to those industrious souls. 

 

 

Now that's a lot of rope.  But the interesting part of that image is the colorful garments amid the traditional black, white and gray standards.  Bet there are some young people on that farm.

 

 

Another farm with the traditional white buildings and a long hunk of rope from the house to the barn.  This one is very typical of almost every farm in the area.

 

 

I suspect that the farm pictured here is one of the most photographed pieces of property in Lancaster County.  To begin with, it is at the bottom of a small valley with an easily accessed pull off area on the hill.  A little different in as much as the color scheme of the farm seems to be good old red,white and blue.  More importantly there are five farms in the frame and usually there is always something Amish going on.  Here, the manure from the barns is being spread behind two mules pulling the spreader.  This is the way they recycle waste into fertilizer.  It gets rid of the waste, improves the soil for the future crop and completes the ashes to ashes concept.

 

Sometimes, I wonder!  It's a simple life and probably at times a hard life.  But they are all about community and no one goes unsupported by family and friends.  The stress and tumult of the city and suburban life styles is just not apparent.  Two schools I passed had kids outside playing some form of sport.  Each child dressed in the appropriate black garb.  They all seemed to be having fun and probably didn't know or care about some of the things the supposed sophisticated in our society worry about.  Just wondering!

 

 

 

Back again, back again....fiddle dee dee!

You all have my undying sympathy for having to endure a few days without my pithy wit, historic insight and just plain, plain talk here on "The Blog"! 

I have been to see the Wizards and actually do some semi serious shooting.  I say semi because I was free wheeling and snapping like the tourist I was.

My basic intent of the trip to Maryland was to see a budding hockey thug play in one of his games.  Ben, my grandson, is nowhere near thug like but is learning quickly what it means to have to put your nose in the crease and have somebody swing a stick at it.  He played well for only a year in the league and just amazed me at his natural ability and level of intensity.  So proud of him.  You go boy!!!!!!!!!!  Ya done gud number four!

 

Ben's sister is in training for the future "Housewives of Maryland" TV special to be aired sometime in the next 15 years.  She'll be a natural and already has the drama and quick mouth to be a star.  So proud of her too.

 

 

I did manage to get  Ben and one of his buddies, Tyler, out of the house and away from the puter games to visit a local air museum.  Amazing place where a bunch of guys bought a hundred acreas of land, built a couple of hangars, made an air strip and invite the public to look at planes and the history there of.  Big boys who acquired a big space to play with their big toys.

 

 

Part of the trip included Maryland horse country and Pennsylvanis Amish....so stay tuned.

 

The blog is back!

 

 

2 19 13

In the "Idiots run amok" category.  Homeland Security set to go ahead with plans to use drones for domestic security.  So the eye in the sky is going to be watching.  And when they put infra-red on those things there won't be a bathroom in Amurica (a little red neck lingo there) safe.  I am trying really hard not to make this blog too political.  But it is very trying to do so!

I did get to spend a couple of hours on the River Walk yesterday.  Some repairs being made and some new picnic tables installed.  On one of the sections they put in three new tables on a embankment which must have been over 45 degrees.  I understand it is being made to be wheel chair accessible.  OK, call me skeptical but a wheel chair on a fifty or so degree hill above a river?....Can anybody say "Roller Coaster" or maybe more appropriate "Water Plume" ride.  Maybe cynical is more the appropriate word. 

 

I have no idea why I am so attracted to the shadows on the walk, but this underpass gets me every time.  And it is one of only a few spots on the entire three or so miles where you can get in out of the rain.

 

Saw the first "Blood Root" blooms as well.  These little spring flowers are found only in one small part of the entire walk.  A woodland wild flower, they are small and delicate.  Along with the dozen and half robins in the front yard this morning convince me that spring is just around the corner and I have better jump start my garden mode.

 

My little spot in what I call the "Snake Pit" was running full with water coming off the quarry.  This "Slow motion" image was taken from the little bridge crossing said stream.  The snakes do seem to love this spot and I have seen water snakes including a moccasin.  Hence, my name for it.  People down here aren't afraid of the snakes which seem to be more "Around" than not, but I'm still a Yankee and those things just aren't necessary as far as I am concerned.

 

 

 

Finally, I did make a portrait of Sheri's valentines day present and think that I will list it on the web site.  It is pretty, with good lighting and sharp.  Guess that will qualify.  I'll be leaving Thursday for winter in the mid-atlantic.  Want to watch my g-son play hockey before he turns pro in a few years and also want to do some serious shooting.  Keep the light on for me!

2 18 13

Another Monday morning and the feet hit the floor.  Does it get any better than that?  We can certainly hope so!  Twenty six degrees here and that doesn't sound like South of the Sun, but we'll hit sixty today and warm up the rest of the week.  I will be headed for the dreaded stress test on Wednesday and up to Delaware on Thursday to watch my g-son play hockey.  Can't wait to see all that equipment put in motion Thursday night.

When I was his age, we played on the 14th hole of a golf course in pick up play or at an old cemetery pond.  The only guy with any equipment other than a stick and puck had knee pads.  If you got banged up you just went home and didn't talk to the thug what did it for a week, or at least until the next skating adventure.  Today those kids are insulated with $400 of padding and of course no one loses!  But then times do change.

This past weekend, I took another trip through my senior moments by posting some images of Maryland.  After all I did live there off and on for over fifty years.  So I should have at least one image worth publishing.  A housekeeping detail.  When you see a word or words highlighted, you know to click on it to go some other page.  Generally to the website or a page on the website.  Just a little computer lingo there.

 

Two of the image I favor were made on the major islands in the Chesapeake.  Namely Smith in Maryland and Tangier in Virginia.  The Queen Mary is coming to port on Smith Island.  Here the life and income of the residents necessarily centers around the water and the critters that can be harvested therefrom.  The Queen Mary is decked out with a single patent tong (that tall structure) used to harvest oysters.  Generally, the Bay's watermen will start the oyster season in the southern part of the bay and migrate to the north finishing up in mid-winter on the latitude somewhere around Baltimore.

 

Life on Smith and Tangier is basically simple.  The men fish for a living and the women run the family while the kids commute to the mainland for high school.  What cars are on the islands aren't even registered with the DMV.  No need as the roads are simple narrow affairs that can be travelled on foot or bike.

 

 

This crabber on Smith Island is preparing to take the pots out on the bay.  Island life includes little houses like that pictured above with a dock from which to work.  No land, just wood!  The wood supports their work area whether it be tied to the bottom or floating in their boat.  The blue crab has been the watermen's staple crop since the pilgrims first found that they could be roasted over a fire to make a delicacy.  I have finished these photos in color as sepia.  The sepia tones lending the images to express the age of the business these men conduct.  They have been around for generations doing just what you see in these photos.



2 16 13

CHANGES!  A TALE OF TWO TOWERS!

 

Some intrepid weather forecaster has suggested snow here today, but the map only shows rain and it's to be in the 40's.  I remind my self of Jimmy Buffett singing about second guessing the weather girl.  Makes no difference to me, but it would be nice to see a flake or two other than those which are on the TV nightly news.

 

  SEWE, pronounced that way is this weekend.  That's the South Eastern Wildlife Exhibition.  Never did the show but some of my friends do.  Every time I visit them down there in Charleston...all they do is complain about lack of sales.  Been doing that for at least eight years that I know of.  Glad I don't participate, but it is a wonderful show to attend.  Lots to do, buy and look at, so if you're in the area it is certainly worth visiting the old town and all the new artwork.

 

I've been posting some old postcards of lighthouses on the site just to show the ravages of time.  Yesterday's meteoric and astroidic (?) flybys just provide an exclamation point to how fast things can change and how little time we have to execute those changes.  I have always said that from a hundred miles up, we are just targets.  So why mow the lawn and make everything pretty!  Well, that excuse hasn't worked for more years than I want to admit to.  And if we get hit by a rock, well it's better than the grill of a semi in the windshield right up there where we can see it coming.  Those last ten seconds could be a real bummer!

 

In 1908, let's see 105 years ago, the Chatham twin lights on Cape Cod looked like this on an old postcard. 

 

 

The road in front looks like it was dirt, sand or an oyster shell composite.  Total it is a two lane city street.  And the tower on the right is gone!  Where? Well to Nauset Beach of course!  Not on the beach but up on a hill kinda in the woods.  I think that it's been moved at least twice if not three times.

 

The light station at Chatham was first established in 1808 and two 40 foot wooden towers were built.  Two were built in an effort to defferentiate it from the Highland or Cape Cod light a bit further north.  As time wore on, the wooden towers were replaced with brick towers and then finally in 1877 two brick-lined iron plate towers were built.  One of these is the current tower, but the other one was moved to become Nauset Light in 1923.  The current keeper’s house was built in the same year as the towers.  I wrote the above paragraph some years ago to be used with prints I sold and hence the different type font.  Furthermore, you know that the highlighted type in this blog leads you somewhere else when you click upon it.  A little computer 101 there as a reminder.  Lord, public school educations, always have to remind them!

 

By 1950 Chatham looked like this on another post card.

 

 

Technology seem to have added three antennas and a watch tower.  By today technology has totally replaced the need for the whole thing other than a tourist attraction. 

 

And Nauset light, well it's a little more rustic.

 

 

I took the above in the 90's shortly after the last move. Looks all neat and tidy.  As does the Chatham light taken about the same time.

 

 

If you all can't make it down to Charleston this weekend to look at all the art, then I suggest a fire in the fireplace if your north of say Georgia, a toddy or other adult libation, and my website.  Just remember the more libation the more you're likely to buy something and then we're  both "Happy, happy, happy". You'll probably see a lot of what the others are showing down there on the site.  I mean I displayed with those same guys for over twenty years up and down the east coast and we all copied what each other were doing at least once.  See something cool that one did and a year later we all had our own variation of it.  The only way I could stand out was to concentrate on Lighthouses.  Seemed to work to some extent.

 

OK, we're now having a very cold rain and it looks a little nasty outside.  Time to light the fire and pour another Pike Place....Thank you Strabucks!   My adult libation of choice.  Have a great weekend!

 

2 15 13

HOW LUCKY IS THAT!

 

It just "Dawned" on me while watching last night's... sunset that we, you and I and a whole bunch of other blind dumb luckers, are very fortunate.

 

 

I mean, last night we were sitting at our club on the lake eating steak, baked potato, salad with two choices of cake for desert and watching the sun go down over the water.

 

I grant you we were celebrating one of the more noted "Hallmark" holidays, basically designed to pamper women and get the men to spend money on cards, flowers, candy and if they were lucky hard shiny stones, aka rocks!  But think about it....we could have been born in Bangledesh or the Congo.  So we are lucky...we were, for the most part, born into the greatest country on the planet.  How intelligent of us to have chosen such smart parents.

 

Sorry guys, but that's about as romantic as I get!  In my case she got an orchid plant and a card from the super market...all class!  At least the orchids won't wilt and die in a week and it's on her to maintain them.  Could live for years....Aren't we lucky!

 

2 14 13

St. Vanentine's Day

 

According to Wikipedia, and we all know they don't lie!

 

Saint Valentine's Day, commonly known as Valentine's Day,^[1][2][3] or the Feast of Saint Valentine,^[4] is observed on February 14 each year. It is celebrated in many countries around the world, although it remains a working day in most of them.^[3]
St. Valentine's Day began as a liturgical celebration of one or more early Christian saints named Valentinus. The most popular martyrology associated with Saint Valentine was that he was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians, who were persecuted under the Roman Empire; during his imprisonment, he is said to have healed the daughter of his jailer Asterius. Legend states that before his execution he wrote "from your Valentine" as a farewell to her.^[5][6] Today, Saint Valentine's Day is an official feast day in the Anglican Communion,^[7] as well as in the Lutheran Church.^[8] The Eastern Orthodox Church also celebrates Saint Valentine's Day, albeit on July 6th and July 30th, the former date in honor of the Roman presbyter Saint Valentine, and the latter date in honor of Hieromartyr Valentine, the Bishop of Interamna (modern Terni).^[9][10]
The day was first associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. By the 15th century, it had evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines").^[1][3] Valentine's Day symbols that are used today include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have given way to mass-produced greeting cards.

See, I was right it is a Hallmark Holiday!

 

Anyway have a happy to all my kids, grands, friends, others and especially Sheri!