Spatterdock Pond

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Good morning,

Last weekend I took a short walk around the wildlife pond at Beaver Brook Association in Hollis, NH. I parked at the area right off of Route 130. The trails are well marked and I opted to take the wildlife trail. A few folks were fishing and lots of people were taking advantage of the nice weather. I plan to measure the distance on my next visit and will update this posting to reflect that.

It is a bit early for the spring flowers such as trillium to emerge, but noticed these lily pads with a purple hue. I saw a log that was covered with resting painted turtles but I didn’t have a telephoto to capture the shot. It is a great place and I plan to visit again.

Spatterdock Pond, note the purplish lily pads and one of the beaver lodges

 

Tulipa

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Garden bed at All Saints Episcopal Church in Peterborough, NH

I was pleased to see this bed of tulips looked so healthy. It is not the case in my garden. After a mild winter, my daffodils and daylilies sprouted a bit early. Around Easter the daffodils had well developed flower buds, just on the verge of opening.Then we got an unseasonably cold evening in the low teens. The plants went limp, not dead but hurting. Even the daylilies which are as strong as iron show signs of yellowing.

I’m not sure if any damage was inflicted on my Star Magnolia flower buds, but hopefully not. There is just no way to depend on New England weather.

 

Wildlife Pond

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Good morning,

Another view of the wildlife pond at Beaver Brook Association in Hollis, NH.

Beaver Brook Association is comprised of 2,187 acres of forest, fields, and wetlands in Hollis, Brookline, and Milford, New Hampshire. The land lies where the southern transitional forest meets the northern hardwood forest, creating a diverse landscape of interest to the naturalist and the hiker alike. With 35 miles of trails, the area provides a quiet and contemplative setting for daytime excursions. Forest and wildlife management is practiced throughout the property for the purposes of demonstrating sustainable forestry practices and wildlife habitat techniques to protect and encourage a diverse array of native species. BBA also protects significant portions of two watersheds and has designated natural areas that will be left unmanaged in perpetuity. We encourage the public to visit our forest, which is open from dawn to dusk seven days a week, and rediscover the natural world.

 

The Sacred and the Profane

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Good morning,  I’ve reached back in the archives for a couple of analog photos that I took during my Navy Years (1968). During Vietnam I was deployed on a carrier that  traveled to Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore. In one of those places I encountered this Buddha Sculpture in a park. It is rendered in Sepia tones because the dyes in the transparency had faded away over the years.

Before I was deployed on the ship, I was stationed at Imperial Beach NAS in California. On weekends I would catch a bus and head to San Diego or the beaches up the coast. One one urban exploration I took the photo of the street sign. of the Strip Club, however I cannot verify the veracity of the advertising.

Buddha

 

Go Go Girls

 

Floral Reflections

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When my Sony projection television died, I figured it would have some interesting optics including a high quality first surface mirror.  The mirror was large enough to accommodate a large sunflower blossom. This gave me a way to capture a view of the sky. In the last photo I was able to get a worm’s eye view of a sunflower.

 

 

 

Topsfield Arboretum

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The Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary is located in Topsfield and Wenham Massachusetts.  The Rockery Trail belonged to an arboretum donated by the owner Thomas Emerson Proctor. The Sanctuary is currently managed by the Massachusetts Audubon Society who removed some of the non-native species of trees, However along the Rockery Trail I noticed some unusual trees and shrubs which managed to survive.

Thomas Emerson Proctor wrote a 430 page book titled Topsfield Arboretum Catalog of Trees and Shrubs  which unfortunately is no longer in print, so  it may proved to be challenging to identify some of these specimens.

January is probably not the best time for tree identification, so a return visit is planned for the warmer months.

This tree resembles an Eastern Cedar but it much larger other varieties which I’ve seen.

 

 

This tree is not native to the area. I saw some odd seedpods and large dead leaves.

 

 

Color coordinated

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Good morning, less than 2 months till Springtime. I’m sharing a flower photo from August of 2014 taken at Gary and Cathy Johnson’s daylily farm in New Ipswich, NH.

It was a coincidence that I found  a blossom that matched in color to a fancy paint job on an antique car.

Magenta? Mauve? Pink?

 

 

Travel in Style

 

Monochrome Monday

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Good morning, back to work for those of us who didn’t have a blizzard or flood. I’m combining two photo themes in this posting. “People at Work Monday” and “Monochrome Monday”.  All the photos were taken in New Ipswich, NH.

The bridge in Smithville was repaired in 2010 by replacing the rusted steel pipe with a series of very large cement sections. A large crane did the lifting. It seemed like a good candidate for some selective coloration.

 

 

Workers attach the hoist to one of the cement sections. Photo taken in Smithville in September of 2010.

 

 

Workers at the Highbridge repair project take a break as they await the next concrete delivery truck.

 

 

Malcolm roasts a pig over a spit at a Software Release party in New Ipswich, NH. Photo was taken in June of 2014.

 

Rosa rugosa

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The Rosa rugosa is one tough plant. It’s very tolerant of salt and thrives along the coastal areas. I was not surprised to see these growing among the rocks at Two Lights State Park in Cape Elizabeth.

White Rose

 

 

Pink Rose

 

Portland Head Light

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“Sail on; Sail on ye stately ships.

And with your floating bridge and ocean span.

Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse.

Be yours to bring man near unto man.”

• Longfellow

 

Good morning, The photo theme for today is #LighthouseThursday.

I’ve picked a landmark lighthouse in Maine. The Portland light in  Cape Elizabeth. It was built in 1791

Portland Head Lighthouse

Henry Wadworth Longfellow

Processed photo in Siver Efex software to give it a more antique look

Tourists at the Lighthouse. I always get a kick out of folks using an iPad for photos.

A “Wet Paint” event. Local artist create a painting which will comprise an auction event to raise funds for the Cape Elizabeth Land Trust.