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Wordless Wednesday – from our gardens
Tag Archives: Photography
Rolling down the river
Spending some peaceful time on the river.
I’m a water girl – confirmed years ago growing up on a lake. Get me near water, better yet on water and I’m content. So getting the chance Friday morning to canoe part of the Huron River with my aunt was a gift.
The Huron River starts up near me at Indian Springs, a park Katie and I enjoy regularly, and flows all the way to Lake Erie, 130 miles in all. We paddled 8 miles on Friday morning under a bright blue sky. The water was crystal clear, with large brown fish (trout?) darting below our boat, among the intense green of the river grasses.
Clear river water.
The current was gentle but persistent, assisting our trip downriver but not so quick that we couldn’t enjoy the lovely views along the way. The banks were often covered in blue forget-me-not flowers, the sunlight falling on them in dappled joy through the new spring green foliage of the trees above.
So many pretty places!
Mostly the river was smooth and calm, reflecting the sky and trees, shining on the water bugs scurrying away from our silent canoe. Occasionally we rode through some moderate rapids…
Like a water ride at an amusement park. Only better.
…calling on the skill of my aunt, the expert in the stern to pick the best spot to slide by the largest rocks.
Captain Becky
The only people we saw were fishermen also enjoying the quiet beauty of the river.
Fly fishing.
But we saw lots of nature. A blue heron flew across the river in front of us and around a bend, hidden by trees, only to wait for us in the shallows, ignoring us as we passed. Another heron stood proudly on a log, posing as we glided by.
I’m not going to look at you.
We saw giant snapping turtles laying eggs on sandy banks, mallard ducks preening on a log, and several families of geese enjoying the beautiful sunny day.
Taking the family to the beach.
We had such a lovely time, I’m grateful for the opportunity to canoe with my aunt on a river she and my dad used paddle as kids. I remember other canoe trips with my folks, and one trip on this river, though a different stretch of it, with my dad. The Huron stretches 140 miles across this part of Michigan, and right through the hearts of my family.
Aren’t I lucky.
Bridging generations.
Bits of this and that
Katie and I are officially camping right now. Only we’re not.
I have the last concert of the season tonight, dress rehearsal was last night. So after rehearsal, late in the night, I gathered her up and we drove over to the State Park where I have a campsite reserved.
Katie was very confused. I woke her up out of a sound sleep when I got home, asked her if she wanted to go camping, she ran to the back door very excited to camp in the back yard, and I picked her up and put her in the car! Oh no she thought! Where are we going? This can’t be good! This is not normal! I like normal!
What’s going on mama? (This is from last year because I haven’t taken the camera to camp yet this trip!)
Once at our campsite, in the dark with only stars overhead she sniffed a bit, wanted to go on a long walk (which I vetoed…it’s good to be the mama) and finally consented to getting in the tent. But she wouldn’t settle down. This was not right! It smelled different! What are we doing mama? Where are we? Why are we here? Where’s my daddy?!?!
Eventually she settled down and we both shivered through the cold night until 5:30 when, according to Sheltie rules, it is important to be wide awake. So we went out, walked down to the bath house, both of us did what we needed to do and we walked back to the tent and went back to sleep.
It all worked out.
Last year we camped a lot!
But now we’re back at the house while I get ready for tonight’s concert. She seems very sleepy. I am too.
We’re playing a bunch of music tonight, and will be joined by selected 7th graders for two pieces. They came to rehearsal last night; they are very good and play like they’re in high school. Oh but the drama of it all! I’d forgotten what it was like to be in 7th grade, so confident, so giggly, so out there. They made our band sound great and it will be fun to preform with them tonight.
And totally unrelated, this happened a couple of mornings ago at home.
Mom and Dad visited for a moment.
A good friend painted the mockingbird on the rock when my parents died. It’s a long story, but I consider the mockingbird to represent my mom, and when one pops up around me I always say hi because it feels like a visit from her.
And the rainbow? Well, after mom died someone in dad’s church gave him a little prism that on sunny days spread a rainbow across his kitchen. That’s still on the windowsill of our lake house. This particular rainbow was created by the sun shining through my front door. I’ve never seen it before, and certainly not shining on mom’s mockingbird.
So I figure I got a joint visit this week. Made me smile pretty wide.
Hope it makes you smile too.
You HAVE to smile at me!
WordPress Photo Challenge: Jubilant
In our household when you think jubilant you can only picture one thing.
Incoming!
To see other interpretations of ‘jubilant’ check out the original post. Or, take a peek at a few of my favorites so far here, here, and here.
I hope there is a little jubilation in your life this week! Katie and I have planned an adventure. I’m sure she’ll tell you all about it soon.
I’ll tell you later!
Williamsburg – Katie’s version
Katie here. Mama says she’s too busy weeding the garden to tell you about Wiliamsburg even though she’s promised more than once to do just that. Mama makes promises all the time and then doesn’t do the stuff she promised. Like take a certain dog to a park. If you know what I mean.
Conversation on the courthouse steps.
Anyway, I guess it’s up to me to tell you what I heard about mama and daddy’s day at the colonial village, even though I’m still mad at them for going there without me. I hear it’s a dog friendly place! They said they saw lots of doggies there and I don’t understand one little bit why I couldn’t go.
Mending.
Ahem…
So mama said she was very interested in all the places they visited, and particularly took lots of pictures of the people that were explaining the different houses and occupations. Like the lady that was showing how residents used to spin the yarn…
Beautiful colors
…and the woman that was weaving thread into fabric.
Explaining how the loom works.
They visited a lot of houses too, this one was the home of Payton Randolph who was the first president of the Continental Congress. She described how the slaves interacted with their owners inside affluent homes like this one, and how some owners gave their slaves freedom while others did not.
Important politicians lived in nice places.
Their personal slaves slept on pallets outside the owners bedrooms.
Bedroll stored in a corner
The governor’s palace was pretty spectacular too.
Governor’s palace
The foyer was lined with swords and guns as a sign of wealth and power.
Lots of wealth on display.
And the Capitol Building was amazing. It held two sides of government, the Colonialists and the King’s representation. They each had their own side of the building, but met in the center, up above the arches, to discuss policy.
Mama and Daddy learned lots of history here!
But mostly mama and daddy visited and talked to people that represented the regular day-to-day lives of people. Like this little boy selling lettuce from the back of a wagon…
Lettuce for sale!
…and this silversmith making a bowl.
It’s a slow process.
There were lots of people interacting with the tourists. This guy was explaining a battle, using stones and twigs, to a group of children.
What if you moved your troops to the east?
He made it into a game letting them make strategic decisions. Mama said they were all having a great time trying to win the battle.
Mama said there were lots of pretty little places too, gardens tucked into spots behind houses, or out along the street.
Simple and beautiful.
It was a beautiful spring day. Not too hot, not too cool. Seems to me it would have been a perfect day for a certain sheltie-girl to go for a walk with her folks in an historic village. Just saying. It’s not like mama didn’t pet a sheltie or two or three while she was there!
THREE of them!!
That’s right. I know she cheated on me! This is exactly why I’m still giving her the cold shoulder, not that she’s noticed or anything.
OK. Enough whining. Back to the tour.
Mama and daddy also went to a concert that evening at this church.
Episcopal church
Lots of famous people have attended church here. People like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. And President Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Thomas Jefferson sat here!
Mama and daddy sat in Thomas Jefferson’s pew to listen to an oboe and organ candlelit concert. It was nice even though mama said the seats were very uncomfortable, I guess to keep people awake in church!
The other musical thing they got to see was the pipe and drum parade.
On parade.
Everyone enjoyed watching and listening to them pass by…even people (and dogs) inside!
Are there treats involved in this event?
All in all I guess mama and daddy had a wonderful time even without me. They said they were looking out for my best interests when they scheduled me for camp instead of going with them. But I think they just wanted to keep all the fun for themselves. I’m going to protest louder if they do this again. I might even hire these guys to play outside their bedroom window for a few nights in a row.
After the parade.
That might work.
Meanwhile I guess I should forgive mama. I guess I can take the higher road. Especially if it leads me to a park.
Mama had to pay the price of leaving me behind!
Wordless Wednesday
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Disoriented
We came back from our road trip to a typical spring in Michigan. Snow and sleet, frost and freeze warnings all in mid-May. It’s confusing. Just last week I was running on the board walk at Virginia Beach in shorts, getting overheated while wearing a long sleeved technical shirt, hair up under a hat, sun blinding my eyes.
Ah the memories.
There were times during the trip that I felt disoriented too. We spent a lot of time exploring the history that permeates Virginia.
Returning to another century.
Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown.
And then we’d drive back to our hotel room in Virginia Beach…
Crazy place.
…filled with tourists and cars and bright lights and seafood buffets. For a moment, standing on the top of the parking deck back at the hotel I had to shake my head to clear it. Which world was real?
Maybe neither.
Even out on the road we slipped between the seasons. Where it was early summer in Virginia…
Green hills of Virginia.
…driving back through Pennsylvania a day later we watched spring arriving all over again.
Regressing into spring.
It was all disorienting, almost surreal. But then Katie came home and took us under her paw. We’re back to reality now.
Thanks Katie-girl.
Good morning mama!
WordPress Photo Challenge – Face
Baltimore…and a bit of sweetness
I was in Baltimore a few years ago for a truck safety event, but I never left the hotel. This visit was different. We began at Fort McHenry, which has been active in some fashion for every war, but is most notable for it’s involvement in the war of 1812.
Fort McHenry.
It’s also known as the fort that flew the flag that inspired the writing of our national anthem. In 1813 General George Armistead requested a “flag so large that the British will have no difficulty seeing it from a distance.”
The back of the barracks.
Mary Pickersgill sewed a flag 25 feet by 17 feet, and it was flown the day after a British bombardment, to show that the Americans’ still held the fort. Francis Scott Key saw the flag and was inspired to write the Star Spangled Banner as the national anthem.
She sewed the famous flag.
We walked along the waterfront below the fort, the sky turning grey with the promised rain. Still, it was a beautiful morning.
Tourists sailing on the river.
Just down the hill a tall ship was moored. The Pride of Baltimore II was getting ready for a summer voyage up the coast and through the St. Lawrence Seaway to the Great Lakes! She’ll be in Lake Huron sometime this summer.
Pride of Baltimore II getting ready to sail the Great Lakes!
We hope to see her near Bay City later this year.
It began to rain as we headed into the city of Baltimore. Wandering the inner harbor area we enjoyed all the shops and sights through a slow drizzle.
Vibrant Inner Harbor; books, bars, boats and more.
The USS Constellation is in the harbor and you can take a tour. It’s under renovation at the moment, and we didn’t take the tour as there was many other things to do. But it’s a beautiful ship.
A piece of history waiting to be explored.
There are a number of towers dominating the Baltimore skyline. Though it was beginning to rain harder we decided to climb several blocks up to the top of the hill to figure out what this tower was.
What is that up there?
Turns out it is the Bromo-Seltzer tower, built by a man named Emerson as an advertisement for his product. In fact originally this tower had a huge Bromo bottle on top!
Bromo-Seltzer?!
Apparently he saw a similar tower in Florence Italy, called his architect and said he wanted something similar, but instead of one clock like the Florence tower he wanted four clocks, and he wanted them to be larger than the clocks in Big Ben in London. No ego there!
An artist rending of what the tower used to look like.
As we were standing outside the building looking up at it in what was becoming a downpour a man opened the door and invited us in out of the rain. He explained that the tower is now being used as artists’ studios, and he was the curator. Though it wasn’t officially open he took us up to the 15th floor in an old manual elevator…
A Bromo collection.
…where there was a Bromo-Seltzer exhibit. And then we were allowed to walk down the 15 flights of stairs where the artists in residence were displaying their work. It was a fun example of the interesting things you might find if you just follow your curiosity.
It was raining harder on our walk back down to the harbor and the car. We noticed another interesting tower of sorts but decided it really was time to get out of the rain.
More interesting architecture.
After our tour of some of downtown Baltimore we headed out of town to visit a friend and his lovely family. I’ll share two of them with you. Griff….
I’m not sure about you yet lady!
..and Scout
All I want to do is PLAY lady!
Our friend has human family members as well. But…you know me and dogs. And I bet you think that the dogs were the sweet part of this post didn’t you. Well. They were sweet.
But this morning we stopped by Hershey Pennsylvania and took a little tour. We learned all about Hershey candy from a sweet little friend…
How do they make all that chocolate?
…and we shopped in the largest candy store in the world. It was almost as though sensible eating for months was thrown out the window. There was so much stuff! And suddenly I wanted it all.
Lots and lots and lots of candy.
But we were good and walked out of there with only $12 spent. It’s still more chocolate than I’ve had anywhere near me in a very long time. In fact tonight it’s out in the car so that I don’t eat it all at one sitting.
It’s calling my name. But it’s not going to win. Yet. I don’t think.
Tomorrow is a new adventure as we work our way home. It’s pretty here in Pennsylvania’s mountains. I don’t know where we’ll be, but I’ll share it with you after we get there.
Susquehanna River.
And of course…there’s still Williamsburg.
It was a little damp downtown.
Assateague National Park
We left beautiful Virginia Beach this morning as the rain began to fall. I felt sad to be leaving the ocean, but excited for the next adventure…
A cold, rainy run. But the dog doesn’t mind.
…because next on our list of places to explore was Assateague National Park! It’s on a thin strip of land, one of the outer bank islands, and it spans both Virginia and Maryland. It’s where the famous wild horses live.
There’s some youngsters in the herd!
I’ve seen photos Robin, from “breezes at dawn” has taken of the wild horses and I wanted to see them for myself. We visited the southern entrance to the park, in Virginia, and found a herd of them far off in the middle of a marsh.
Way back there is a mom and her little one.
Even after walking way back to an observation platform they were still a long way off, so these images are cropped. A lot. Still, it was very very cool to actually see them.
Robin sent me information about visiting at the northern entrance to the park, in Maryland, but by the time we got up there it was raining harder. Rain and cold temperatures made me decide that what I had seen was enough for this trip, though talking to Robin on the phone makes me want to come back and explore the Maryland end of the park.
We also stopped by the lighthouse. It’s beautiful, back in the woods and on the edge of the marsh…
Would have been fun to climb.
…such a lovely walk back to see it. You can climb the 175 stairs, but it’s only open on weekends right now. Later in the season it will be open all week.
Then we headed out to the beach where I saw several birds that I could not identify.
I have an idea what these are…can anyone confirm?
I told my husband I had to try to get pictures, knowing that some of you would be able to identify them for me.
What are these largish dark birds?
And even though most of these are not great shots, and they’ve been cropped to within an inch of being illegible…I hope you know what all these birds are!
I think there are a couple different kinds of birds here, none of which I recognize.
And as we walked through the forest opening up to the marshes, a huge flock of these swooped overhead:
They are medium sized, white (I think) with hooked beaks. What are they?
Here’s a better shot from directly underneath:
Does this help identify the bird?
We didn’t get up close to much of the wildlife, but we had a great time. It was so nice to be back in nature after spending two days in Virginia Beach and Norfolk with it’s crowds of people.
I did get pretty close to this clump of probable seagulls. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a bird with a mouth that is so red!
What you talkin about lady?
I can’t pronounce the name of this park, but I definitely recommend you all to visit! I hope to be back again someday soon myself! Thank you, Robin, for sparking my interest in this amazing place!
Shining example of a lighthouse.
