cottonpuffs agalow

One day last week there were really cool clouds on the way in to work. Every conceivable kind of cloud -- cirrus, mackerel, cumulus, small puffy low clouds and high streaky clouds -- all in the sky at the same time. Amazingly, they stuck around all day and made for an interesting sunset.

make sure your car is clean. empty your ashtray in the parking lot.

today they took away my 96 Taurus wagon.
i loved that car, but it was aged and infirm, and time to go. ~297,000 miles. there were cobwebs attaching it from its station in the driveway to the nearest tree. waaaahhhh.

obscenely beautiful

this was a tree peony (Paeonia suffruticosa 'Renkaku') I had bought via mail order years ago.

one year we had an large snowfall and the weight of the snow broke off the plant at the graft line. (apparently tree peonies are usually grafted onto regular herbaceous peony rootstock). so now in its place I have a very ordinary pink peony. I think I will dig it up and plant another tree peony there this year.

on the thorns of a dilemma

about this time of year the mock orange (Poncirus trifoliata) should be blooming. but last fall i cut it down and hacked it into pieces with my lopper. it has killer thorns and you just can't do anything with that plant without getting yourself all scratched up. i burned some of the branches in the fire pit on saturday, which was a little foolhardy because it was windy out. my dad would have really chastised me about that.

i guess i was tired of it. i only planted it years ago because it reminded me of my childhood. we had one in the back yard, which my father kept restrained by careful pruning every year. but i didn't have that discipline, so mine was going crazy, getting too big. it frightened me.

so, with my father gone now, i had no reason to keep it.

here's the non-manipulated image.

ducks in brown

Forsythe Refuge, last November.

howl at the sea

actually, he was yawning.
taken New Years Day; since the gym was closed, we decided to take a walk on the boardwalk.

milkweed bugs

all the milkweed seed pods were covered with these colorful little buggers (Oncopeltus fasciatus). Forsythe Refuge in November.

black bowl with pear

Today our camera club's monthly photo contest theme was Still Life. Mine didn't win but I had fun shooting different fruits, outside on the wooden table on my deck. It was LOVELY: about 74 degress, sunny (although i had to keep moving the table because the sunny spot kept advancing across the table). This was my first time trying a still life, and it is much harder than it looks. I took 71 pictures and got three that i liked.

portal

spotless entryway. perhaps never used?
Plympton Street, Cambridge, MA

grasses congregating

Forsythe Refuge, wintertime.

berries, uneaten

i think these might be red chokeberries (Aronia arbutifolia). the birds don't seem to be that keen on them. perhaps they will be eaten later in the winter.

pops and teresa

The theme this time for our club's photo of the month was Portrait/People. This is victor's dad and sister, taken at ryan's wedding. I just love teresa's expression, and his dad's little tongue sticking out. The old guy is 87, and such a character.

shivery blue pond

since it was so clear out, every body of water looked very blue and beautiful. i liked how the ripples on this pond made it look like it was shivering.

blowing snow

near my house there are many open farm fields. when there is lots of wind along with the snow, it blows across the roads making plowing by the county useless (they never make it out here anyway).

icy glade

another shot from sunday's mission. this is a secluded glade in a dying white cedar stand. i had to hop over the metal bar preventing access to an abandoned road off county route 575 to get back in here. my boots got wet from tramping around in the snow and my feet started getting cold.

swim away!

i would not make a good hunter. several times as i was crashing through the underbrush, i scared away birds. these geese figured they better put some distance between them and me. notice the sideways looks at the intrusive human. Lake Fred.

clear and cold

a surprise snow on saturday night. this wetland is probably technically part of Lake Fred. doesn't that water look cold, dark, and mysterious?

sky colors

This is the photo i submitted today for our club "Photo of the Month" competition (after i cropped a little on the left side). it didn't win but i had a few positive comments on it. i think this was taken on Liepzig Ave... just driving home from the mall one day... stopped the car and shot it out the window.

Little Bluestem sparkling in the winter light

i took this one day when i went to the Forsythe Refuge at about 4 pm. a great time of day -- the backlighting was wonderful.