Photo A Day - View From Your Window

I love the view from my living room windows. A big grassy lawn, a gazebo and a pond - it reminds me of an old English estate. Not that I have ever been to an old English estate but I imagine that there would be at least one view from the manor that overlooked an expanse of manicured lawn with a pretty gazebo smack in the middle of an artfully arranged garden and a glassy pond filled to the brim with basking turtles, minnows and dragonflies.

I have a very good imagination.

This view today grants me a small taste of home - upstate New York. Although it is well into November, here in Florida it only just started to get chilly and the leaves only just turned and started to fall. It's officially long sleeve shirt weather now. (Sorry my Great White North friends for rubbing it in...how many feet of snow do you have already?)

As much as I find home is where my family is, I still miss my hometown in the autumn. The delightful crunch of the leaves under foot, the crisp air biting at the nose, the fuzzy sweaters and slippers, apple orchards and pumpkin patches, things that Florida lack, makes me nostalgic for home. But once a year, as the few deciduous trees drop their leaves, I am transported back to my northeastern roots.

Look at my little photobombing kitty, Simone. It wasn't until I had the camera aimed out the window that she decided she needed to be on the sill.

A carpet of leaves is as close as I'll get to a carpet of snow.

Photo A Day - Man Made

Florida is naturally a swamp so it always strikes me as funny when I see people refer to retention ditches as “ponds” or “lakes.” I used to live in a community that did this. Everyone loved talking about the lake, the fish in the lake, the ducks on the lake, the turtles basking by the lake. It was a complete mystery to me this obsession with a man-made lake. Sure it had a natural aspect to it but to go on about it as though the builders had found a pristine lake and built around it was sort of silly to me.

Florida is like that, a man-made state. Without the development of air conditioning, dredging and draining the swamps no one would want to live in here…at least year round anyway. I think perhaps, especially along the coast, people forget what nature really is. Maybe today man-made nature is the more improved version of nature. Nature 2.0? One step closer to living in a complete virtual environment? Even going to a state park one cannot escape the influence of man-made: roads cut through the trees, fences line the perimeter, trails are blazoned with signs and information, campsites are outfitted with running water and electricity.

Sorry. Slippery slope, I know, and this blog is anything but a tool for social reform or commentary. I am far too shallow non-confrontational for that.

Last year Cyra joined a golfing program and has since fallen in love with the sport. The other day during one of her last lessons for the fall session I followed her around the three-hole practice course snapping photo after photo, paparazzi style, capturing her in action.

When I decided to participate in the photo challenge this month, I made a point to be aware of the different themes so that I could grab photos as they came. And as I was following Cyra around, the beautiful settling of the golf course – and really, golf courses are very pretty and well maintained – struck me as being off.

It’s a natural environment modified by man to suit a purpose. Hence man-made nature. Oxymoron? Perhaps. But it fits the category. 

Here is the course with a water hazard and on the far side a bunker.

The retention ditch...I mean pond. Lake. Whatever. It's man made and that's what counts regardless of how many fish, birds or alligators live within it.

Photo A Day - Small

This is far later than I like to post. I enjoy the first thing in the morning routine I have established but since today I had to leave the house hours before the sun came up to get to a job interview I did not have the time.

On the plus side, job interview.

So. Small. I struggled with this one. Really. It was hard to come up with a subject until I remembered that just the other day I took a photo of something sneaky small. Sneaky and creepy and I am oh so glad I did not find it in the house like that centipede I almost stepped on the other morning in the kitchen (centipedes are creepy in and of themselves with all those legs, but throw in pinchers and a scorpian-like stinger and ewww).

Hankette (because I'm sure it's a girl) was hanging out in front of the well house door. Her web stretched completely across and almost halfway down. Pretty impressive.

She's pretty, right? I'm not sure what kind of spider she is but I am very glad that she did not jump at me while I was taking the photos. She seemed rather irritated with the flash.

Bonus Small: About 50 gazillion frogs were hiding on and around the door. I cornered this one, Robert (make sure you say that with a French accent), and paparazzi-like took at least 15 photos. Surprisingly, this was the only decent one.

A Bit of History, Gone.

Along with all of the other devestation that Sandy has caused, a minor news blip that got almost no attention (from what I can tell) is that the tall ship, the Bounty, sank off of the coast of North Carolina.

Sank.

The Bounty.

It might have been just a replica built for a Hollywood movie but it was history. History that I walked upon and touched. History that introduced my girls to Marlon Brando. History that now lies at the bottom of the ocean.

Sure it isn't as tragic as the loss of the Titanic or the Lusitania. It isn't as pressing as the flooding in New York - my home state - or the tens of thousands without power. But I'm sad about it nonetheless. Maybe because there aren't many tall ships left in this world of gas and metal. Maybe because The Bounty represented a time and age that I long to be a part of.

Here's a blurb from CNN that shows rescue footage of three of the crew members and another from the Washington Post.

I wrote about the Bounty a few months ago when it docked in St. Augustine and the we took a tour walking the deck where Marlon Brando and Johny Depp walked - not that I'm a big fan of Depp but yeah it was used in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies too.

Friday Photos

Get ready for the Cinder Block Harvest Fest!!

When we first moved to our new house, I noticed a large pile of bricks and cinder blocks sitting just beyond the fence line. I was curious about them but didn't give it too much thought because as they were on the other side of the fence, they weren't mine.

Every so often over the course of the past year, I'd give them a glance and sigh because if only I had those cinder blocks I could do so much good in the world...well, in my yard at least. Specifically this - a raised garden bed made from cinder blocks. But alas, with out the cinder blocks, I went ahead and repurposed my old milk crates into a a container garden. Still...I yearned for the day when I would make a "real" garden.

It wasn't until my landlord came over to supervise the recent yard work that I made a startling discovery. The cinder blocks were actually on this property! The previous tenant was the one who put up the fence for his dogs and, being sort of lazy about it, just fenced around the brush and pile of cinder blocks instead of following the property line.

I asked my landlord if I could use the bricks and cinder blocks and after he looked at me like I was crazy said he didn't care at all what I did with them!

So I have started harvesting the bricks. They are easy to get as they are lighter than the cinder blocks. In order to get those, I need to disassemble part of the fence and I haven't gotten to that point yet.

Here they are...just waiting for me...waiting to fulfill their purpose.

See how sad they are behind the fence? Poor things! They long to be made into a garden!

These are some of the bricks I was able to save. A sad little pile now, but when I have some more, I plan on making a couple flower beds with them.

It's hard to see in black and white, but the sun filtering down through the branches above really made the cinder blocks pop out. It was pretty in a creepy sort of way.

I love the vines that crisscross over, around and through the pile as though trying to hold onto them.

The bricks are in the best of shape and I have no idea how long they sat neglected, but it will make an interesting juxtaposition  - old bricks, pretty flowers... Nice!

Good Morning Sunshine

Does "Red sky in morning, Sailors take warning" count if you are on land or if the sky is more pink then red?

Sometimes, I wish my backyard had a few less trees in it so I could have captured more of the sunrise. Be that as it may, it was a beautiful scene to wake up to.