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Black and White Tuesday: November 3, 2020
Last Photo for October 2020
Here we are again getting set for seeing the last photo from your cameras SD card or the last photo from your phone on the 31st October.
The rules are simple:
1. Post the last photo on your SD card or last photo on your phone for the 30th October.
2. No editing – who cares if it is out of focus, not framed as you would like or the subject matter didn’t cooperate.
3. You don’t have to have any explanations, just the photo will do
4. Create a Pingback to this post or link in the comments
5. Tag “The Last Photo” or #LastOnTheCard
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: 90% All One Color
FOTD: November 1
Wordless Wednesday
FOTD – October 28
FOTD: Dahlia
I loved how this beautiful Dahlia was so perfectly positioned in among the greens.
Bird Weekly: In Your Garden or Yard
We are invited this week to share the birds that visit our backyards and gardens. Here are some of my visitors throughout the year. These photos were all taken in the trees in my yard.
Carolina Wren
Catbird
Grackle above a Blue Jay
Starling with Juvenile Starling
Male Cardinal in the snow
White Throated Sparrow
Hermit Thrush. He was an unexpected visitor. Had never seen one before and happened to look out the kitchen window and there he was in a tree!
Female Cardinal
Nuthatch
Yellow Throated Warbler.. oh how I love his little mask!
Black Throated Blue Warbler
Chickadee
Mockingbird
Mourning Dove
Red Bellied Woodpecker
American Robin
Tufted Titmouse
Downy Woodpecker
The Weekly Smile-Carpe Diem
In years past I would always schedule my doctor appointments after school hours rather than have to take off time. This year, I am behind on many of my routine visits because I skipped appointments during the months of lockdown and soon after. As a result I decided to make appointments whenever the first were available, which were usually months away from the time I was calling, and during school hours. I intended to take just the morning off for an appointment I had yesterday, but my husband said we should do something, go somewhere, why not take the whole day. And so I did. Carpe Diem- seize the day.
We decided to take a trip south of where we live, to Sandy Hook, NJ. Sandy Hook is a barrier spit 6 miles in length and varies in width from 0.1 to 1.0 mile. It is located at the north end of the Jersey Shore. The Atlantic Ocean and Shrewsbury river surround it. There is a lighthouse there, the oldest working lighthouse in the United States, built in 1764. The lighthouse stands on the grounds of Fort Hancock, which was a coastal defense fort that protected New York Harbor from 1895 until it was closed in 1974. Many of the buildings that housed the soldiers that operated the batteries are still standing, though most are now in ruins. They are slated to be renovated and restored, making them into rentals. They are in a prime location facing the Shrewsbury river.
We walked the grounds, and then drove over to the ocean, where we were able to walk on the beach. It had been drizzling when we first arrived, and the smell of the damp sand took me back to my childhood, reminding me of my grandparents home on the water. Scent is a powerful conjurer of memory. I inhaled deeply smiling at the thought of them.
Years ago I would probably not have taken a day off from work, given my strong work ethic and sense of responsibility. As I have gotten older I have come to realize that sometimes life is more important than the job, and especially in these times during the pandemic. I will longer remember this day which felt like a vacation though only 4 hours and and an hour from home, than another day in the classroom.
Wordless Wednesday
Which Way Photo Challenge
Bird Weekly: Owls
Walking with a friend along a local trail, she told me to look up in a tree, she thought there was a hawk. I zoomed in with my camera, and lo and behold, that was no hawk, but an owl. An exciting moment for us both!
Sunday Stills: Your #Happy Place
This week Terri invites us to share our happy place. I have written and posted in the past about a favorite garden my husband and I like to visit. It overlooks the Hudson River, just a short 15 minute drive across the George Washington Bridge and we are there. As a result of the shutdowns in New York, the Garden was closed since March, and just reopened last month. You need to make a reservation in order to go now, as they are limiting the amount of people. We visited last week, and again today, Sunday. We always loved the beauty there, the quiet, the gardens, but now more than ever we are able to feel some sense of normalcy being back at a place we love. Always a happy place, and even more so now.
Ragtag Daily Prompt Thursday: Down the Line
Today’s prompt is to interpret Down the Line. Train tracks came to mind immediately, and this photo I took last year at this time. Little did we know what was coming down the line a few months later and how the world would change.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Pink and Yellow (separately or combined)
Wordless Wednesday
2020 October Photo Challenge: Seascapes
I took this photo at daybreak, enjoying the view and perspective of the buildings in the distance and the shoreline that went on endlessly.
Early morning sun reflecting on the ocean, glistening diamonds in the water.
Sunrise, I liked the rocks leading out into the ocean
Two heads bob within the waves…
This was a cold and windy day in June of last year. The ocean was angry that day, with fierce waves crashing and the wind howling.
Sunset in October, a friend and I drove to the beach after work hoping to make it in time to see the sun setting. We did, just barely. I loved the little lights in the far off distance in town.
Bird Weekly Photo Challenge: Birds Starting With Letter A
Week #18 challenge is Birds starting with the letter “A”. The letter “A” needs to be at the beginning of one or more of the names.
This is an American Goldfinch. The State bird for New Jersey, where I happen to live.
A Photo a Week Challenge: The Road Not Taken
This week we are invited to share a forgotten road or path. Nancy included the poem by Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken, which always reminds me of my father. I can picture sitting next to him as an early teen, him reading the poem to me. When he came to the last lines, Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference… I can see him looking up at me and telling me how true that was.
The Road Not Taken — Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Weekly Smile Part 2 Thank You
I just want to thank all those who commented on my post offering help with the WordPress Editor. I received so many suggestions of what to do and how to do things, it really made me smile. Many offered their own frustrations validating my own feelings and making me feel less crazy. Most of us know one another only through this forum, getting to know one another through our posts and photos. That might lead people to think our connections do not “run deep”, but I have seen time and time again how we are there for one another. Thank you.
Nurturing Thursday
Life’s A Beach-Weekly Smile
Finally…. went to the beach. Spent a beautiful day taking in the sights in a new town we had never visited before. Seabright, New Jersey. A little strip of land along the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by water on both sides. It is located on the barrier peninsula that separates the Atlantic Ocean from the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers. We arrived to find a sleepy beach town, now quiet because it is October. Parking was free as the season had ended. We found the boardwalk and took off down it immediately.
Ahhhh to take in the sound of the ocean and the sight of an empty beach
Almost empty…..
There were many Goldenrod plants growing on the beach which were attracting Monarch Butterflies and I spotted one Common Buckeye!
We happened upon the most wonderful bus stop I have ever seen!
We crossed the main street and wandered the streets opposite the ocean, finding the river.. and what a view
Next stop, we headed South to Long Branch to visit another boardwalk. Ocean Avenue took us straight there, a street that runs through many shore towns in New Jersey. Whenever I see its sign I feel like I’m home again.
Thankful for the beautiful weather, seeing the ocean, a day out in the fresh air. A huge smile.
An Exercise in Frustration
UPDATE: I FOUND IT!!!
I am on my last nerve as it is, and now WordPress has sent me over the edge. It just took me literally double the time to write a post- inserting photos. I didn’t even write because by the time I got all my photos in, everything disappeared and I couldn’t add text above the photos I inserted because I could no longer see them. A blogger friend told me how to use classic, but it still does not show up the way it used to. Editing photos takes twice as long too. Any suggestions? Why do all the images I insert disappear? Do I use Block or not use block and WTH is block anyway? Why can’t I link to another person’s blog by highlighting the words and then inserting the link. O.M.G. This is ridiculous.
I am totally disgusted and defeated. Ok, that’s my rant for the morning, if I ever figure it out I’ll be back. All suggestions welcome.
A Day In The Life 
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