This week’s assignment – Find a monochromatic scene consisting of varying shades of a single colour.
Bird Weekly Photo Challenge: Yellow or Orange Legged Birds
Pull Up A Seat
I was running along a path when the rising morning sun streaming through the trees made me stop. The shadow it cast along the path onto the grass was just beautiful. The benches though empty just added to the stillness and beauty of the scene.
It’s Still Your Birthday, Even if You’re Gone
A post from the archives, posting it again in memory of my brother.
Today is my brother’s birthday. Or it would have been his birthday were he still alive, though I feel that just because he is gone does not make August 6th no longer his birthday. His age will forever remain at 54, but the date will forever be his birth date. He died by his own hand in February of 2015. I wrote about him on the first anniversary of his death here.He wasn’t married, had no children, and struggled so the last years of his life. Today I choose to remember him before all that, to think of him long ago before the demons set in. To remember him with rose colored glasses on, filtering out the sadness and anger. Remembering him with a smile.
Birthday August 1964, 4 years old
Nurturing Thursday
Wordless Wednesday
A Photo a Week Challenge: Tower
The Freedom Tower in NYC. Represents so much and reminds us to never forget and remember we can build anew.
The Freedom Tower is the main building of the rebuilt World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City. On March 26, 2009, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) confirmed that the building would be officially known by its legal name of “One World Trade Center”, rather than its colloquial name of “Freedom Tower”.One WTC is the tallest building in the United States, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, and the seventh-tallest in the world. The supertall structure has the same name as the North Tower of the original World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The new skyscraper stands on the northwest corner of the 16-acre (6.5 ha) World Trade Center site, on the site of the original 6 World Trade Center. The building is bounded by West Street to the west, Vesey Street to the north, Fulton Street to the south, and Washington Street to the east. The building is 104 standard floors high, but the tower has only 94 actual stories.
Weekend Challenge: Sunshine Yellow
Yellow was my mother’s favorite color. She loved the cheeriness it seemed to bring, how bright it was. Whenever I see yellow I think of her.
My Grandfather & Mother
Last photo for July 2020
Brian invites us to share the last photo we took in the month of July. A grey and cloudy day did not keep me from a favorite place where I sit over looking the river. Threatening clouds, but no rain came.
August Photo a Day Challenge: Birds
Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Back of Things
Which Way
Well hello there and good morning. Which way should we go?
This way looks good- hope they are friendly people.
I’ll just give a knock.
Wordless Wednesday
The Weekly Smile
The skies overhead during my morning walk/run today made me smile. There seemed to be so much open sky every time I looked up, with the clouds scattered across it.
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2020 Photo Challenge: Space
This week’s assignment: Increase the sense of drama by increasing negative space
Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Cameras, Photographers or Equipment
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge:Anything To Do With Boats
It’s summer which makes me think of childhood, summers spent with my grandparents, and my grandfather’s boat.
We would head out early in the morning, onto the Long Island Sound waters. My grandfather, father and uncles, me, my sister and brother. My Uncles loved to fish. It was quite an adventure for 10 year old me. I can remember being nervous as I stepped from the dock to the boat, grabbing tight to my Uncle’s extended hands. I also have vague memories of being even younger when I had to be lifted across that space, the dark water below. It always made my mother nervous on the rare times she would come along. 
The memory that stands out the most vividly was the time I caught a Bluefish. There was mighty tugging going on at the end of my line, but everyone assumed it was just another Blow Fish stuck on the line that would need to be thrown back. A frightened blowfish will inflate itself to comical proportions, turning into a rotund, spiny orb, which is usually how they appeared as we reeled them in. But this time was different. My Uncle had to come and take hold of the fishing rod and reel it in himself. Lo and behold there was a Bluefish.
Picture worthy back in the day. My grandmother cooked it up and we ate it for dinner. Quite a day of boating for me.
Here’a photo of my grandfather with a fish he caught.. I was not on the boat with him when this fish was caught and do not know what kind of fish it was, but photo worthy I suppose for its size. 
A Photo a Week Challenge: Rule of Thirds
Nurturing Thursday
Pull Up A Seat
An early morning place to pull up a seat and take a rest.
Foxy Loxy
I live in a suburb in New Jersey, tree lined streets with rows of houses. It is just outside New York City, not the “country” which lies a few hundred miles north. No large expanses of undeveloped land, or forests. When I was growing up a neighbor who had lived in town from the time she was a child, in the early 1900’s, told us it had all been farm land when she was growing up. Rolling hills, no streets or sidewalks back then. Over the years there has been a lot of construction, old houses knocked down to make way for much larger ones, the small wooded areas built up. ln the wooded areas that remain, deer roam, but over the years they have found their way into our backyards, not fearful of people, grazing on flowers and shrubs. We have become accustomed to seeing them, loping over fences from yard to yard. More recently there have been fox spottings in town. As I sat on my patio early one morning a fox came past me, just 2 feet from my chair, turning his head to look at me and then continuing through my yard into the neighbors yard.
I went to have a morning coffee on a friend’s patio a few weeks ago, when I heard the screeching of an animal, and turning towards the sound about 15 feet away, saw a fox with a squirrel in his grip. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I walked to the front of the house where he had laid down, exhausted from wrangling the critter I supposed.
This morning I was waiting on the patio while my friend was inside making coffee, looking at my phone, but looked up and saw……
As you can see he is just a few feet away. He stopped and looked at me as I leaned forward, but I didn’t want to make another move and startle him more than he was already startled at seeing me. I snapped the photo and he kept going…
Here’s a close up of him
He is scraggly and limps, but makes his way around just fine it seems. He is a regular in her neighborhood, visiting the park which abuts my friend’s home. She watched one afternoon as he thought nothing of weaving his way in between people, minding his own business. There was a family having a picnic and became frightened when they saw him, jumping up from the picnic table and running away. How advantageous for Mr. Fox, as he jumped atop the table and proceeded to enjoy the fixings. The family called the police, who came and used a prod to get him off the table. They didn’t call animal control or try to capture him, maybe they know he is a regular in town. 
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Cars & Trucks
Bench seat, a steering wheel so big you could barely see over it, the horn a thin rim of metal you pushed down on, and gear shift on the steering wheel. Side mirrors manually operated. Two tone interior. Manual wind down windows…roll down the window! Can’t say that these days. It’s open the window, or put down the window. Saw this car at a car show.
My father and me in his beloved Renault, circa late 1950’s.
Wordless Wednesday
Lady Bird
A female cardinal has been visiting me regularly for some months now. I have decided to call her Lady Bird. How do I know one female cardinal from another? Lady Bird is special. She stands out in a crowd. You see, she is bald and has a misshapen beak. The baldness may be caused by a bad case of ectoparasites — mites and/or bird lice that actually eat feathers. Since the head is the one part of the body that’s difficult for a bird to reach with its bill to preen, it seems logical that a severe case of lice or mites could cause the problem. A bird’s beak consists of bone overlaid by a horny structure known as the rhamphotheca. The horny material is keratin—the same protein that makes up hair, feathers, fingernails, and claws. Like nails, the rhamphotheca constantly grows and wears away. The deformity may be a result of that growth suddenly accelerating.
She comes and hangs out in the tree near the feeders, but I have only seen her on the feeder once, by herself. Do other birds know she is different? I did see her with a male Cardinal the other day, so maybe he doesn’t mind her different appearance. I know I am totally anthropomorphisizing… attributing human characteristics or behavior to an animal… but I can’t help but wonder.
She flies up to my window to let me know she is here, and then sits right below looking up waiting for a peanut. She found me yesterday on my second floor, she was on the roof outside my bedroom window looking in. I am glad she comes around and knows there are peanut treats for her. Another welcome avian connection in these days of staying home.
Munching on a peanut below my window.
A Day In The Life 
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