Day Peckinpaugh / Erie Canal
I was mostly crazed yesterday. Sometime over the weekend, I either lost, misplaced, or had stolen some important mail. I was preoccupied by it most of the day. So much so that at about 2 o’clock I just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep. For some reason, I decided to mess around with my web site instead. I had been wanting to update it fore a while, especially the projects page.
Several years ago, the New York State Museum rescued the Day Peckinpaugh from imminent scrapping. It was in Erie, PA, and by some miracle Craig Williams got a hold of it just before its demise. Most amazing was that he found someone who had actually worked on the ship while it was still an active hauler, and who knew his way around the engines. So they fired them up and started the journey from Erie to Waterford, NY.
The Peckinpaugh was built in 1921 and when it was retired in 1994, it was the last working freighter on the Erie Canal. I think I remember hearing that it was hauling concrete at that time.
I got the chance to be on her for much of the trip across New York State on the canal. It was late October / early November and the weather could not have been better. A really interesting group of people too.
John Callaghan was the skipper, and you can see by the concentration on his face that it was an intense job for him and his crew. The ship travelled mostly by her own power, but on occasion tug boats came in to help out.
So, at the end of the day, I still hadn’t found the mail, but at least I felt good about getting something productive done. To see more from the trip, check out the “projects” page of my main website (joncrispin.com) by clicking the link on the right (Jon’s main site).
Looking South
We are shooting at a house on a part of the island called Bar Neck. This is the view out the back window. The platform in the water usually has ospreys nesting on it. Mary Kellogg says that the male usually shows up around St Patrick’s Day to establish territorial rights, and the female follows shortly thereafter.
Beach
Yesterday was cold. Freezing rain and very windy. We still went to the beach, but our walk was brief. Today was just grey and cold, so walking was no problem. We saw zero people but lots of bird action. Pelicans, gulls, ducks, sandpipers, and piping plovers. These starfish must not taste very good to the gulls, as there were lots of them laying around un-eaten. Cris noticed the guy above.
There is something about the subtlety of the colors of the shells that attracts my attention. How beautiful is this one?
Bray House
My neighbor Ken was on his way to Temple when he called and said that the light on the house at the bottom of our road was nice. I walked down and took this photo, mostly for him. It was a beautiful warm day, but as soon as the sun went down it got quite cold. When he gets home tonight, he will have this image in his email box. I really like the immediacy of photography.
Swimmer
On Saturday, I shot swimming for my friend Thom Kendall who was out of town on another job. I grew up as a swimmer, so being back in a pool is usually a lot of fun for me. Just the smell of chlorine and the humidity brings back memories. Shooting it can be a challenge. How many shots of athletes breathing out of the side of their mouths can one take? So I usually try to look around for different angles. The UMASS pool has a nice balcony just above the starting blocks and I thought it would be nice for the backstrokers. It worked.
Water
It is always a good idea to have a healthy respect for mother nature and her ability to cause havoc with the human digestive tract. I have become over-cautious with regards to consuming anything that hasn’t been run through some sort of system for sale to the general public. When I see water running out of a hillside through a piece of pvc pipe, my usual inclination is to just keep driving. But I have known about this spring on Route 79 near Lisle, New York since I lived in Ithaca in the seventies. The water is cold and very refreshing. John Hoeffel and I used to drive here with empty 5 gallon carboys to get water to make beer.
Jon Crispin's Notebook 
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