Spanish Moss and Buds
We are heading North today after an amazing, recuperative stay in South Carolina. Spring has arrived in full force; trees are budding out and the weather has been beautiful. / I got a ton of work done on the suitcase project while here. The American Society of Picture Professionals is featuring the project in a story in their next publication. They are the first to have focused on the preservation aspect of the materials since many of their members are curators. I am so happy to get this side of the story out. And I have sent six images to the Exploratorium that they will be using to produce postcards to sell in the museum store. Finally, today I got a nice email from Yvonne Boots-Faubert who looked at some of the fabric/sewing based contents of the cases and wrote a nice post on her blog. Check it out. I am so happy when people look at the photographs and are stimulated enough to get creative and apply it to their own interests. Thanks, as usual, to all of you who are following this site.
Utility Workers
As I drove up the New Jersey Turnpike yesterday on my way back from DC, I saw lots of FEMA trucks heading to the Jersey shore. There was a large group of workers in front of the Woodrow Wilson service area waiting to find out if they could get fuel for their trucks. I talked to these 3 guys for a bit. They are from Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Kansas, and have no idea how long they will be in Ocean Port, NJ getting utilities back up and running. The DOE has the huge task of coordinating crews from all over the country and it is great to see workers from so far away arriving to help out people who are really hurting.
Hadley, MA field
I don’t know if it makes sense to post this panorama at only 720 pixels (maximum wordpress size for this template), but I like this shot. If you are trying to look at it on your phones, I would forget about it. On a big screen it should look pretty nice. I took the three photos on Friday and stitched them together a few minutes ago. / All of on the east coast are in for a wild few days with hurricane Sandy starting to rile things up. Lots of rain and high winds beginning tomorrow.
Walk
The Pearl and I had a nice walk late this afternoon. It was, as they say “seasonably warm”. The cattails are starting to go to seed, or whatever it is they do.
As usual, she found some water on the way back to the car and I was happy to have an old towel to dry her off. She is a great dog.
Tiny Tree / Big Leaves
I had a nice walk with the Pearl just now. Our usual spot with the scummy pond (no ducks today). The leaves are starting to change and even though it is a foggy, muggy, warm day it is beginning to feel like the autumn.
There is still quite a bit of green in the trees, but the light at the end of the day is way more toward yellow than it was just last week.
Leaf
It is not even autumn yet but as I was driving into Amherst today this leaf landed on the window of my car. As you can see in the background, everything else is still green. It stayed there just long enough for me to grab my camera and blew off right after I made this exposure. An early sign of what’s to come.
Fenway at Night
Peter, Cris, and I went to a Red Sox game last night. It was an absolutely perfect night for baseball; temperature in the mid-70s and a constant light breeze from the south. In the bottom of the first, Carl Crawford hit a double off the monster and was then picked off second when he wandered a bit too far from the base. That pretty much sums up the season. It has been a tough year for the club. But still, baseball on a beautiful summer’s evening. Can’t be beat (unlike the Sox who lost 6-3).
Transit of Venus
Cris and I took the Pearl for a walk early this evening and we stumbled upon an interesting crowd at the UMASS Sunwheel. It dawned on me pretty quickly that it had something to do with the “Transit of Venus“.
Some of the UMASS astronomy people were handing out these cool little eclipse viewers. Cris had a hard time seeing the dot, but I was able to pick it out at about the 1 o’clock position on the sun. (If you click the link above and look at the Wikipedia page, Venus was in a similar position.)
It is so great to live in a community where you can come across gatherings like this one, and it was so nice that the rainy weather cleared out just at the right time.
Albert Bierstadt
I have always liked this painting. Bierstadt was apparently quite the operator. / I’ve been in DC the past few days and had the chance to spend a few hours at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It is the best museum in a city full of great museums. It shares the old patent office building with the National Portrait Gallery which in itself is pretty cool. While there I got the chance to see some of the people that Peter Carroll and I worked with on the Lunder Conservation Center project, and had a really nice visit. / Back to Massachusetts tomorrow and will mail out the next level of rewards for the suitcase backers.
Bulbs
Cris and I planted bulbs in the garden 5 or 6 years ago. The daffodils continue to come up in droves, but this year only one tulip bloomed. I remember reading that tulips don’t last for more than a few years, but we had a pretty good run with them.
I have been keeping an eye on the tulip which initially bloomed about 2 weeks ago. I think the weather conditions this year have been almost perfect for the longevity of all of our flowers. About a week ago I noticed that one petal of our tulip started dropping and today it looked as if it was ready to fall off. It offered a perfect view of the important reproductive bits. I was never good at science in school, but the two words “stamen and pistil” come to mind. Am I even close?
Jon Crispin's Notebook 
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