Plants - nature lessons

While photographing some domestic garden plants on the first day of autumn, I noticed several plants have generated new growth, even thought the temperatures are beginning to drop.

Perhaps the human race would benefit by spending more time observing plants and trying to discover what drives them to generate new growth, creating new seeds that will carry their species through the next growing season, before they are greeted by a killer frost.

Have we blocked the signal that drives our endurance? Are we making excuses and creating reasons to distroy our environment and our lives, rather then to strengthen the survival of all living things great and small?

Sandwich Picnic - Cape Elizabeth Maine

We picked up a couple of sandwiches at the Vaughan Street Variety on the Western Promenade in Portland, Maine today. I had a fresh baked foccacia smoked salmon, cream cheese, fresh dill, cucumber, and bermuda onion sandwich that was excellent. My wife enjoyed a fresh tortilla roast beef, swiss, romaine lettuce, and horseradish sauce rollup.

We took our VS Variety prizes out to Ft. Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth, Maine to eat, while enjoying the activities of the park and the comings and goings of vessels in and out of Casco Bay. There were still plenty of tourists poking around the Portland Light House wearing heavy jackets and rubbing their hands together to keep warm.

I spent the afternoon taking a few photographs and experimenting with them in Corel Photo-Paint.

The summer weather is fading away rapidly, but the leaves are not ready to change into their autumn wardrobe.

Autumn - a long ago farm boy experience

As a long-ago farm boy, growing up on my parent’s Maryland dairy, the arrival of autumn was a little more than observing the first red leaf of the sugar maple up north in New England, not far from the Canadian Border, in the northwestern wilderness of Maine. That would come later in life.

Autumn was filled with responsibilities on the dairy farm. During the crisp nights of September, frost was lurking in the atmosphere, waiting for the temperature to drop. The farmer constantly checked the temperature on the big old thermometer hanging in the dairy.

Harvest time finally arrives for the vegetable garden and the vegetables are pulled from the vine, while potatoes and peanuts are dug from the soil. The fruits of the garden harvest are prepared in various ways for storage and later consumed and enjoyed during the cold months of the winter.

Harvest time finally arrives for the fields. Hay is mowed for the last time. Bales of hay are then stored in the barn. One of the last crops to be harvested was the field corn and stored in the corn crib.

During harvest time, the verses of James Whitcomb Riley stirred in your mind. A farm boy can identify with every verse of the wonderful poem linked below:

When the frost is on the Punkin

The Flatbread Company - yum

We had an early dinner at The Flatbread Company

we each had a hot mug of coffee and split a nitrate-free pepperoni flatbread between us. we had ordered an organic salad: organic mesclun* and sweet leaf lettuce tossed with organic celery and carrots, toasted sesame seeds, arame** seaweed and homemade ginger-tarari vinaigrette dressing

sounds great doesn’t it! well the waitress forgot to put it in the order for our salads, so we went without… she did promise to put in the order for dessert if we wanted. we passed.

we ate out back on their wharf deck over the harbor and enjoyed the flavor as well as watching the activities around us.

I recommend this wonderful flatbread experience to anyone interested. You may even get your salad!

* an edible Pacific seaweed with broad brown leaves, used in Japanese cooking.

** a salad made from a selection of lettuces with other edible leaves such as dandelion greens, mustard greens, and radicchio.

Tanka revisited

Tanka looks good married to an image.

Although it is the middle of September, beautiful flowers were blooming all around the Longfellow Statue on Longfellow Square Portland, Maine.

Looking down one of the streets from the square you see very old and new architecture in this old town nestled by the sea.

Tanka - have you ever tried Tanka?

Browsing my wife’s blog, I see her and her friends at One Deep Breath are exploring Japanese Poetry formats. Like Haiku, it is quite simplistic, but it stresses to follow a syllable format and allows you to give a more complete picture of an event or mood than Haiku. Tanka has been around for 1200 years or so, but relatively new to this country thanks to the Internet, Academia, and Individual Poets. I won’t go into the various degrees of how-to. Search Tanka on the web and you will find new information every day.

thirty-one syllables

line 1 - 5 syllables
line 2 - 7 syllables
line 3 - 5 syllables
line 4 - 7 syllables
line 5 - 7 syllables

my first try:

the poet statue
sits within the village square
year round tourist come
youthful memories inspire
journeys homeward quoting verse

9-11 2001-2006

A Remembrance and A Memorial

9-11 2001-2006

To the Victims and the Survivors

World Trade Center - NYC

The Pentagon - Arlington, VA

A Field - Pennsylvania

Photography - revisited

I’ve enjoyed photography since I was a youngster. I played around with box cameras on an elementary class trip to Baltimore and although I lost track of the photographs, I still can visualize them in my mind. As I got older, I purchased camera models where I had total control over the aperture and shutter speed combinations I wanted for particular compositions. I’ve used various flash bulbs and electronic flash units, but I prefer natural light.

I remember having a small cardboard with a cutout the size of a 35mm viewfinder. It was created as an aid for composition, so you didn’t have to lug a camera around with you, or use up expensive film, while learning how to compose photographs. You held the cardboard up to your right eye, while having both eyes open, you composed master piece photographs in your mind.

It was a good idea to learn how to use your cardboard cutout as fast as possible. I have composed many once in a life time compositions of wildlife, sunsets, mountain tops poking out of a river of fog in the valley below, and various other great shots that would make a professional photojournalist cringe.

I’ve enjoyed the Famous Photographers School and their wealth of knowledge and experience they shared for a small fee. They were and are truly the masters of their cameras.

Awhile ago I purchased an economical digital camera for my wife, with the intention of upgrading to a professional digital SLR with limitless controls. I have been silently impressed with all of her photographs and her willingness to push the limit of her semi-manual digital camera. She is now learning to control her new professional digital SLR with manuals, field guides, and the most important - taking photographs.

My wife took the above photograph of a down east lobster boat with her semi-manual digital camera - I’ve experimented with it in Corel Photo-Paint 11 and GIMP. I remember spending long nights in a dark room - smelling developing chemicals certainly would give you a headache.

Let me know what you thought about using a cardboard cutout - I hope you were amazed as I was the first time I tried it.