Rainy Sunday afternoon

I stood on the front porch this morning, admiring the rain, and a squabble broke out at the end of the house. I came in for my camera and on the way back, I snapped off Toby, in one of his "leans." I caught him off guard, he despises being photogenic.

Back to the porch, where two house finches sheltered from the rain. The initial squabble had been a third bird, trying for a bit of gutter out of the rain. Unsuccessfully.

Back in the house, Toby won't acknowledge me, perhaps thinking "Get a life."

He is a feral foundling, and unlike any cat I've had, even barn cats turned house cat.

It was raining just as hard out back, and far more interestingly.

Shiny.

Shiny with splatters.

Done.

Drops.

More drops.

Only the rain is out to dry, today.

No little girls visited my new glider this summer. One thing and another.

Toby is interested in what happens in the house, and out, and he stays on his side of the raindrops.

Rainy Sunday afternoon.

Up the hill and back again

I set out to take these pictures a week ago, and did take them last Friday.

But I've spent the week with the other pictures I took that day, too.

At last, the Garden Club ladies refurbished bridge and all their flower boxes.

Up the hill, east, and down the hill west.

This first box has flowers through and through.

Here's the side,

Here's the front.

And off we go.

A look over at the Towpath Trail, and the loads of stone where the path is undercut.

Back to flowers, the last box on this side of the bridge.

Still going west, at the top of the hill,

The guardrail between the sidewalk and the river gorge.

Last year the Garden Club ladies stashed their water jugs on the back side of the rail.

I didn't go rummaging back there. Spiders.

There is an apartment down there, under the old bank building, young couple, I think.

They certainly have outdone themselves with privacy foliage.

Ok, on the downhill side, going east.

Another through and through.

Its front.

Another through and through.

It's front.

I don't care much for either Dusty Pete or Coleus, 

but I like the tall grass.

Through and through.

The front.

Through the bridge.

The very green front. A minute pinkish bloom in there.

Love the red flower, and this long white flower.

If someone tells me their names,

they will go right on my list for the former lettuce tower, next summer.

Have a good and safe holiday weekend.

If you live in Canada, or Britain, or France, or Germany,

go ahead, take Monday off, too.

I'll send you a note to turn in Tuesday.

Happy Birthday

My dad was born August 28, 1907,

in a hardscrabble coal mining town,

Coalmont, Pennsylvania.

All my life he worked at Goodyear Aircraft,

later Goodyear Aerospace,

and once demanded of the president of Goodyear 

to be liberated from his job of supervising engineers

who designed blimps

and let him go fight "this damn war!"

Today would have been dad's 107th birthday.

The Goodyear flag once flew over Goodyear's Belgian facility.

Dad couldn't liberate Belgium in person,

But he did his part.

Happy Birthday.

I enjoy hanging the laundry out to dry;

it's an hour of quiet contemplation.

Last Sunday I looked up and saw this contrail 

with little encircling spiral smoke rings.

I stared so long it dissipated a bit.

I wonder if Gandalf was on the plane.

Any guesses? 

Where to park?

We've had three "storms of  the century" the last fourteen years,

the last two this very summer.

This is where a loop of the river comes close to the road in Peninsula.

The first "storm of" earlier this year undercut the bank almost to the road.

The village was able to buy one load of stone,

a construction company donated load after load of fill dirt, 

disaster averted.

That crack is how far back the fill went.

Another "storm of" and the bank is further undercut.

I did not step over the crack to take the picture.

If you look way up the road you can see an orange sign.

That's where the road becomes the responsibility of the county.

But back here the 670 residents of the village must shoulder the cost.

Or close the road.

This is what your federal government can do when the river undercuts their precious towpath trail, half a mile north. Money talks, or at minimum turns into fill gravel.

A golf course is across the street from the river in the first two pictures.

It is acre after acre of row after row of trees, mostly spruce.

If golf interested me, this probably would be interesting to get around.

But, I am fascinated by the row upon row of tree trunks rising from the very lovely lawns.

The early morning light is beautiful.

I'm trying to find a place to park and take some pictures.

I've been looking around for that parking place for a couple of years, now.

Along the road down to the river,

a lot of late summer color.

I parked in the boy scout camp driveway for this set of pictures.

Up in the air, a first hint of fall.

I walked back up the road to track down this picture.

Hooray for my viewfinder!

And when I finally got to town to take the pictures I set out to take,

I found this blossom poking through a gate.

I wonder if it said, "You can't stop me from running away." 

Nina's gardens

Last Friday I set out to take some blog pictures I had in mind.

I turned into her house to say hello to my friend, Nina.

The east side of Nina's house.

Perhaps the reason I had hibiscus on my mind.

Most everyone in this old quarry town has scrap sandstone for sidewalk.

Nina has old millstones.

As we were talking I realized I had promised to send my granddaughters to help Nina clear out her "arboretum"--last June. And hadn't.

Well, I could still do something for her, she announced, looking at the camera.

For years Nina has supervised a little garden behind the intermediary school.

First the girl scouts maintained it, "but they all grew up, you know."

Now neighborhood children who attend the intermediary school are the caretakers.

And, Nina would so appreciate some pictures.

So, it was my next stop.

Can you believe this?

I have nothing more to say, until we get up to the "arboretum."

So, up the hill to Nina's "arboretum."

I should have been prepared.

Last spring she said it has been neglected, these last several years she has not been well.

But she felt up to it again, and had rounded up neighborhood children to clear the undergrowth.

The same job I forgot to send Emily and Laura to.

I'm sure a lot of other arboretum fairies were involved,

chipping all the brush,

spreading the mulch.

Nina mentioned one who brought over a chipper,

another who brought extra loads of mulch.

The mulch shovel and bucket.

I know the boy scouts made the new benches.

Years ago, when Nina first decided to adopt this grove

an arborist helped her identify all the trees.

I'm looking forward to asking Nina where the identifying plaques came from.

You know that's another story.