year's end

13 December [foto:jz] 30°F and falling. We went to walk our hound, and see some Christmas lights. Independence puts up a lot, with recorded music, and we see more deer than people. It was cloudless. I had not brought a camera, because we have seen these lights before. The sky was black, there was no wind, a rime was only about to form as we were leaving. I had my nephew take fotos with his phone. I really liked the one supra.

19 December 26°F and falling, after a snowfall. We went another night, and the reflection was not a mirror, but less sharp, and more refracted.

There are wars about the world. Once again a dictator in Moscow is killing Ukrainians. The Gaza Strip in Palestine is virtually destroyed, and the so called 'collateral' deaths are targets. Putin, and Netanyahu are bloodthirsty, and vicious, and will do any wicked, or crooked deed to stay in power.

On the 21st, and 22nd of December an ancient murrelet was swimming by the Lorain lighthouse. This is a bird of the north Pacific. One was seen in Ohio, in 1951. This is the second one recorded. I was there to view him, He was visible on strong binoculars, and mounted scopes. He was on the borderline of naked eye vision. I took fotos, but he was just a smudge. The foto supra is one of many waves of red breasted mergansers that fly over Lake Erie.

Christmas robed dolphin holding a mailbox in Bay Village.

difference a day makes

This morning Karma sits in an orchard of newly opened blossoms.

sunday in the park, and elsewhere

Upper Edgewater

 Cleveland sign & Wagner statue, reversed left & right

 

front yard burial on Clifton

Old Brooklyn home made sign

"OK, finished with the camera? Get in the car."

2016 Miscellany #5

 

 Dragon in the Chinese Garden

not a sign you expect to see daily

during an Independence Day parade

 Ich bin ein Idiot

happy girl in a koala onesie

2016 Miscellany #3

 Italian lower garden

 Do not have the Trumpsters know about this furrin sine

the Hebrew garden is being repaved

2016 Miscellany #2 -- on the cusp of summer

Memorial Day is considered the beginning of the summer season, and celebrations start. This year 'Decoration Day' fell on the 30th, which was the date chosen in 1868. Lake View Cemetery has an annual programme at President Garfield's monument, with historical re-enactors.

 Most people sit on the lawn, and hounds are welcome,

 and some sit on the steps. 

 

The close was a Garfield descendant piping, 'Amazing Grace'. 

Sunday at Chagrin Falls an historical ballgame was played. As people walk by, the first thing they notice is "they aren't playing with gloves". Here the hurler of the Forest City Club leaps at a struck ball from the bat of a Canal Fulton Mule.

Eyes of the Tiger 

They played in the outfield of the high school field, since 1865 base ball did not have a separated infield. Ball would be played on an all grass field without a pitcher's mound. The school's nickname is the Tigers, hence the artwork of plastic cups placed in the chain links.

White Percherons, Sassy and Lucy of Spring Mist Farm, pull a carriage in Sunday's parade.

2016 Miscellany #1 -- February in Cleveland

Tadeusz Kościuszko by the art museum

 

 bridge over Interstate 77 (Willow Freeway) near Fleet

 

 Ninja snowdude

 orchid Rockefeller Greenhouse

Saint Theodosius

Lassie con colores

Well, the television is whining about the lake effect snow that has crossed a swath of land from Euclid to past Middlefield. The growing season has ended. Monday, after a rain, i drove out to Parma's metropark. A woman was walking her beautiful little thirteen year old Lassie, a collie. She (the lady) was using her pocket phone to send a foto to a friend, and typing away.

 perhaps the last fine color in the area

Lassie

It should be no secret, to those tuning in to this page, that i have some warm sentiments for doggies. Recently, i have been taking special notice of people and their dogs. Does anyone walk a mongrel? I see breed, after photogenic breed, mostly happy and frisky. Look at this animal, she is aged and still healthy. Does she not look happy? For decades there were a string of Lassie television shows. People loved those dogs; and Greensleeves played, that beautiful tune that is at lest as olde as Renaissance age Englande. Lassie was so popular that the demand for animals hurt the breed. The cinematic Lassies all were Laddies.

catching last light on leaves

This was Wednesday evening at Parma's new Metropark. To the west, which is higher elevation and a tree covered ridge, the sun was declining; it was well above the horizon, but only partly above the treetops. We were returning to the flivver and the top of these trees were newly sunlit, the clouds had opened a gap in the west. It may have been the best color we saw this autumn. The drive home was done with the headlights on. The sunshine had left. 

The weather has not been average in many parameters, the last few years. I noticed when i drove about twenty years ago, and thereabouts, that leaf color peaked in northeastern Ohio about Columbus Day, and a heavy rain would have fell much of the foliage. The weather people, on the television, keep remarking last year's drought has reduced the color, and the trees are still stressed; although we had a wet enough year, and the hottest days came early in September. A few years back, some clever fellow made garbage bags with a jack o'lantern pattern to bag leaves. They were about on lawns for pick-up around Hallowe'en, then the one year was both wet and warm and autumn delayed. None of the bags were out, for the leaves had not fallen. Yes, the wheel of weather has spun like the wheel of fortune.

On another note: one comrade photo-essayist on the innerwebs, who puts up lakewood daily snap and mouse medicine, has an eye that catches similar items of interest that my eye catches; and she has shown me much that i have enjoyed, and introduced me to things i was not aware of.  Well, she has some days reserved for particular themes. She has (car license) tag tuesday, wordless wednesday, and skywatch friday. Now, there are other people who do this too, and there is a journal for Skywatch Friday. Perhaps, supra would be such a foto on the page; but i am slow to join and adopt.

So far i have snapped enough fotos recently that have provided for too many posts. For a while, i was using another journal for the overflow, i have three posts scheduled, and then that one may go on permanent hiatus. I would rather not post more than once a day, this is the second for to-day; to-morrow i have two fotos of mastiffs.

foto safari Lorain

Lorain Harbor lighthouse

two mid October close ups of Lakeview Park's 48 part, 6 course, rose wheel

There are two cannon in the park, this rifled barrel is German made, Rheinische Metallwaren Maschinen Fabrik 1903.

Erie Avenue Bridge (US Route 6) built by Franklin Roosevelt's Public Works Administration 1940

detail, Lorain Station 100 Underground Railroad Monument (2007?)

a line of Canadienne Geese before three coots

coot, mudhen not in Toledo,

mushroom

is this a Shaggy Wig, Shaggy Mane, Lawyer's Wig, Inky Cap?  

I did not think of giving an eye level horizontal view of this beauty. The photograph does not capture the sight of this fungus. The edge of cap is a solid black, black fringe, almost like a braided cord on a military uniform. The cap is taller than this angle suggests, and more cylindrical than conical. The top is the old gold of a gold crayola crayon, or the helmets of Georgia Tech, maybe Notre Dame or Purdue.

blasé beagle

"You in the car with the camera, i see you. I don't care."

C'mon, ya know it's a good pichur

How can you not bring your true friend to enjoy your sport?
(mouth of the Cuyahoga)

the wilds of Whiskey Island

A truly wonderful book is a well bound copy of a Roger Tory Peterson's field guide to birds. Notice this bird has a yellow rump (or as some kids would say, 'yellow butted'), such are the distinguishing physiology that gives names to some birds.