These are companion shots to my POTD: Sunset post, as well as previous Sky Gazing posts. This town can have some of the most glorious sunsets and quirky cloud formations.~Vic
Standing on the bridge over the Eno River.
06-24-2020Walking up to the parking garage.On top of the garage and the colors develop.Sweeping over the adjacent building.Looking out across the town.Breathtaking rich colors and contrasts.
A 25-year-old man clad in “Joker” makeup “menacingly waved” a pocketknife at several teenagers as he drove past them Tuesday in Haddon Township, authorities said. Assoumou Diby was stopped a short time [after] cruising past the group on the 400 block of West Crystal Lake Avenue on Tuesday, the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office and Haddon Township police said in a statement Wednesday.
It’s blurry but, here’s a visual…a man in joker makeup arrested by Haddon Twp, NJ, police after allegedly waving a pocketknife at children. The arrest followed days of sightings, scares and calls to police, who say, until last night, the behavior wasn’t criminal. @FOX29philly
Diby, of Haddon Township, was charged with unlawful possession of a weapon following his arrest. Earlier in the week, police said they received multiple reports from people who saw a man in Joker makeup walking around town, noting it’s not a crime [to] simply do that.
Diby is due to make a first appearance in municipal court July 16.
I dropped the ball and missed posting about our Summer Solstice. I did catch some pictures, though and a Shutterbug Sunday is a perfect reason to post them. I posted about the Solstice in 2018, shortly after I had started blogging, again, after a four year absence. I did an Almanac write-up on the Solstice in 2019. This year’s Solstice occurred at 5:44pm EDT, yesterday. ~Vic
Daisy FamilyIt looks like a Sea Turtle, swimming towards me…sort of…Cone flowers in the Pollinator GardenBig FeatherNew GrowthIn FlightPhoto Credit: Farmers’ Almanac1818
Some Folklore:
♦ In ancient Egypt, the summer solstice coincided with the rising of the Nile River. As it was crucial to predict this annual flooding, the Egyptian New Year began at this important solstice.
♦ In centuries past, the Irish would cut hazel branches on solstice eve to be used in searching for gold, water and precious jewels.
♦ Many European cultures hold what are known as Midsummer celebrations at the solstice, which include gatherings at Stonehenge and the lighting of bonfires on hilltops.
I picked this up from UPI. Poor baby. I’m so glad they rescued him. ~ Vic
“The bird was trapped in the bumper and injured. The officers rescued it and gave it to wildlife rehabilitation experts.”
Two off-duty Nassau County police officers saved a hawk that was trapped in the front bumper of a truck in Freeport early Wednesday morning. According to police, Marine Bureau officers Schwaner and Leek were on their way to work, together, around 6:20am, when they drove by a black Dodge Ram pickup truck, parked near the intersection of Merrick Road and Buffalo Avenue, that had a bird in its front bumper. The officers stopped to investigate and found that the bird was a red-tailed hawk and, that it was still alive.
The officers were able to remove the bird from the bumper and brought it to the Nassau County Police Marine Bureau base in Bay Park where they contacted the Volunteers for Wildlife in Locust Valley. The volunteers came and took the bird from the police back to their facility where it is being treated for its injuries.
I’d never heard of Mazzy Star or heard this song when it originally came out. I am late to the party finding this, just discovering them a few years ago. Sadly, David Robackpassed away February 24, 2020, from cancer.
I did a complete write-up on the Strawberry Moon last year with two videos. No need to repeat. Full illumination occurred at 3:12pm EDT. Howl for me! ~Vic
Late add:
I forgot to mention that there was a penumbral eclipse (space.com link) of this Moon but, we weren’t in the path of sight. We will be in the path of sight for the early July eclipse and the late November eclipse.
Waxing Gibbous with a Sky Eagle
06-01-2020Through the limbs.
06-03-2020Happy Waxing GibbousGrowing Gibbous
06-04-2020Clouds moved in.
Little bit of rain.
Spooky
06-05-2020Lovely glow.
The verb glower, “to look or stare with sullen dislike” comes from Middle English gloren [or] glouren “to shine, gleam, glow, stare, stare at fixedly.” The Middle English forms are mostly from the north (Yorkshire) and Scotland. [T]he sense “to stare at fixedly” is Scottish. The source of gloren and glouren is obscure but, possibly, Scandinavian, e.g., Icelandic [as] glóra “to glow (like a cat’s eyes)” [or] Swedish and Norwegian dialect glora “to glow, stare.” The source of gloren [and] glouren may also be from Middle Low Germanglūren “to be overcast” or Dutchglueren “to leer, peep.” Glower entered English in the 15th century.
This is very similar to our “glaring at someone” which has its roots in Middle English, Middle Dutch and Middle Low German.
I’ve been doing a lot of glowering and glaring, lately. The whole world has gone insane-stupid. ~Vic
Ray caught this guy on
the side of a wall in Illinois.
I think it is a tree frog.
09-03-2019
Photo Credit: Ray TutterowRiverwalk Toad
These guys come out at dusk
and head towards the river.
09-28-2019Evening walk.
Deer trio.
10-15-2019We got a bunny.
Side Yard
03-27-2020Another poor dead snake.
04-18-2020Barking squirrel.
04-24-2020
The structure known today as the Colonial Inn was built on Lot 15 in 1838 as a hotel and was locally called Spencer’s Tavern […] but, was advertised as the Orange Hotel (a name which lasted into the 1880s). The structure was built for Isaac (Isaiah) Spencer (from Hyde County) who had purchased the property in late 1837. In 1841, Richardson Nichols purchased the property from Spencer and expanded the main structure. In 1856, Nichols sold the structure to the “Hillsborough Improvement Company” which consisted of Alfred, Henry and Cave Stroud.
Stroud family history has it that Henry’s wife (Sarah) saved the Inn from looting by Union troops by displaying her husband’s Masonic apron. Upon seeing the apron, a sympathetic Union officer, [whom] was a fellow Mason, protected the site from destruction.
Strayhorn’s Hotel
1870
Image Credit: Rootsweb
William F. Strayhorn may have purchased or, at least, managed the business beginning in 1868 and, the property was purchased by local businessmen Henry N. Brown and Charles M. Latimer (who was also the county treasurer) in 1870. Brown and Latimer apparently lost the property through bankruptcy in 1872, with Strayhorn managing or operating the hotel until at least then. Perhaps related is that Strayhorn had been living in Twin Chimneys across the street from the hotel but, lost it due to financial problems in January 1869. [It] was purchased by David C. Parks in December 1872. In 1885, Parks sold the property to neighboring property owner Emily Pogue, who sold it back to Parks in 1888. [At] this time, it became known as the Occoneechee Hotel.
Looking East
1890s
Image Credit: Rootsweb
In 1908, Thomas A. Corbin purchased the property and renamed the complex the Corbinton Inn. In 1921, W. L. Foushee […] purchased the property from a H. L. Akers and by 1924, renamed the hotel the Colonial Inn. In 1946, Paul Henderson purchased the property from Foushee […].
During Henderson’s ownership, a “fine-dining” restaurant was added within the hotel structure. In December 1952, Charles and Ann Crawford purchased the property and business and, expanded the structure. They operated the business successfully until they, in turn, sold it to James and Maxine Freeland in 1969. The Freelands also expanded the structure and, continued the hotel and restaurant business at the location.
Looking WSW
1960s
Photo Credit: Open Orange
It fell into disrepair for many years. When I moved to this town in 2011, it looked bad.
10-23-201610-23-2016
The good news is, new owners are re-building. ~Vic
“[It can] meow out of one mouth and eat out of the other.”
Meet Biscuits & Gravy: The Two-Faced Oregon Kitten
When Kyla King got up Wednesday morning to check on her pregnant cat, she knew there was a good chance she’d find a litter of newborn kittens. She walked outside to the special crate she had put the expectant mother into overnight and noticed four tiny kittens. But, then she noticed two more hiding behind their mom. So, Kyla picked one up and set it down with the rest of the litter. She picked up the last kitten and found herself face-to-face with two tiny noses, four eyes tightly shut and two mewing mouths.
Kyla said she sent a picture to her husband, BJ King, with a text that read: “We have 6-1/3 kitty cats now!”
Kyla reached out to their vet to learn more about the kitten’s condition, how to care for it and its odds of survival. She learned there wasn’t much to be done medically for the tiny creature. All she could do was make it comfortable and help it eat. “It doesn’t really know how to nurse properly because it has two mouths so, I’ve been trying to feed it,” Kyla said. “And, I mean, I’m gonna do the best I can but, these animals don’t usually live too long.”
Photo Credit: dailyhive.com
Cats with two faces are known as Janus cats, after the Roman god Janus, often depicted with two faces in mythology. They suffer from a rare congenital defect called diprosopus, or cranial duplication. Most Janus cats don’t live longer than a day but, one defied the odds. His name was Frank and Louie and he passed away in 2014 at the age of 15. The Guinness Book of World Records named him the world’s longest surviving Janus cat.
In looking thru odd stories, this caught my attention. From Oddity Central:
A Creepy Art Installation Freaking People Out on Google Maps
By Spooky on May 15th, 2020
An eerie art installation located in a barren field in the Finnish countryside recently went viral after someone accidentally stumbled upon it while searching on Google Maps. With quarantine and isolation measures still in place in many countries around the world, people are spending a lot of time online looking for cool places to visit once they can travel again. Many are using free tools, like Google Maps, and end [up] going deeper down the rabbit hole than they originally anticipated. That’s probably how some people recently discovered The Silent People, […] creepy-looking [figures] that left them scratching their heads about why anyone would fill a field with hundreds of scarecrows and dress them as real people.
Seen from afar, The Silent People [site] looks like a perfectly still army of people all facing the same way. It’s only when you take a closer look that you realize it’s made up of wooden frames covered in human clothes and heads made of [peat], which does a surprisingly good job of emulating human hair. Even knowing that it’s an art installation, you still feel uneasy looking at the almost one thousand still [bodies] but, knowing absolutely nothing about it and [suddenly] finding it on Google Maps can really freak a person out.
Hiljainen Kansa: The Silent People of Suomussalmi, Finland
By Kaushik Patowary on March 28, 2015
Motorists driving along Highway 5, about 30 km north of the small town of Suomussalmi, in north-eastern Finland, are greeted by a peculiar sight. A crowd of almost a thousand figures stand silently on a field near the road. In the morning with light behind them, this motionless army appears morose, even menacing. But, when a light breeze picks up their colorful dresses and blows them around their still bodies, they appear to have sprung into life.
This army of scarecrow-like figures called “The Silent People” or “Hiljainen Kansa” in Finnish, were the creation of local artist Reijo Kela. They were first displayed in 1988 in a field in Lassila, a neighbourhood of Helsinki. Later in 1994, these were on display in the Market Place of Helsinki’s Senate Square, then on the banks of the river Jalonuoma, Ämmänsaari and finally moved to this location in 1994 itself.
An Iowa man, who received a postcard from his sister, said he was surprised to note the card had been mailed in 1987. Paul Willis, a hog farmer in Thornton, said a postcard appeared in his mailbox, recently, from his sister, Annie Lovell […]. [H]e soon noticed the card bore a picture of Lovell on a Grand Canyon hike in 1987 and a San Francisco postmark from December of that same year.
Willis said the postcard bore a second postmark from April 29 of this year in Des Moines so, he called the post office to see if they had any explanation for the postcard’s tardiness. [An] employee said the postcard may have been discovered while furniture and machines were being moved for cleaning. “She said, ‘Well, the post offices are all going through deep cleaning because of COVID-19…'” Willis [recounted to] the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat.
An Illinois woman experienced a similar incident in July 2019, when a postcard showed up at her home that had been mailed 26 years earlier. Kim Draper said the card was addressed to the previous residents of her Springfield home and, [it] recounted the residents’ father’s travels in Hong Kong.
My buddy Ray is from Illinois. He routinely returns to visit family and his girlfriend, Gloria. Sharing some lovely photos from Alton.
Addendum: I had to correct a credit. Thanks, Gloria. ~Vic
Along the Mississippi River
The Great River Road
10-29-2019
Photo Credit: Josh MajorPiasa Bird Painting
Photo Credit: Ray TutterowThe Clark Bridge
Photo Credit: Ray TutterowMorrison’s Irish Pub
This place almost closed during massive flooding.
The city rallied around it and kept it afloat.
Now, they have a food pantry, giving back.
05-03-2020
Photo Credit: Gloria LawrenceAlton Lake
Part of the Mississippi
05-02-2020
Photo Credit: Gloria LawrenceBackwater Wetlands Island
Photo Credit: Gloria LawrenceWetlands Water Retention Pond
Photo Credit: Gloria Lawrence
I did a pretty extensive write-up last year with Native American names and two videos. I won’t repeat all that here. I am including a shot from 2017 (before I was blogging again) and a shot from 2019 that wasn’t part of the previous post.
Full illumination occurred at 6:45am EDT. Howl for me! ~Vic
From this evening…Peek-a-BooI caught the Moon with the setting sun.
It’s a little hard to see.
05-17-2019More Peek-a-Boo
05-11-2017
It’s funny how every news article out there these days just has to make a tie in with the virus. And, that image doesn’t look like a mask to me. It looks like something else. Just sayin’… ~Vic
An asteroid is hurtling close to the Earth, and with it, a startling reminder of the coronavirus pandemic. The space rock, known as 1998 OR2, will be nearly 4 million miles away from Earth on Wednesday at 5:59am EDT, classifying it as a “potentially hazardous” asteroid, despite the impossibility of it posing a threat to Earth anytime soon.
A newly captured image by [the] Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico brings its own surprise. As the asteroid approaches our planet, it looks as if it’s wearing its own mask and may very well be conducting its own social distancing practices. “The small-scale topographic features, such as hills and ridges on one end of asteroid 1998 OR2, are fascinating, scientifically,” Anne Virkki, head of planetary radar at Arecibo Observatory, said in a statement. “But, since we are all thinking about COVID-19, these features make it look like 1998 OR2 remembered to wear a mask.”
Image Credit: Arecibo Observatory & USA Today
It’s classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid because it is more than 500 feet in diameter and closer than 4,650,000 miles to Earth. “Although this asteroid is not projected to impact Earth, it is important to understand the characteristics of these types of objects to improve impact-risk mitigation technologies,” she said.
The asteroid, which is about one mile in diameter, has been traveling at nearly 20,000 mph since its discovery in 1998. Though it may not come anywhere near Earth in the coming weeks, Flaviane Venditti, a researcher at the observatory, said in a statement that, in 2079, it “will pass Earth about 3.5 times closer than it will this year.”
And, yes, another new post heading. I’m stretching things out to keep from being stale or too strict on myself. With Word Wednesday, all are welcome to play along and use the word in a sentence in comments…if you are so inclined. ~Vic
“Evelyn’s two year old daughter, Karen, was being obstinate by refusing to eat her carrots.”
Photo Credit: Palm Beach County
Water Utilities Department
Facebook Post
I haven’t done one of these since 2013. I read a lot and sometimes I come across some strange things. This is an article from United Press International:
Wet Wipes Clog All Four Pumps At Florida Wastewater Facility
April 15, 2020 (UPI) Utility officials in a Florida county are reminding residents not to flush wet wipes down the toilet after all four of the wastewater facility’s pumps clogged at the same time.
The Palm Beach County Water Utilities Department said in a Facebook post that all four pumps at the organization’s wastewater pumping facility in Boca Raton ended up clogged at the same time “for the first time ever.” The post blamed the clogs on increased use of wet wipes.
“It took a team of three utility mechanics to dissemble and reassemble the pumps in order to remove the compacted wipes,” the post said. The department said residents who find themselves “low on toilet paper” amid shortages from the COVID-19 pandemic should remember that all wet wipes, including those labeled “flushable,” should be thrown in the trash and not disposed of in the toilet.
Wait a minute. Are these folks insinuating that “residents who find themselves low on toilet paper” are using Clorox and/or Lysol wet wipes in lieu of TP? Or, are we talking baby wipes here? The article isn’t all that clear. Either way…just…DAMN. ~Vic
Our full moon this month is a Super Moon, as was last month‘s…which I totally missed. I did a Pink Moon post last year with all the different names so, I won’t repeat them here.
Spooky
04-10-2017Peek-a-boo!
04-28-2018Waxing Gibbous four days earlier.
Not sure why I didn’t post this last year.
04-15-2019Last night’s walk.
Moon over the Library.
04-06-2020Got this standing in the middle of the street.
The tree is holding on.
04-07-2020
We have a town full of artists, of all kinds. I found another interesting mailbox on my afternoon walk, yesterday. This would be a companion piece to the Colorful Mailbox post. ~Vic
According to the Farmers’ Almanac 1818, this is the earliest First Day of Spring in 124 years. Yahoo! Maybe some warm, beautiful weather will offset the corona beer virus and this needless, manufactured hysteria that has appeared with it.
Japanese Maple waking up.
Hackberry in the background.
I did a Vernal Equinox post last year when it coincided with the Full Worm Moon. In our area, it was as high as 80° and I was out in it. My buddy Ray had some errands to run so, off we went to the county north of us. Once the errands were completed, we headed to downtown Roxboro for lunch & a minor visit to their museum (pictures coming tomorrow).
[Spring] will occur at 11:50 p.m. EDT for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere […]. Traditionally, we celebrate the first day of spring on March 21 but, astronomers and calendar manufacturers, alike, now say that the spring season starts on March 20th, in all time zones in North America. And, in 2020, it’s even a day earlier than that…something that hasn’t happened since 1896.
Happy Narcissus in my side yard.
There are a few reasons why seasonal dates can vary from year to year. The first is that a year is not an even number of days and neither are the seasons. Another reason is that the earth’s elliptical orbit is changing its orientation (skew), which causes the earth’s axis to constantly point in a different direction, called precession. Since the seasons are defined as beginning at strict 90-degree intervals, these positional changes affect the time the earth reaches each 90-degree location in its orbit around the sun. The pull of gravity from the other planets also affects the location of the earth in its orbit.
Cheers! ~Vic
Additional Interesting Reading: First Day of Spring (The Old Farmer’s Almanac 1792)
