Friday at the Feeder

Playing around with the camera trying to capture a bird in motion.  Not easy!  This came out ok except for he was almost out of the frame.  Still happy with it although he could have lifted his head.

Here he was on my outside deck.  I was staying in the Tower at Mercy Center in Madison, CT.

Early Morning Walk

At the beach in Madison, CT

Taphophile Week

From the Orange Cemetery.  Simply sleeping.  I believe it was a child's headstone.

Taphophile Week

Another old one from the Wilton Cemetery.

Taphophile Week

Taphophile = one who has an interest in cemeteries.

Since we are getting close to Halloween I thought I'd show some tombstones that caught my eye.  This was taken at one of the Wilton cemeteries.

LICHEN OR NOT

Pitchfork

The next couple of days I'll feature some photos from the past. This was taken at the Wilton parsonage.  There was an old barn in the back and I saw this pitchfork blade sitting in a boarded up window sill.

Friday at the Feeder

 The seed is bigger than his beak!

Incoming!

White Squirrel Redux, it all began......

...back in 2006 when I saw a white squirrel in Fairfield and she knocked my socks off.  I didn't know such beauty existed.  I was on my way to work one Sunday morning very early, and a white squirrel crossed my path. I thought it was God speaking to me directly and so I wrote an Advent sermon about the miracle of white squirrels and Advent.   So me and white squirrels have a long history.  Well, just this week I saw another white squirrel frolicking in my backyard a ye old parsonage in Orange.  I was able to grab my camera and get fairly close.  This one is NOT an albino.  I quote myself below (-8

He was fast and so these are a bit blurry, but I loved seeing her in action.

"And, oh yes.  For the scientists, skeptics, and scoffers among you, there is a scientific explanation for white squirrels....what I learned was if a white squirrel has the traditional black eyes then he is a genetic mutation of the common gray squirrel.  If a white squirrel has pink eyes then he is albino.  So says the Albino Squirrel Preservation Society of the University of Texas. 

And did you know that there are white squirrel colonies in Brevard, North Carolina, Olney, Missouri, and Exeter, Ontario?  And did you know that only one squirrel out of 100,000 squirrels are white?  And that they are extremely vulnerable to predators because of their beauty and inability to camouflage itself?"

White squirrels are miracles of the most natural kind.          

Where's the chickadee?

Cardinal time

Well the baseball Cardinals didn't win the pennant but this lovely couple cheered me up.

Looking up

Running out of material.  I need to get out more (-8.

Friday at the Feeder

Not quite a feeder photo but at least there's a bird.  Perhaps he's perched watching for innocent fish or some tidbits from the Archimedes shown earlier this week.  Taken on Roosevelt Island, NYC.  East River.

The Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island

A bit spooky if you ask me.

Manhattan Skyline from Roosevelt Island

 East River, iconic Chrysler building with the point.

Another view of the Chrysler building but this one with the United Nations building to the left (lighter stone building with blue flag) and the Met Life building to the right towards the rear.

The Lighthouse at Roosevelt Island

Archimedes!

In late August I took a trip in NYC to go to Roosevelt Island.  I posted photos but then got sidetracked with other happenings.  So, now back to a few more from RI.  This is the yacht Archimedes.  My friends and I were sitting down, taking a rest when this super huge yacht zoomed by us.  OMG, biggest doggone yacht I've ever seen.  A quick Google search by my friend said this about Archimedes.

Archimedes, a super yacht, was built in 2008 by Feadship in Kaag, the Netherlands.  It is 67.7 meters or 222'3" feet.  (that's big)  It is owned by James Simons who is the founder of a hedge fund management company named Renaissance Technologies in 1982 (what else?)  with over 20 Billion USD of assets under management.  Apparently he is quite the philanthropist founding a couple of foundations.

Sukkot at Congregation Or Shalom

Sukkot is the Festival of the Booths in Judaism.  It's a long tradition that began in Israel when the Jews would build little huts near the edges of their fields in the harvest season.  It celebrates the harvest and comes a mere four days after Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.  These photos of a sukkah were taken at Congregation Or Shalom in Orange.  

Lulav and Etrog (above and below)

"On the first day you shall take the product of hadar trees, branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before Adonai your God seven days."  "The first day" refers to the first day of Sukkot.

The four are lumped together under the inclusive term lulav, since the lulav is the largest and most prominent. Thus, while the mitzvah is to wave the lulav, this actually refers to the four taken together as one.

"Fruit of goodly trees" refers to the etrog (citron). "Branches of palm trees" refers to the lulav. "Boughs of leafy trees" refers to the myrtle (hadasim). "Willows of the brook" refers to the aravot or hoshanot.*

Covering the Challah

This little sukkah was the one I helped build the year I lived in Israel.  I arrived on October 1st and lived on moshav Kisalon, right outside of Jerusalem with a friend and her children for a month before moving into Jerusalem.   This is Yasmin who is now about 12 years old!!!  )-8  Below is the sukkah from Kibbutz Tzuba.

Photos from Israel are not great, somewhere along the way they got compressed and I can't enlarge them satisfactorily.
*From My Jewish Learning website

And then the fair was over

You know the Orange Country Fair is over on Sunday evening when all of the tractors drive by your house back to the fields for work once again on Monday morning.

PF Bake Sale

 A fine job at the Orange Country Fair.

The Ever Popular Women's Skillet Toss

This event at the Orange Country Fair pulls in a crowd of women who have some experience in tossing skillets.  Below is Karen who is the Co-Chair of the Fair and member at Orange Congregational.

 These are the guys who measure the toss, all members at OCC.

 On your mark, get set

 TOSS

All different age categories.  Think I'll try my hand at it next year.

Tractor Pull

 So we are back at the Orange Country Fair waiting in line for the tractor pull.

Any self-respecting farmer would wait in line for his turn and do a check in on his iPhone.

Don't think I'd want to run in to this farmer on a dark night in a corn field.