The World Examining Works

Long Island

 

I don't really like seagulls.

They are large and beady eyed and steal your food if they possibly can.

 

However you have to admire their moxie.

Not a bad fate - standing around in shimmering water.

Lori's hydrangeas took quite a battering last endless, freezing, horrid winter so she chopped them back fiercely and now they've returned with a vengeance. 

Barn red is a classic foil for green.

Ah, summer!

 

 

Flowers and Things

 

The usual foray up to the green market at Union Square.

The bliss of nasturtiums and the similarly colored micro mesclun.

Ate it for supper and it tasted like spicy hedge clippings. 

Really can't tell if these are anemones or poppies of some sort. Julia, where are you?

It was sunny yesterday. Almost warm enough to sit outside at a cafe.

 Then it rained. This photo was taken squinting through the chainlink fence of the PennSouth Community garden. I am a complete sucker for Hipstamatic 99cent  lenses. This one is called Monti. It makes things look misty and mildly historical.

How ridiculous to be wearing such garments in May.

I hear they have early roses in England!

 

 

The Outer Garden of the Bahia Palace and Some Fruit and Flowers Too...

 

The two previous posts were about fish and flowers and I sort of wanted to post veggies and got sidetracked. Herewith the garden of the Bahia (Beautiful) Palace in Marrakesh.

The garden itself is rather a mishmash of tended and untended but was lovely in February...

There were

 

yellow daisy type things and 

a yellow bush.

I always imagine restoring these outer buildings

 and living there with the cats

 and the banana tree.

Ah! rose petals in a fountain in Essouira

where lemons abounded at Dar Baba

and oranges lounged in a nice ceramic dish.

The oranges are so much sweeter than here

and so many of them....!

 

 

Grass and Leaves and other Important Stuff

 

So many photos from Wiltshire. Rose hips

and plants on the terrace

and out where the grass garden will be.

And apples in dew

grass long in the meadow

and extra sweet rather small blackberries.

Garden chairs too wet to sit down on

and cyclamen above the haha.

Half timbered cottage in the village

and a bike blending with the Virginia creeper.

 

Water

 

Run as fast as possible

to the edge of the water

to see the swan

and draw in the mud

run round the pond

to see the ducks

and look for turtles and fish underwater.

All photos taken in Huntington NY

Note: Robert has a painting in the show Urban Interections at the Quidley Gallery on Newberry Street in Boston. Opens Thursday Oct 25th. Do go if you're in Boston.

 

Boring Post about Wet Day

 

I like documenting things (you probably guessed!) anyway, it was astoundingly wet yesterday. Water was gurgling and swilling and pushing garbage along the gutter.

Lots of water for my magnificent garden!

An umbrella, wellyboot day. The dog, lower right, loves it. Loves being dried too.

I like being indoors looking out --west

and east

Wet leaves when the rain had stopped in the afternoon.

 

 

Beach's Last Hurrah

 

Ah! summer's end.....poor butterfly

but the crabs, scuttling through shallow water

seem to have thoughts of the future.

Almost no one on Sagg Main Beach. Granny dog and puppy Archer. We never discovered the third dog's name.

In the morning the sunlight cuts through the waves

in the early evening it's quite different.

Pondering change and the passage of time, it's cheering to discover that the Reverand Ebeneezer White lived to be 84. He died in 1756.

Gardiner B. Topping topped him -- living to be  91.

Nice, peaceful, nameless and lichen covered.

Sic gloria mundi.

 

 

Horseshoe Crabs

 

Nicky collects horseshoe crab carcases as decor for Nicky Beach. These are two from last year. You have to put them a bit away from the picnic table until they stop stinking.

He also makes tablescapes which change pretty often.

We find this poor battered thing tumbling on the shoreline

washed over and over, barnacles attached.

I fip it over to reveal the articulated inside. Did Leonardo ever see horseshoe crabs? He would have loved them.

The shell looks like the helmet on a very tatty copy of Beowulf which used to kick round in the book room when I was a teacher.

 

Gardening

Two flats of impatiens to be planted before the party.

Need to keep the young gainfully employed and off the street.

Many happy hours spent watering. 

Today, I went up to Union Square and saw lots of fancy nasturtiums all ready to eat. (Lisa Hermanson always recommends photographing stuff through plastic). We used to eat nasturtiums in the old centrury. The long poiny bit contains stuff almost as sweet as honey.

Pea sprouts (through plastic!)

Serried ranks of asparagus standing to attention like those buried Chinese warriors. It is asparagas season

and peony season (possibly my favorite flower ever --so showy, so blowsy, so fragrant so debutate ball summery).

Here stuff you can take home to make your own garden (if you have a garden, that is.)

I asked if I could take a picture of the Flowering Sage, and the young man offered to turn the tub round so the price wasn't in the picture, but I said, no no --it's lovely as it is. 

Veterans Day

 

red leaf on a blue car

damp bench and fallen leaves

playroom

grandpa and crayons