The Lady Tree

 This tree, leaning out over the river, barely rooted in the rocky bank, makes me think of a lady on a swing

 

 

Frozen River in Motion

Tides + Temperature + Rocks

Rivers are always moving-  flowing towards the sea.

Near the coast, the tides add extra action. Twice a day the tides change the level of the water in the river dramatically. Twice a day the river's level rises by several inches to a foot, and twice a day it falls again, as the volume of water is pulled and pushed by the moon's gravity.  

             

 

When it's cold enough, it gets really interesting.

A few inches at the surface may freeze during a lull at high tide, while the river keeps rushing below it. When the tide goes back out, the water underneath can abandon the frozen sections it had been supporting, forcing them to be lowered onto rocky surfaces. Or the moving river can drag frozen sheets with it, like panes of glass cracking and crashing against rocks and frozen banks. 

Sometimes frozen white chunks are just left politely on a lawn next to the river as the tide travels out to sea. 

The sound can be surprising! Sometimes creaking, or tinkling ethereally, sometimes booming. Always beautiful.

 

Naked Trees

Sometimes I don't even miss the leaves.

Turkey Shore Road, Ipswich, MA

 

Berry Nice Colors

Crane's Castle, Ipswich, MA

 

You Never Know

If I had it to do over again, I'd make the title of this blog You Never Know.

Those are the words I find myself muttering most often. And since The Plague hit in March 2020, I'm the only person I talk to anymore- in person, anyway. So I'm always hearing myself say it. 

You never know what might catch your eye, or make you wonder, or laugh out loud, or piss you off, once you get outside and start looking around. 

Just about every day I put on my shoes at some point and open the door and walk for an hour or so, usually with no particular destination in mind.  It's always the best part of my day, because, well- YOU NEVER KNOW.

October 18, 2020

This wasp nest has been there for at least 6 months, which was the first time I noticed it.  Google says they are built (of chewed-up wood) in the spring, and that they last 3-4 months typically.

April 13, 2020

I had a bad run-in with wasps last summer, but I'm still interested in their nests, as long as the wasps are finished with them. 

This is what was left of the large wasp nest I disturbed last summer and got stung about a dozen times, when I was messing with the sawhorses. Maybe I missed it because it was so close to the ground.  That nest was then destroyed by a friend, which was a nice gesture, but....it only sent the wasps into the walls of the apartment building I live in, which caused the manager to send an exterminator to spray poison all over the place...... 

 I would have been happy to leave the wasps alone for the rest of the summer. 

I guess you just never know.

 

Two Boats

One skimming the surface of the ocean, one locked in sand, and time.

Crane Beach, Ipswich, MA

Not Your Average House Tour

If I were to design a tour of interesting houses and buildings in my town I would surely include this one.

I wonder how many generations it's been standing, with its sills slowly sinking into the earth.

I am grateful, every time I go by it, to see it still there.

      

http://www.ipswichvisitorcenter.org/
 

 

UPDATE: June 12, 2022

 

Good news: The little building is still there.

Bad news: Well, just look at it.

Inside Out Art Gallery

Ordinary-looking house near downtown Ipswich, MA. But what's in those windows?

Paintings!  Facing out, for all the world to see. 

I wonder who creates them and shares them in this unique way.

"Rivers and Tides" in the woods........

I went to check out a newly-opened conservation area today and as I walked down the trail and through the woods, I became convinced that Andy Goldsworthy- or someone inspired by him-  must have got here first.....

Meet Andy Goldsworthy

and enjoy his documentary, Rivers and Tides

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unv20cR_UTw

Right place, right time

Today's fun photo is a short video. It's the glimmering image of the water reflecting light up onto a brick wall on Gloucester Harbor. I think it makes the bricks come alive.  I've been enjoying this for several seasons, but I've never captured it.
It only happens when the light is coming from the east, and you can only see it from the water. So several things have to happen all at once- a morning row, a sunny day, very little wind (a lot of wind pushes the dory around too much when I stop rowing,)  and....... a charged camera battery.

(The sound is the engine of the small lobster boat "Restless" heading out.)

God Bless the Taxi Men of Dublin

 Dublin taxi men in O'Connell Street, April 2013

A young friend in Dublin, Sarah Murphy, just posted this on facebook:

Taxi men of Dublin kicking  people out of their cars who say they're a NO vote. A sounder chap I've never met. "Sure where would I be driving him?  He can walk if he's so sure he knows where we're going." 

Sarah has been working day and night canvassing Dublin neighborhoods for a YES vote on marriage equality for Ireland.  If I could vote in Ireland I'd be with her. If it weren't for Sarah and her friend Tom Lawlor's generous hospitality, I wouldn't have the wonderful memories I do of the neighborhoods of Dublin...

Memorial to the taxi drivers of Dublin, O'Connell Street. 

I forgive every single misspelling and typo.

It Never Gets Old

Rowing (for me, anyway) never gets old. I row for fun, and it keeps me from getting old before my time.

I don't have to do it every day to make a living. I don't need to row a dory across the harbor in all kinds of weather to do my shopping or get to school, as dory-rowers have done here for 150 years.  I row
recreationally, as a member of the Gloucester International Dory Racing Committee. I don't even race- I just cheer on those who do. It costs me only $77 a year- the cheapest way to "own" a boat in Gloucester!  http://internationaldories.com/

Gloucester Harbor on a weekday morning. Paint Factory (Ocean Alliance nonprofit research center) on the left, Ten Pound Island on the right. 

Every time I untie one of the dories and row it away from the dock, it's a new kind of fun. Here's another rower making his way around the famous Greasy Pole off Pavilion Beach yesterday, practicing for races next weekend.

(Turn down the sound to avoid the annoying noise of construction of an oversized and incongruous luxury hotel in the middle of Gloucester's historic Fort neighborhood. ) 

Optical Illusion

This arch at Buswell Pond in the Magnolia section of Gloucester, Massachusetts (on Route 127)  forms one of my favorite optical illusions.

15-Minute Field Trip

I was walking by the  Cape Ann Museum when I realized it wouldn't be closing for another 15 minutes, so I ducked in for a quick visit with one of my favorites. 

Sea serpent billet head from the schooner Diadem, built in Essex, 1855.

I learned today that, in 1817, more than 50 people in Gloucester, many of them "prominent members of the community," reported seeing a serpent in the sea off Pavilion Beach. The entire incident was written up in a pamphlet published that year by the Linnaean Society. read it here 

Love those 15-minute field trips! 

Earth Day = Ocean Day ....for me

I observed Earth Day*  by rowing out to Ten Pound Island in Gloucester Harbor this morning. Feeling wealthy, and humbled by this gift of a PLACE. And compelled to take care of it every day. 

                           
                 These barely perceptible swells show how wild it got out there this morning. Flat calm.

 The Paint Factory at Rocky Neck, which I love because it was NOT destroyed to make way for condos!
http://www.whale.org/the-mission/about-us/headquarters/



* April 22 is the day for the Americanized  Earth Day , but I know that Earth Day was meant , by its founders at the United Nations in 1971, to be observed at the time of the Equinox which, this year in the Western Hemisphere, was March 20.

http://enduringgloucester.com/2015/03/19/equinox-earth-day-2015-is-march-20/

And just for some perspective- here's what the Grand Banks Dory was made for.....

photos courtesy Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Massachusetts