Saved by some dirty dishes

by Posted in Wildlife & Animals Leave a comment
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Saved by some dirty dishes. A few days ago, it was a really nice day. I felt I should go out but somehow couldn’t find the motivation. So, I stayed home and felt that somehow, I’d wasted the day. Sometime in the afternoon I noticed that there were a few dishes in the sink, so I went over to wash them.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed some movement in the garden. It turned out to be a groundhog.

Of course, I took some pictures. From this experience I learned three things:

  1. Groundhogs have great hearing. So as not to disturb it I took the pictures through a window. The groundhog was a long way away, but every time I pressed the shutter it lifted its head up.
  2. Groundhogs are much faster than you’d think. When it eventually noticed me, it took off like a bat out of hell.
  3. Groundhogs like to eat dandelions (see first picture).

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Taken with a Sony RX10 IV

I wandered lonely as a cloud

by Posted in Flowers, Nature Leave a comment
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I always thought that the name of the famous poem by Wordsworth was “Daffodils”, but apparently it’s actually “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”. I prefer “Daffodils”.

Here’s the poem:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

I didn’t have quite the experience that Wordsworth had:

  • I was in a suburban New York town, so I didn’t see “…a crowd, a host of golden daffodils”, just the few that you see in the pictures.
  • I wasn’t “beside the lake, beneath the trees” although I was quite close to the Hudson River.
  • The daffodils were not “fluttering and dancing in the breeze”.
  • There certainly weren’t “ten thousand” of them.

Still, I very much agree with the sentiments expressed in the final verse.

As I writ this (April 25, 2025) the daffodils are starting to fade.

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Taken with a Sony RX10 IV

Taken with a Sony RX10 IV

Reading by the river

by Posted in Landscapes, Reading Leave a comment
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I generally go for lunch by the Hudson on Sundays. After a big lunch I’m usually in need or a nap, so I usually go straight home.

It was a nice day, so I decided to sit by the river for a while and read. I ended up staying for about two hours.

By that time, I was quite hot and thirsty so since I had been sitting near 3 Westerley I decided to pop in and have something to drink: two pints of Smithwicks.

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Taken with a Sony RX10 IV