Our friend has a lovely pond in his back garden. One day as I was visiting I looked in the direction of the pond and saw this stone frog peeping out from behind a rock. Seemed to be worth a picture.
Frog In Hiding
Musicians
A group of musicians playing at a local community event. Above: John Cohen founder member of the New Lost City Ramblers and famous for his music, art, movies and photographs including iconic photographs of Bob Dylan.
Cohen’s hands on his mandolin.
Fiddler. It looks as if this shot was posed, but it wasn’t. He was actually playing at the time and I happened to catch him looking directly at the camera.
Another fiddler. Great expression!
It was quite difficult to get a decent picture of this banjo player, which was a pity as I’ve always been fond of the banjo. She looked down a long – I don’t know if this was because she knew I was taking pictures and didn’t want to be photographed, or whether this was just her style of playing.
Somehow I missed the other musician: a string bass player.
Church Interior with Flag
I was walking around an old, deconsecrated church when I came across a room at the rear. Opposite the room was a door to the outside. It was a bright, sunny day and the sunlight was streaming into the room.
Firescreen at Law Park
This is a great example of how we walk past so many interesting things without really seeing them. This lovely firescreen is in the pavilion in our local park: Law Park. The pavilion looks out over the swimming pool and in summer they serve food and drinks. It’s a pleasant place to pause during a dog walk, and also a shelter from inclement weather. So I’ve been there many times. I’ve noticed this fireplace and may even have included it in a picture, but I’d never really looked at it. When I did today I was surprised by the graceful lines of the beautiful wrought iron work. The rusty textures are nice too. At first I was going to convert this to black and white, but eventually decided that it was interesting enough to stay with color.
Shrub Oak United Methodist Church
According to Commentary: The History of Shrub Oak, by Lawrence Constant:
After the Revolution, by 1789, there was built in the village a Methodist Church – one of the first in the county – upon land owned by Pierre Van Cortlandt, Jr., whose father, Pierre, Sr., had been a Congressman, Lieutenant-Governor of New York, president of the convention which established the Constitution, and a personal friend of George Washington. (Pierre Jr., in his own right studied law under Alexander Hamilton; served as a Congressman; and was a higher general of the local militia, with James Fenimore Cooper, author of “The Last of the Mohicans”, serving as his aide). This first Methodist meeting house in Shrub Oak stood about where the large Denver-Hallock monument is, in the southeastern portion of the Old Shrub Oak Cemetery. Several circuit-riding ministers preached in it, the most famous of which was the celebrated Reverend Francis Asbury 91745-1816), the man responsible for the flourishing of the Methodist faith in America. Asbury, who preached in Shrub Oak on more than one occasion, was a welcome visitor in the homes of such notables as Meriweather Lewis, John C. Calhoun, and Washington.
…
In 1867, work was begun on the present Methodist house of worship, an ivy-clad Gothic edifice, built of stone drawn from Piano Mountain and a quarry on Stony Street. At the ceremony of the laying of the cornerstone, held on June 29 of that year, an address was made by the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887). He was the brother of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe (authoress of Uncle Tom’s Cabin), and had served as Abraham Lincoln’s orator during the recent Civil War.