Seen by the side of the road

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I was walking the dog when I came across this snake by the side of the road (actually the dog noticed it first. I would probably have walked right by it). It didn’t look in great shape, inert even and I assumed that it was dead. So I thought that this would be a great opportunity to get really close without any concerns about it slithering away. I got right down to the snake’s level and had the camera literally a couple of inches away from it when it lifted it’s head, stuck out it’s tongue and hissed at me. I guess it wasn’t dead after all. Needless to say I beat a hasty retreat. I’m pretty sure that it’s not venomous, but just the same I could do without being ‘nipped’ on the nose by an irate reptile.

Springwood – Fala

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Fala was FDR’s Scottish Terrier. Fala was devoted to him and FDR was devoted to Fala.

One story in particular resonated in this election season of insults and attacks. It seems that FDR had been insulted by his Republican opponents (it seems not much has changed). In response he had these words to say during on of his radio broadcasts:

These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don’t resent attacks, and my family don’t resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I’d left him behind on an Aleutian island and had sent a destroyer back to find him—at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars—his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself … But I think I have a right to resent, to object, to libelous statements about my dog.

Source: “1944 Radio News, 1944-09-23 FDR Teamsters Union Address – Fala (27:45–30:08)”. Internet Archive. Retrieved 2014-06-02. The speech itself can be found here.

Apparently the idea to turn the Republican attack into a joke came from no less a person than Orson Welles.

Fala’s devotion to FDR seems to have continued beyond the grave. According to Fala Still Seeking His Master Franklin Roosevelt he:

…roams Washington Square Park in search of the thirty-second president of the United States. He had been the dog of Franklin but not really Eleanor Roosevelt. She declared that the dog just barely tolerated her but adored his master. Fala knew Washington Square Park well, when Eleanor lived at 29 Washington Square West from 1942 to 1949. This had been intended to be the urban digs for FDR because it was wheelchair accessible.

I imagine that FDR’s love of dogs (which I can understand. I’m pretty fond of terriers myself) is the reason why Springwood is so “dog friendly”. And thankfully it is or Harley and myself would have been standing in the rain for 1 1/2 hours waiting for my wife and brother-in-law to finish at the Presidential Library.

Boy and goat

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Taken in June 2013 with a Sony Nex 5N and its 18-55mm kit lens at Niese’s Maple Farm. Even though I made this photograph a while ago I still remember it well. The boy had been looking down and then he suddenly looked up, fortuitously right at the camera. At the same time the goat turned away. So looking at the picture the boy is turning to the right and the goat to the left. I think this gives a sense of motion to the picture. It’s a tad blurry possibly because the actors were moving or possibly because in my excitement when the boy looked at the camera I snatched at the shutter. However, blurry or not I like the way it looks.

Roaring Brook Lake monster???

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Walking along Lake Shore Road in the past few weeks I’ve noticed a fin cutting through the surface of the water in the cove. Imagine the typical image of a sharks fin, but in miniature and you’ve about got it. I took a few pictures, but the fin was quite distant and the camera I had with me didn’t have a very long zoom. However, you get a sense of what I’m talking about in the picture. You can see the fin and a vague impression of the fish itself beneath the surface. I’m not good at guessing the size of a far away fish, but I’d say it was somewhere between one and two feet. It seems that 500 sterile grass carp were released in the lake in 2011 for aquatic weed control. I imagine this is one of hem. I must have made a noise because suddenly about 10+ of these fish suddenly took off causing quite a commotion. The carp seem to be doing well.

The title of the post comes from a fellow walker who noticed the disturbance in the water and remarked: “Roaring Brook Lake Monster?”