Welcome! I hope I bring a spot of calm and happiness into these uncertain times. I blog about my photography adventures, flowers, gardening, the importance of chocolate in a well lived life, or anything else on my mind.
Today, a couple of photos of hydrangeas I took in a nearby town.
It seems these are more popular as ornamental plants each year.
Finally, here's a photo of a pepper display at a local farm market.
Soon, the veggies that say "autumn" to me will arrive at that same market. There will be pumpkins and other winter squash of all varieties, early apples, Concord grapes, and pears.
Eventually the summer veggies: the sweet corn, the summer squash, the tomatoes that burst with flavor, will dwindle and eventually disappear.
The wheel of the seasons continues to turn, as the days grow shorter and we approach winter, one humid day at a time.
After the rains of last week where I live in the Southern Tier of New York, we cooled down a little but the past three days we returned to the heat and humidity.
July 30, puddles on the road after a deluge.
August 5, hot weather sky and a mural in a Southern Tier downtown.
August 6, mid day skies taken at same time in two different directions.
Yesterday, the weather report called for afternoon and evening thunderstorms. They passed to the north of us, but I took these pictures right before it started to drizzle.
Note: If my blog disappears, Blogger is having a massive problem with them (or their AI?) taking down hundreds of blogs for malicious content that doesn't exist. They are trying to fix this, but if my blog disappears, you will know why.
Who
are the Music Moves Me bloggers? We are a group of music loving
bloggers who blog about music each Sunday or Monday (or even later in
the week). If you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to
join! We are brought to you by Cathy ofCurious as a Cathy, Stacy of Stacy's Random Thoughts, Marie (Xmas Dolly), and myself, plus other music loving bloggers.
Why not join us? Here's our optional theme for this week:
"The first
sandwich was allegedly made on August 6, 1762, and was given the Lord of
Sandwich’s name. The dish consisted of meat placed between two slices
of bread, which he requested because he was in the middle of a gambling
game and did not want to interrupt it.
This week’s
prompt is sandwich. Build a sandwich (acrostic) with your favorite song
picks, find song titles, lyrics, or band names with sandwich or items
found on a sandwich. This is a lite assignment, the object is to have
fun!"
There is a type of sandwich that has many names here in the United States, depending on where you live. It's a sandwich made with a long Italian or Italian style bread, and can contain deli meat, tuna, meatballs, or other sandwich fillings. In New York City, these sandwiches are called hero sandwiches (at least, that's what we called them in my New York City childhood.) Just north of New York City, where my spouse grew up, they are called wedges. In New England, grinders. Others call them hoagies. Much of the country now calls them subs.
I'm going to go in a different direction for my first four songs. These are songs mentioning the names of these sandwiches, although they aren't written about them.
Hoagies (a commercial) for a maker of deli meat and cheeses. You'll see what the sandwich looks like, and the song is...well, listen to it.
A live performance of Heroes - David Bowie.
We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome) - Tina Turner, released in 1985 as the theme song for the movie Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
Turning to subs:
Yellow Submarine - The Beatles, originally released in 1966.
For grinders, Judas Priest and Grinder, from 1980.
Finally, a song mentioning bread: 1964's Bread and Butter - the Newbeats
And that's a wrap!
Join me again next week for another episode of Music Moves Me.
Today, I am digging into the near past archives for this milkweed photo.
Taken July 4 at a local park.
Although this doesn't have shadows, I wanted to share it with you today because it is important.
I wasn't able to get close to this monarch butterfly so it isn't the best quality but it is the only one I've seen this year. I took this picture July 26 and cropped it as much as I dared.
I can only hope there are more butterflies out there. I see fewer and fewer butterflies each year. My small yard can't support milkweed, but milkweed is so important to them. If you do want to plant milkweed, you may be interested in knowing that some types of milkweed grown in warm areas can be dangerous to monarch butterfly migration.
On Wednesday, our area got a lot of rain. We broke a rainfall record where I live in the Southern Tier of New York, but it was nothing compared to the Hudson Valley of New York. Our state capitol, Albany, received almost seven inches (17.78 cm) of rain, in two days, and many roads and areas were flooded.
Meanwhile, yesterday, we had intermittent rain showers.
It was interesting, if you faced different directions, the sky looked so different.
This was so much like a winter sky - this is a color picture, not B&W.
