Islands #AtoZChallenge #SkywatchFriday

Beauty can be found anywhere, especially on islands.

Let's start with a photo of an island in Halifax Harbor, Nova Scotia, Canada, July 2024, on a foggy afternoon.

As for other islands, some are places we don't think of as islands but they are.  For example, I grew up in a city composed mainly of islands-New York City.

The next two photos are from May, 2012.  Where do you think these were taken?

If you said "Manhattan Island", you would be right.  This is a picture of The Little Church Around the Corner, located on 1 East 29th Street, taken in 2012.  If you think "skyscrapers" when you think about Manhattan, you would be mistaken.  There is so much more. 

The tulips were in bloom nearby.

From the same visit to Manhattan, rooftop plants.  Yes, some New Yorkers have gardens on their rooftops.  The mural is a bonus.
 

Let's jump to Long Island, which contains the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, plus two other counties outside New York City, Nassau and Suffolk.  This picture was taken at the Queens Botanical Gardens in June of 2023. 

Next, a visit to Florida.  These next two pictures are from Treasure Island, a barrier island in Pinellas County (home of St. Petersburg and Clearwater).

My iPhone says these are ring billed gulls, but I am not 100% sure with the black heads.  The sky sure looks nice, though.
 

Art, and another beautiful sky.

Finally, it is time for sunset.  These pictures were taken in January, 2020 near Ward Island, also in Pinellas County.

 Sunset.

After sunset glow with birds.

Joining Yogi and other skywatchers for #SkywatchFriday.

I day for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme: Beauty of our Land. 

Florida Flora and Fauna #AtoZChallenge

 Today, I bring you some of the natural and human-made beauty one can find in our state of Florida.  Some of the plantings may be native and some may not but all these pictures were taken in Florida.

 I couldn't resist the one non flora/fauna picture as the building is so beautiful.

Morikami Japanese Gardens, Delray Beach Florida.

Not sure if this is an anhinga (that's what I think) or a cormorant (what my iPhone thinks).  I know the birders in the audience will tell me. Taken on Bayshore Boulevard in Tampa.

Anhinga, similar location to above.

I believe this isn't a true Florida flower but a Brazil Raintree.  But it was growing in Florida so I'm using t.
 

Statue "The Spirit of Punta Gorda", Punta Gorda, Florida, and nearby trees.  I love this photo.

Great Blue Heron, Delray Beach, Florida.

Bird almost hidden, Ft. Myers, Florida.

What a beautiful state Florida is.  Too many tourists come for the theme parks and miss the natural beauty.

F day in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme:  Beauty of Our Land 

Disney Dunedin Delray Beach #AtoZChallenge

Today is D day in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, and I bring you several locations from Florida, showing you some of the beauty of this southeast United States state.

Morikami Gardens in Delray Beach, Florida.

Another picture from Morikami Gardens, Delray Beach.

Delray Beach Wood storks.

Dunedin Dolphin.

Downtown Dunedin.
 

Disney (Springs) Dragon.

 

D Day in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme:   Beauty of Our Land. 

Flamingo Mailbox #ShadowshotSunday

On this first day of February, when snow lies on the ground and in piles around my house, my memories turn to a January, 2020 trip to Florida. 

Flamingo mailbox in Dunedin, Florida. 

Tomorrow, the groundhog will (allegedly) tell us if we will have an early spring, or six more weeks of winter. 

Joining up with Lisa at This and That:  A Blog, for her #ShadowshotSunday. 

Mr. Rogers and the Wright Brothers #WordlessWednesday

 From the archives, here are two photos from January 2019.

Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida (near Orlando) has a "Walk of Fame" containing stones from over 200 different locations.  The collection includes stones taken from birthplaces, property, or even graves of famous people, or from locations important in history. Apparently, back when some of these were collected, this was not considered vandalism.  However, my understanding is that the majority of these stones were taken with permission.  Here's more information on the Walk of Fame.

Fred Rogers ("Mr. Rogers")  (above, upper right), was an alumnus of Rollins College.

Here's another stone.

Orlando has so much more to offer than theme parks. 

 

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday.

Zen and Morikami Gardens #AtoZChallenge

 Take a deep breath, participants in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

Breathe in.  Breathe out.

We've reached the final letter, Z.

The word Zen has many meanings.  I understand that we in the United States don't always use the word "Zen" the way it is meant to be used but my understanding is that the word "Zen" comes from a " school of Mahayana Buddhism asserting that enlightenment can come through meditation and intuition rather than faith."

Perhaps, what better place to pause, sit, and meditate for a while is at the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Delray Beach, Florida, which I had the pleasure of visiting with my spouse in January of 2019.  

If you search on their site, you come up with several results of Zen, including a Zen Garden kit for your tabletop.  Maybe I'll buy one one day to help me escape from the world's troubles for a few minutes.

In the meantime, here are some photos from my visit.  Sit and relax a while.  Meditate if you are into that.

Let's go in.

Buddha.

Outdoor bonsai.  That's an art form in itself.  Morikami has a nice bonsai collection; some are hundreds of years old.  They are meticulously taken care of.

A little philosophy.

It was so relaxing watching water flow through this pipe.

I'm guessing this is a rhodedendron.

Lantern art.

Waterfall.

Finally, a stone formation.

I hope these photos brought you peace, which we need so much in these times.

My final post, for "Z" day in the 2024 Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme for 2024 was:  Gardens, History, Art and The Unexpected.

Forevermore?

Halloween is the season for spookiness.  People turn their front yards into fake graveyards, hang plastic skeletons in trees, and carve grotesque faces into pumpkins.

A haunted corn maze would get a lot of delighted visitors.
 

In a recent scarecrow contents in a local park, a dog walker walked skeleton dogs.

This horror decorating can be a way to channel our fears.  We live in times fraught with true terror, be it events in the Middle East or in our own country.

On October 25, that terror, true terror, not made up fake terror, hit the small city of Lewiston, Maine.  That evening there was a horrendous double mass shooting (18 innocents died in two locations) at the hands (and gun) of a 40 year old man.  It was followed by nearly 48 hours of lockdown for residents until it was established that the shooter had taken his own life.

As someone who worked in a community that experienced a mass shooting in 2009  I feel a connection of sorts with each of these communities. I also know that when the national news networks leave the scene, the community is left to deal with its grief.

Back in 2011, my spouse and I vacationed in Brunswick, Maine, which is about 20 miles from Lewiston.  It was a beautiful, peaceful area.  

The horror I felt on October 25 and the following days was mixed with the good memories I had of that area, including our walk across a bridge with a history tied to the city where I grew up.

I also think of Tampa and the Ybor City shooting of this weekend,  a terrible end to a Halloween gathering. Thinking of Tampa also brings back memories of the two years I lived there years ago. Ybor City was where I discovered my beloved strawberry onions.

Gun violence.  A national nightmare we aren't waking up from.

This Halloween we ask:  Will this be our fate forevermore? 

A Farm Tale or Two

In one of my blueberry picking posts this year, I mentioned I would blog something about the owners of the U-Pick blueberry farm and what they are going through right now.

Of course, there is the heat and the drought.  Normally, the you-pick would have started at noon on Sunday (to allow the owners to attend church, I'm assuming) but today, due to the possible record heat forecast,  they opened at 9am.

We were so grateful.

The bushes were loaded but I wonder how much business the heat has caused this farm operation to lose.

They used to also come to our local farmers market, and sell (in season) blueberries, squash, and sweet corn.  But, the people who helped them pick moved to another state several years ago.

Until relatively recently, an ailing relative the woman had been caring for took up much of her time.  The family member has since passed away but there is exhaustion.  Something had to give, and it was the farmers market.

Not only that, but they never were able to put in their sweet corn at all, something that was a good seller for them.  

Farming is hard work, and this, added to what life throws at all of us, makes for a hard life.

So, as we picked and picked in the warm morning, we were so grateful. (Yes, we tell her so).

If you are fortunate enough to live where there are farmers, they all deserve our love and respect.

And, speaking of farming and love, I have to close with this emu and south Florida farmer Taylor Blake who have gone viral. 

Apparently, Emmanuel detests iPhones but loves his owner, and the feeling (about love) is mutual.  

I discovered Emmanuel Todd Lopez last Sunday on Twitter (the actual videos are posted on TikTok) and have watched the videos...well, a lot.  Taylor and Emmanuel even recently appeared on late night television (this and a couple of her other videos are here) with Jimmy Kimmel.

As Taylor said at the end of the Jimmy Kimmel clip "Choose Love".

Outdoor Outing Oops #AtoZChallenge

If you are looking for my Music Moves Me post, please click here.  I hope you'll stay for this post, though, before you leave to listen to some great music.

Welcome (or welcome again) to "O" day in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme: "From Florida to Vermont With Stops In Between".

Before I begin, I owe you, my readers, an apology.   I'm prewriting many of my A to Z posts, and I inadvertently dated my "O" post with the wrong date.  It published in error last week and a couple of people commented on it (thank you!) and I don't want to delete it. So, for those who already read my O post, this is a little different. I've added some new pictures, did some editing, and I now invite you to enjoy the new outdoor art I've included.  Thank you!

Today, let's sample some outdoor art from various parts of the country, starting in the area where I live in New York state and ending in Florida.

We'll start in Ithaca, New York and a mosaic mural.

On a downtown Binghamton, New York walkway, decorations celebrating the history of this area.  Here, a boot to symbolize our long history of shoe manufacturing. 

A mural on the edge of downtown Binghamton, New York, celebrating the late Mohammad Ali.

Here's a mural painted on the back of a New York village's movie theater.

This mural, located in Endicott, New York, is called "Love Like Lisa".  It pays tribute to a woman, Lisa Iannone, who died at the age of 40 from a chronic condition she had lived with for many years.

Endicott had a big IBM facility at one time, and this isn't too far from that facility.  This mural is painted on the back of the Cinema Saver on Washington Avenue, just steps away from that factory complex. 

Let's start moving south now.  Our first stop is New York's Hudson Valley.

Here is a statue at the CIA - no, not that CIA, but the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York?  This culinary school has trained many great chefs, and the campus has some interesting culinary art on its campus.

Take, for example, this fish.   You may not want to eat it, though. 

It's made out of dining utensils.  

Now we are in Brooklyn, in New York City, with an outdoor store window painting in downtown Brooklyn (2018).

New York Aquarium in Coney Island (Brooklyn). 

Moving on to Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Richmond, VA.  This sculpture is called Chloe.  The artist is Jaume Plensa, from Spain. 

Still heading south, we arrive in South Carolina. Carousel at Riverbanks Zoo and Gardens, West Columbia, South Carolina. 

Finally, we arrive at our destination, Florida.  This mosaic is at the Florida Botanical Gardens in Largo, Florida.

Our outdoor outing ends in Bok Gardens in Lake Wales, Florida, with this cute squirrel.

"O" day in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge (for real, this time).