Unity (In the Fog) #AtoZChallenge #SkywatchFriday

Once again, today I give you two memes for the price is one:  U day for the Blogging of A to Z Challenge, and Skywatch Friday.

On July 4, 2026, the United States will celebrate its 250th birthday.  Having a national birthday isn't restricted to the United States; our neighbor to the north, Canada celebrates Canada Day on July 1.  They do us one better, too, with various towns and cities serving cake to their residents.

But will our national birthday bring us needed Unity?  I hope it does.

Years ago (1999?) my spouse, young son, and I traveled to Washington DC to enjoy the various July 4 celebrations. We also went to historic Arlington Cemetery to visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and graves of John F Kennedy and its eternal flame.    If I took any pictures they are probably in a box somewhere, alas, with others of my printed out photos.

I was so impressed by the guards who keep a 24 hour watch over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  

I can't show you any pictures of that future celebration but I can show you pictures from Plymouth, Massachusetts taken on July 4, 2023.   Plymouth holds an important part in our national history.

Much of the day was foggy, which made for some interesting sky pictures.   I've had some of these pictures on my blog before, but here they are again.

Plymouth's harbor on a foggy July 4 morning. 

Looks like it's hanging in mid air, doesn't it?  It's not.

The Mayflower II.

Nothing like a parade to Unify us.  Parades are held in hundreds of cities and towns throughout our nation.  There will be even more this July 4, I suspect.

A parade in the fog is even better, especially if it includes a dinosaur.

We are fortunate to have a beautiful land.  Let us continue to honor it with Unity.

Joining Yogi and other skywatchers for #SkywatchFriday.

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

< /div>

Brewster (Gardens) #AtoZChallenge

Something I love to do is to visit gardens, big and small.

In 2023 spouse and I visited Plymouth, Massachusetts during the Fourth of July weekend.  There is so much history in this city of around 65,000 people.  

In downtown there is a small garden park called Brewster Gardens.  This park is located in the original garden plot that was granted to settler Elder William Brewster in 1620.  Brewster was an English official and was a passenger on the Mayflower ship that brought the Pilgrims to the United States. He was also the only university trained passenger on the ship, and became a church leader for the Pilgrims.

For another side of the story, here's a post I wrote in 2024. 

The park was established 400 years later, in 1920. Today, it is a spot of beauty in downtown Plymouth.

Shall we go in? 

All over Plymouth, hydrangeas were in bloom. 

Note the statue behind the fountain.

This statue is the Pilgrim Maiden, by Henry Hudson Kitson. 

The Immigrant Statue.

Finally, a flower closeup.

"B" day for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme:  Beauty of Our Land.

Tomorrow is "C" day and also time for Skywatch Friday. 

Art #A to Z Challenge #WordlessWednesday

 With the letter A, the Blogging from A to Z Challenge begins on this April Fool's Day.

This is a challenge even in the best of times.  On April 1 (today) our blog post must begin with "A". Tomorrow, "B", and so forth, six days a week, Sundays excepted.  Simple to describe - hard to do, especially when you get to X.

Who am I?   I live in the Southern Tier of New York State, in the United States.  I've been blogging since 2009.  I blogged daily since May of 2011 until 2024, due to circumstances, and, until today, have only been blogging four days a week.   I want to see if I still have what it takes to blog daily.

My theme for this year is "Beauty of Our Land".  My travels have taken me to 46 state of our United States and several provinces of Canada. My goal is to bring some comfort and beauty into these times, as I sort through my nearly 20,000 pictures (yes, you read that right) on my iPhone.

It is also Wordless Wednesday, hosted by Sandee at Comedy Plus.  And, it's April Fool's Day.

So, what is the beauty of our land?  It is scenery.  Art.  Flowers and gardens.  Really, beauty is anything that can lift our spirits.

In honor of April Fool's Day: April Fool art by Norman Rockwell, Arlington, Vermont.   It's hard to see because of the size, but perhaps you can find some of the 45 mistakes.

Steeplechase Park, Brooklyn, New York City, Coney Island.

Plymouth, Massachusetts. 

Carved bear, Skaneateles, New York.

Needlework, New York State fair, Syracuse, New York, 2024.

Tomorrow, the letter B.  

Joining up with the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

Joining up with Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday. 

If you are new to my blog, thank you for visiting, and I hope you'll stick around and visit other of my AtoZ posts.  If you are a regular reader, thank you!!

 

Snow Now Roses Later #WordlessWednesday

Back in July of 2023, my spouse and I visited Plymouth, Massachusetts, a historic city in a beautiful, scenic location.

If you went there today, it would be scenic, but for a different reason. 

Snow, and a lot of it from a recent storm that created blizzard conditions, blankets Massachusetts.  Portions of the county the city of Plymouth is in got up to 36 inches (91.4 cm) of snow.

I don't have pictures of the snow but I do have pictures from my July 2023 visit.  

 No snow here.

Do February snowstorms create July flowers?

What a difference several months will make. Hang in there, Plymouth!

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday.

Memories of a Great Sunset #SkywatchFriday

It's been almost two weeks since I saw this wonderful sunset.

Let's set the scene, but first, let's look at this split sun as a cloud obscures some of the view.

Beautiful reflection.

Getting closer to the horizon.

Somewhere off the shore of Essex County, Massachusetts, the sun was kissing the horizon.

Almost gone.
.

The blue hour begins.

Those are not mountains right above the horizon.  These are clouds.

The sun gives its final farewell for the night.  And adventures await.

Joining Yogi and other skywatchers once again for #SkywatchFriday.

Wampanoag (and Plimoth Patuxet) #AtoZChallenge

If you are looking for my Skywatch Friday post, please click here.

In July of 2023, my spouse and I visited the Plimoth-Pautuxet Museums in modern day Plymouth, Massachusetts.

It's educational, to put it mildly.  In school, I learned that the Pilgrims landed there in 1620 on a ship called the Mayflower.  And there was a Thanksgiving feast where the local "Indians" and the Pilgrims feasted as friends. 

Well, not exactly....

We learned that where the Pilgrims settled had been an Indigenous Wampanoag settlement called Patuxet.  "Was", because white men had visited there before and, sadly, brought diseases such as smallpox and a blood disease with them.  In fact, these Indigenous people had first contact with Europeans some 70 years before 1620, we were told.

 It is estimated that around 90% of the Wampanoag died from disease between 1614 and 1620 in two outbreaks.  Almost all of the Patuxet band of the Wampanoag died and the village was deserted when the Pilgrims landed.  What happened next is a hard and sad story to absorb.

What had been the Patuxet village and cornfields were taken over by the European settlers. 

Reconstructed Plimoth Village, Plimoth Patuxet Museums

However, it was true that they wouldn't have survived their first winter without the assistance of those Indigenous peoples who had survived the two outbreaks of disease, and attempts by Europeans to capture them and sell them into slavery.  

Tisquantum, who was incorrectly named Squanto in the textbooks of my youth, survived to assist the Pilgrims only because he had been captured in 1614 by an English explorer who sold him to the Spanish.  He was enslaved until Franciscan monks bought his freedom. During his time in Europe, he learned the English language. As a result, he missed the epidemics of 1616 and 1618. He  returned home to find his village gone, the residents dead.

Tragically, Tisquantum died from disease in 1622.

Not only that but when I tried to write his name in an email, Autocorrect changed it to "mosquito".

As for 1621 and the first Thanksgiving, here is a perspective different from what we were taught in school.

Recreated Indigenous garden

At the time the Europeans first came, it is estimated about 40,000 Wampanoag lived in as many as 67 villages through Massachusetts and eastern Rhode Island.  Perhaps 5000 (enrolled members of two Federally recognized tribes) remain.  It was hard to research an exact number.

The Plimoth Patuxet museums, a living history complex that includes the replica Mayflower II ship, continues its educational mission as living history museums.  

"W" day in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme:  history, gardens, art and the unexpected.

Foggy Festive Fourth #AtoZChallenge

Today, we are visiting Plymouth, Massachusetts on a foggy Fourth of July 2023, our American Independence Day.

Plymouth was the site that every American schoolchild when I was growing up learned about - the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620, and established what became known as the Massachusetts Bay colony. They wore funny looking hats. And, oh yes, Plymouth was the site of the first Thanksgiving.

It took me many, many years before I learned that the history of this oldest municipality in New England was a lot more complicated. (I plan to blog more about that later in the Challenge) than our elementary school textbooks taught us.

We also discovered that Plymouth's annual Fourth of July parade celebrating our country's independence was going to pass right by our motel, so we brought out portable chairs and settled back.

There was just one problem.  It was foggy.  For reasons unknown, the parade stopped and started several times.  I think one of the breaks was almost 20 minutes.

But it was fun.  A lot of candy was thrown by all the police and fire fighters who paraded.  One float blew bubbles.

Just three of the many floats.

After the parade, we walked to Plymouth Rock.  This is the building that shelters the rock; in fact you are looking at the smallest state park in Massachusetts.  It isn't much larger than that building.

The harbor.

A public art display.

More another time.

"F" Day on the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme:  Gardens, History, Art and The Unexpected.

Shadow on the Journeys #ShadowshotSunday

For the final Shadowshot Sunday, here are some shadows from some of the trips my spouse and I took during 2023.

February, 2023, Greenville, South Carolina, balcony shadows.

June 2023, Coe Hill Historic House Museum at Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park, Oyster Bay, New York.   One day, I'll post some of the pictures I took of the spectacular gardens.

One of the educational posters on the Mayflower II in Plymouth Harbor, Plymouth, Massachusetts, July 2023.  "Life Before the Journey" is one of many educational signs that tell the story of the Pilgrims and their Atlantic Ocean crossing on the original ship Mayflower to what is now the town of Plymouth in 1620.  

The story of the Original Mayflower and the people on that vessel is a lot more complicated than the simplified (and somewhat inaccurate) story I was taught in school back in the 1950's.  It is also the story of Native Americans impacted by the arrival of Europeans some 70 years before the Pilgrims arrived

The Mayflower II was built in 1957 made the same crossing and was renovated several years ago.   I encourage you to visit if you are ever in this part of Massachusetts.

September, 2023.  The desk of Union general and later President Ulysses S. Grant, Moreau, New York.  Grant spent his final days here writing his memoir before his death from throat cancer in 1885.

September 2023, North Bennington, Vermont street art.

Last but not least, a room at the Lorenzo mansion at Lorenzo State Historic Site in Cazenovia, New York.  Colonel John Lincklaen, founder of the village of Cazenovia, built this mansion.  Unlike many other historic mansions, all the furnishings of this mansion are original to the family.  Interestingly, no one knows why it was called Lorenzo.  No one of that name was ever associated with the house, as far as we know.  The admission was well worth every penny.

Today, New Years Eve, let me again wish all my readers a Happy New Year. 

Joining with Magical Mystical Teacher for the final #ShadowshotSunday.

A Tree of Plymouth #ThursdayTreeLove

Along the waterfront of Plymouth, Massachusetts, where we visited last week, were these wonderful, heavily pruned trees with small, fragrant flowers.

In a local park, I saw a majestic specimen of the same tree.

They reminded me of the linden trees we have where I live in the Southern Tier of New York State, except that there were no bracts alongside the flowers.  On our trees, the bracts appear when the flower buds appear.

Sorry about the strip of light in the middle of this photo.

My iPhone has a built in plant identifier in the Photos app, and it identified this tree as a "lime" tree. in one photo.  In the other, it indicated Chinese linden.

Here's a closeup of the flowers.

To us in the United States, lime trees produce...well, limes, the sour but otherwise delicious green citrus fruit.  Those trees are hardy only in several states, not including Massachusetts. They would die in any winter where I live and certainly in Plymouth, too.  But then, I remembered that in Europe what we call a basswood or linden is called a lime tree.

After further research, I suspect these trees are Chinese lindens.

And oh, did they ever smell good.

Joining Parul at Happiness and Food this second Thursday of the month for her #ThursdayTreeLove.

Mama Duck and Ducklings #ShadowshotSunday

Good Sunday morning.

Taken July 6 in Town Brook Park near the historic Plymouth, Massachusetts grist mill, a mother mallard duck stands guard as her two ducklings drowse off.

Did you know that male mallard ducks do not participate in the incubation or raising of the ducklings?  Mama does it all on her own. 

Give this hard working mother a (quiet) round of applause.

Joining Magical Mystery Teacher for #ShadowshotSunday.