Iron, Stone, and Wood

Some gates and stone walls.

© 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Theme Thursday - Knot

Knot is a tough theme, but an idea struck me last night, and I took some quick shots this morning,

A handwoven hemp fiber belt, the strap for my djembe drum. And what is weaving but the artistic tying of knots?

The dream-catcher over my bed.

Music videos didn't promise to be all that easy, either, but when I fed "knot" into YouTube's search engine, this song "Knots" by the British band Pete and the Pirates was right up near the top of the list. Great sound! they remind me of some of the bands that were around in the early '80s.

Then a little farther down the list I found that the classic progressive rock band Gentle Giant did a song called "Kmots", too, from their 1972 album Octopus. Since there's nothing in the lyrics having anything to do with knots, I'm figuring the name of the song comes from the interweaving of the lyric and melodic threads. Definitely an interesting song, as was most of Gentle giant's work.

But believe it or not, the very first song that popped into my head when I saw this week's theme was the Allman Brothers Band classic "Whipping Post". Why? Because of the chorus: "Because I'm tied to the whipping post..." Well, when you're tied to something, knots are what are tied to hold you there, right? Besides, it's the perfect excuse to post one of the best rock songs ever!

Don't forget to visit the other entries in this week's Theme Thursday!

Photos & text © 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Autumn Leaves (and Acorns)

Newport is still mostly green, but we're getting a little more color every day.

And here's Eva Cassidy to sing about it:

Photos © 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Autumnal Stones

Samhain is coming!

And as an extra treat... Today is Paul Simon's birthday! Can you believe the man is actually 69? I was listening to Simon & Garfunkel records in junior high, fer pete's sake! Anyhow, I thought I'd get nostalgic, and instead of posting one of Paul's post S&G tunes I thought I'd go with my very favorite old Simon & Garfunkel tunes from the Bookends album: "America". Whenever my feet start to itch with the urge to go somewhere, this is always the song that runs in my head! Happy Birthday, Paul!

Photos & text © 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

A Beautiful Fall Day

As promised yesterday, I went down to my spiritual home today. It's been a beautiful day - cool (but not as cool as yesterday), dry, sunny with a slight skim of clouds overhead (we're getting rained on tomorrow), and a nice breeze. Gooseneck Cove showed its autumnal best in these conditions.

Ballard Park is a different story, though. The Fall Asters are starting to fade, but the leaf colors aren't coming in to take their place quite yet. I guess that's another effect to chalk up to this year's weird weather. Still, all was not lost; I climbed the path to the top of the Quarry rim and got this shot looking toward the ocean, overlooking the Gooseneck Cove watershed. Nice view, huh?

© 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Sunday Bird Walk - Somewhere Else

Today wasn't the official Sunday bird walk; that was last Sunday, but officially it was called off because the Norman Bird Sanctuary, where we start from, was having its annual Harvest Fair. My friend Mark (who has been leading the walks since our usual guide Jay Manning ruptured his achilles tendon in August) and I had planned to do our own thing, but he had family come visit, so we postponed to today. And today we decided to go to a place Jay likes to go - the fields around Sisson's and St. Mary's Ponds in Portsmouth, and an extra trip just down the road to the fields and woods behind Newport Vineyards and Winery. The fields are great because they host a wide variety of Winter Sparrows (White-throated, Vesper, Savannah, Sharp-tailed, and others) and Hawks, and the ponds are home to an equally wide variety of Winter waterfowl.

There was lots to see today. Lots of Hawks - we're in the midst of the Fall hawk migration, and we saw 3 or 4 Northern Harriers in different places, 2 Ospreys cruising over the ponds, 3 Redtail Hawks cruising over Newport Vineyards, a Merlin and a Sharp-shinned Hawk in the fields around Sisson's and St. Mary's, and a Cooper's Hawk in the fields behind the vineyards. The fields around Sisson's and St. Mary's were full of Sparrows and, oddly enough, Fall Warblers; the ponds featured some American Widgeons and a ton of Ruddy Ducks, along with a steadily-growing population of Canada Geese. Most of all of this was out of camera range, but I did manage to get some usable shots.

This Osprey caught his breakfast in Sisson's Pond and retreated to the nearest utility pole to chow down.

A White-throated Sparrow in the Sisson's & St. Mary's fields.

A Palm Warbler in the Sisson's & St. Mary's fields.

One of about four immature Black-bellied Plovers on the shore of St. Mary's Pond.

An American Coot on Sisson's Pond.

There's a 3-foot Alligator living in Sisson's Pond, obviously one of those little pets that somebody dumped when it got too big. This is one of the traps set out to catch it. We kept a close eye on Mark's little terrier Leo while we were in this area!

The view across the fields behind Newport Vineyards toward Albro Woods. Fall is painting this area, too.

Tomorrow I'll be going down to Ballard Park and Gooseneck Cove, so you won't miss your weekly dose of my spiritual home!

© 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Coo-Coo-Ca-Choo!

Happy Birthday, John! We sure do miss you.

Theme Thursday - Game

I have some games hanging around here.

Monopoly!

My games shelf

The games folder on my hard drive

Music time! I'm about to show my age again and become an old fogey, but all the songs that occurred to me that had some relationship to "games" come from way back in my youth. The first is truly unforgettable - "It's All in the Game", the late, great Tommy Edwards' mega 1958 hit. For some reason this song sticks out for me as the sound of Baltimore, always a big African-American music city, in my childhood.

The next song that popped into my head was "Games People Play" by Joe South, which was a big hit 10 years later in 1968. This one always fascinated me; I like Joe's voice and that great intro on the Danelectro Guitar Sitar, and I've always liked his mix of Country twang with psychedelic/hippie sensibility. It's truly a '60s classic!

Believe it or not, there were three songs titled "Games People Play" in late 20th Century pop music; there was Joe South's 1968 hit, there was a song by the Alan Parson's Project in 1982 (which I don't particularly like, so you won't hear it here!), and then there was the song by The Spinners in 1975. These guys were the masters of the suave, hip '70s Soul sound, and this song is the epitome of that sound. They're graced on this tune with the fine female vocals of Barbara Ingram.

And that's my take on this week's Thursday theme. Don't forget to check out the rest of the Theme Thursday entries.

Photos & text © 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Autumn Weather Returns

Yesterday the rain was so heavy that my morning walk was out of the question. Luckily that was the last day of the wet weather. Today was overcast for most of the day, but cleared up this afternoon, and the air is noticeably cooler. And I found some interesting things for you on the morning walk:

The scene inside the back gate - on Dixon St. - to The Elms mansion.

The Artful Lodger Inn on Spring St.; I've always loved this sign.

Lily-of-the-Valley berries in Morton Park. Yup, this is what those lovely little bell-shaped white flowers turn into! Note the little visitor down there on the bottom edge of the shot; I didn't see her until I processed this shot in Photoshop.

And today there's a bonus. A friend dropped by at lunchtime and I convinced her that she wanted to take a drive down to Hazard Rd., and she fell for it. So I managed to get you all some more shots of Gooseneck Cove in some advancing Autumnal glory:

© 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Tuesday Morning

Today was a miserable weather day; patches of heavy mist changed to drizzle which changed to light rain. So I didn't do my usual long walk to work. I did take a somewhat scenic, if well-covered and generally straight, route, and these scenes caught my eye.

The porch of the Yankee Peddler Inn on Touro St. decorated for the season.

Scene on School St; what an antique coach horn has to do with one of Newport's early schools is beyond me!

© 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Running Errands

I was all over town today running errands, and in some cases took the scenic route to get to them. Naturally the camera came along.

Two shots of the Common Burying Ground

A typical Queen Anne style Victorian house on Old Beach Rd.

A Herring Gull floating on the wind off the Cliff Walk

The entrance to Bois Dore, a mansion on Narragansett Ave.

© 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

An Intimate Sunday Constitutional

At least, the photos I got today on my weekly long walk felt more intimate than usual - macros of mushrooms and flowers in Ballard Park, and wading birds hiding in the marsh grass on Gooseneck Cove.

[Note: For those of you who saw the warning earlier - I'm back up and running on the Internet. That tech support guy was as incompetent as I'd suspected. When I got back from the hike and after I'd had lunch, I came in here to discover that my Internet connection was just fine; it had been an outage on the local Verizon network, not my modem. So I'm back to normal!]

© 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger

Oops!

Hey everybody! I'm gonna be offline for a few days. It seems my modem has died and I have to wait for Verizon to ship me a new one. I'm at a friend's computer at the moment. I'm also on my way to my Sunday constitutional at the moment, and seeing how the weather is so wonderfall and Fall-ish, I'm sure there are lots of photos waiting to be taken. I may try to do another post, with pictures, tomorrow from the computers at the public library. Until then...

More Fences

I had so much fun shooting fences yesterday for my Theme Thursday post that I decided to look for some more on this morning's walk. This time I stuck to the neighborhood around Salve Regina University, between Bellevue Ave. and the Cliff Walk.

On Ruggles Ave.

On Berkeley Ave.

On Merton Rd.

And of course the ubiquitous New England rock wall, complete with ivy. This one is on the SRU campus.

© 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger