Garden curves I hadn’t noticed before….flagpole garden and the west drive. The white flowers in the daylily line are daffodils, Pueblo and Sailboat.
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Curves Monday, May 13 2013
H.M.S. Inflexible Sunday, May 12 2013
Historic Photos historical photographs, naval history 21:53
For something entirely different from the photo archives…
Taken in 1909 at the Hudson-Fulton Celebration in New York City: H.M.S. Inflexible. She was just about two years old at the time and was serving as the temporary flagship of the Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Edward Hobart Seymour. An Invincible class battle-cruiser, she served throughout World War I, participating in action in both the Mediterranean and North Atlantic campaigns, including Dardanelles and Jutland. She was scrapped in 1921.
The photograph was probably taken by George Creevey from his motor yacht, Mavourneen.
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Camouflage! Saturday, May 11 2013
gardening and Modern Photos gardening, insects, photography, tulips 08:13
This little guy has been camped out in this tulip for several days, even through yesterday’s rain. I am not sure what he is going to do about the fact that the tulip in question is steadily turning pink…can spiders change colour?
Green worlds Friday, May 10 2013
Esperanza 09:35
There always comes a day in spring when the world goes green. Suddenly, the forest fills in, trees that seemed distant are suddenly right in front of one. This effect can happen in a matter of hours. Go out in the morning and the roads seem wide and bare; come back in the evening and they are tree-lined alleys. A lot of people find it claustrophobic. It certainly does take a readjustment every spring.
It also changes the color of things entirely. The big Keeping room and library of the house have a set of windows that, in the winter, look out at a large expanse of open trees and garden areas. In the spring, this is transformed to Green, much brighter than the late summer greens. The colors of the rooms change as well; mercifully, they are painted/plastered in shades that tolerate green light. It is, however, a subtly different effect; especially in the Keeping room where the tinted plaster contains minute mica flecks. These don’t sparkle, but they do react to the light. In the winter the room is several shades lighter and brighter; in the spring it is a darker brown.
Of course currently the dining room and kitchen have a pink cast: a massive redbud fills the eastern windows, what isn’t filled by this is taken over by a Japanese maple slips, and a Wolf River apple is in full bloom on the west. It is a good thing that blue, rose, and gold play well with pink flowers!
Photo of the Day Wednesday, May 8 2013
gardening and Landscapes and Modern Photos gardening, photography, wordless wednesdays 10:13
yesterday afternoon, from the big garden looking south.
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On names Tuesday, May 7 2013
Genealogy 09:09
and genealogy. Esperanza is so inextricably linked to the first two generations (Julie Palmer/Morris Smith) and Helen Yale Smith/William Webster Ellsworth) that it is weirdly easy to overlook the next ninety odd years of influence. I was flipping through some documentation relating to one of my long term projects, the transcription of the Mavourneen‘s logs, when I hit an amusing factoid. George Creevey, who married Lucy, the daughter of Helen/WWE, had a motor yacht named Mavourneen. His brother William had a motor yacht by the name of Eileen in 1912. Now the question arises, did William name the yacht after George’s daughter, Eileen born in 1910, or was George’s daughter named after the yacht? The problem being that I don’t know how old the yacht was… In either case, that George and William were close to their Scots-Irish roots, despite several generations in the Adirondacks seems clear.
Jewelry Sunday, May 5 2013
Esperanza 10:17
People tend to make a huge fuss over New England’s fall foliage; but I tend to think that there are a fleeting few days in spring that are just as spectacular. For perhaps 48 hours, every spring, the sugar maples’ flowers are out, ahead of all the leaves on the other mature trees. Looking at a hillside one will see each sugar maple picked out, as if with a very fine, dry watercolor brush in shimmering chartreuse on a backdrop of an infinite grey/brown/red. The chartreuse is almost see through, so the big limbs, the trunks, the trees beyond are all still visible; but each bud has broken forth with these long dangling flowers, several inches in length. The effect vanishes as other buds open, but just for those hours it is an amazing spectacle.
This shot of the meadow, taken a few years back, gives a hint.
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Watching the Game Saturday, May 4 2013
Historic Photos and Historical Events historical photographs 14:38
early 1920’s. The tennis court doesn’t look like that anymore (which is fine, none of us play tennis). For the plumber, note the spigot there in the lower right, now which mystery pipe do you suppose That is?
The only positively identified individuals are the three closest: George Creevey in the rocker with the most impressive pipe, William Webster Ellsworth with the white moustache, and Eileen Creevey closest to the camera on the bank (shorts and glasses), the boy looking at the camera might be Kennedy Creevey, but he could easily be the boy looking away too.
I should add, that according to the series, the people playing tennis also dressed in the same fashion, actually one has a tie and a hat on…
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Living Memories Friday, May 3 2013
We have, out in the big garden, two lovely Chinese Chestnuts. I am not sure of their exact species. They are, as far as I can tell, dwarfs. In twenty years* they have not grown appreciably larger than about fifteen feet in height and spread. They are quite elegant in their outline and have spectacular yellow/pink/white flowers every year (the hummingbirds adore them). Two years ago, they managed to have fertile seeds. I knew of only one seedling, and carefully tended it in a pot before planting it in prime location this spring. In the week since, I have found two others.
They are lovely trees. But they are also memorials. For me, the two mature ones are inextricably linked to my grandmother, Eileen. They were well loved by her. I presume she planted them when she was still able to garden. Shortly after she planted them, for a myriad of reasons, the garden became an impossible, overrun tangle of Norway maple seedlings and weeds. That they are now focal points of the garden, how I wish I could share that with her. They are, I suspect, (though I shall never know) a dream of a lovely garden deferred a generation. In them there is a lesson: what comes after cannot be controlled, what looks like failure may not be, for even as we fail it may be that in our failure we have cast dormant seeds that will succeed. Victory even in darkness.
*As far as I can tell they are nearly the same size as when I started wandering about in an overgrown tangle as a teenager.
Tulips and Daffodils Thursday, May 2 2013
gardening and Modern Photos gardening 10:20
A group of flowers in the big garden. Theoretically, these are ‘Albert Heijn’ and ‘Flaming Purissima’ tulips with ‘Van Sion’ daffodils. The ‘Flaming Purissima’ is definitely correct, they are the taller streaked pink/white ones. The ‘Albert Heijn’ is a little uncertain. They are the right shape; but the color is not quite what we had expected. It is a lovely color, but more towards salmon than purple. Hard to say why.
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Acair Fearann 