Author: MichaelStephenWills

My photographic style centers on the use of natural light to visualize emotion and evoke memory. The evolution of my style began early in the year 2002, with an imperative to capture personal and fleeting memories. My son and I traveled to New York City, to view the first Saint Patrick's Day parade after September 11, 2001. My work from that parade was so successful and satisfying (see "New York Fire Department, Saint Patrick's Day 2002") I just never stopped.

Solid Doubles

2023, baseball, Cass Park, double, fall, hits, Ithaca, Little League, New York State, RBI, Tompkins County

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Our grandson’s work on baseball skills is paying off. Here he slugs one to right field where it bounces on the fence for a solid double. He had two doubles that game, driving in a couple of runs, scoring off one himself. Good work!!

“Carl Stotz, a resident of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, founded Little League Baseball in 1939. He began experimenting with his idea in the summer of 1938 when he gathered his nephews, Jimmy and Major Gehron, and their neighborhood friends. They tried different field dimensions over the course of the summer and played several informal games. The following summer, they felt that they were ready to establish what later became Little League Baseball. The first league in Williamsport had just three teams, each sponsored by a different business. The first teams, Jumbo Pretzel, Lycoming Dairy, and Lundy Lumber, were managed by Stotz and brothers George and Bert Bebble. The men, joined by their wives and another couple, formed the first-ever Little League board of directors.”

“The first league game took place on June 6, 1939 when Lundy Lumber defeated Lycoming Dairy, 23–8. Lycoming Dairy became the champions of the first half of the season and then defeated Lundy Lumber, the second-half champions, in a best-of-three championship series. The following year, a second league was formed in Williamsport, and from there Little League Baseball grew to become an international organization of nearly 200,000 teams in every U.S. state and in more than 80 countries.”

“From 1951 through 1973, Little League was restricted to boys only. In 1974, Little League rules were revised to allow participation by girls in the baseball program following the result of a lawsuit filed by the National Organization for Women on behalf of Maria Pepe. According to the Little League Baseball and Softball participation statistics following the 2008 season, there were nearly 2.6 million boys and girls in Little League Baseball worldwide. Of these, approximately 400,000 are registered in softball leagues (including both boys and girls). Starting in 2022, For tournament purposes, Little League Baseball is divided into 20 geographic regions: ten national and ten international. Each summer, Little League operates seven World Series tournaments at various locations throughout the U.S. (Little League softball and Junior, Senior, and Big League baseball and softball).”

Reference: text in italics and quotes is from the Wikipedia, “Little League.”

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved.

Farewell to the Monarchs for 2023

Monarch from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly

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Here are two of the ten monarchs we release this year. In under three minutes this video shows a monarch caterpillar transforming into a chrysalis, emerging two weeks later as a butterfly. Music “Emotional Underscores Vol. 3” by Yuri Sazonoff (SOCAN) “Can You Guess” and “Blessing”

“Migrating monarchs soar at heights of up to 1,200 feet. As sunlight hits those wings, it heats them up, but unevenly. Black areas get hotter, while white areas stay cooler. The scientists believe that when these forces are alternated, as they are with a monarch’s white spots set against black bands on the wings’ edges, it seems to create micro-vortices of air that reduce drag—making flight more efficient.”

“Monarchs begin leaving the northern US and Canada in mid-August. They usually fly for 4-6 hours during the day, coming down from the skies to feed in the afternoon and then find roosting sites for the night.  Monarchs cannot fly unless their flight muscles reach 55ºF. On a sunny day, these muscles in their thorax can warm to above air temperature when they bask (the black scales on their bodies help absorb heat), so they can actually fly if it is 50ºF and sunny. But on a cloudy day, they generally don’t fly if it is below 60ºF.“

“Migrating monarchs use a combination of powered flight and gliding flight, maximizing gliding flight to conserve energy and reduce wear and tear on flight muscles.  Monarchs can glide forward 3-4 feet for every foot they drop in altitude.  If they have favorable tail or quartering winds, monarchs can flap their wings once every 20-30 feet and maintain altitude. Monarchs are so light that they can easily be lifted by the rising air. But they are not weightless. In order to stay in the air, they must move forward while also staying within the thermal. They do this by moving in a circle. The rising air in the thermal carries them upward, and their overall movement ends up being an upward spiral. Monarchs spiral upwards in the thermal until they reach the limit/top of the thermal (where the rising air has cooled to the same temperature as the air around it). At that point, the monarch glides forward in a S/SW direction with the aid of the wind. It glides until it finds another thermal and rides that column of rising air upwards again.”

Reference: text in italics and quotes is from one of two online articles. “The monarch butterfly’s spots may be its superpower” National Geographic, June 2023 and “Fall Migration – How do they do it?” by Candy Sarikonda, September 2014.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Labor Day Stroll -I

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The top of Taughanock Falls is just visible above the trees in this view from the South Rim of the gorge on a sweltering Labor Day afternoon, September 4, 2023.

Click Me for this Finger Lakes Collection, a great place to visit.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

A Stunning Find

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After living here since 1986 I discovered this Cayuga Heights park on a warm early September day, 2023.

Looking across Cayuga Lake, not visible in the valley, to West Hill.

Plaque inscription: “Here may you too find the love of beauty, goodness, truth. This was the wish of Jane and Jared Newman when they presented Sunset Park to the village of Cayuga Heights in January of 1938.”

Rest on a limestone bench beneath a mature oak tree.

Limestone benches

View across Ithaca towards West Hill and, in the far distance, Connecticut Hill.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Edible

nonmigratory?

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Thursday last, grandsons Sam and Rory and I visited Sapsucker Woods, enjoying a late summer morning from a wooden observation platform over this watery swamp. “Look, hot dogs!!”

“Typha is a genus of about 30 species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. These plants have a variety of common names, in British English as bulrush or reedmace, in American English as reed, cattail, or punks, in Australia as cumbungi or bulrush, in Canada as bulrush or cattail, and in New Zealand as reed, cattail, bulrush or raupo.”

“Many parts of the Typha plant are edible to humans. Before the plant flowers, the tender inside of the shoots can be squeezed out and eaten raw or cooked. The starchy rhizomes are nutritious with a protein content comparable to that of maize or rice. They can be processed into a flour with 266 kcal per 100 grams, and are most often harvested from late autumn to early spring. They are fibrous, and the starch must be scraped or sucked from the tough fibers. Baby shoots emerging from the rhizomes, which are sometimes subterranean, can be picked and eaten raw. Also underground is a carbohydrate lump which can be peeled and eaten raw or cooked like a potato. The plant is one championed by survival experts because various parts can be eaten throughout the year. Plants growing in polluted water can accumulate lead and pesticide residues in their rhizomes, and these should not be eaten.”

“The rind of young stems can be peeled off, and the tender white heart inside can be eaten raw or boiled and eaten like asparagus. This food has been popular among the Cossacks in Russia, and has been called “Cossack asparagus”. The leaf bases can be eaten raw or cooked, especially in late spring when they are young and tender. In early summer the sheath can be removed from the developing green flower spike, which can then be boiled and eaten like corn on the cob. In mid-summer when the male flowers are mature, the pollen can be collected and used as a flour supplement or thickener.”

Click me for another Sapsucker Woods posting.

Reference: text in italics and quotes is from the Wikipedia, “Typha.”

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved.

Fragrant

Native Americans used it as a herbal remedy for a variety of ailments.

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Thursday last, grandsons Sam and Rory and I visited Sapsucker Woods, enjoying a late summer morning we clambered onto a wooden platform over a watery swamp.

Look closely for flowers and buds of the White Water Lily native to New York State. 

Although the young leaves of White Water-lily reportedly can be boiled and served as a vegetable, the main human use of this plant appears to have been medicinal. Native Americans used it as a herbal remedy for a variety of ailments, including colds, tuberculosis, bronchial complaints, toothaches, and mouth sores.

The many names for this plant: American White Waterlily, American White Water-lily, Fragrant Water-lily, Fragrant White Water Lily, Fragrant White Water-lily, Sweet Water-lily, Sweet-scented Water Lily, Sweet-scented White Waterlily, Tompkins County, Water, Water Lily, Waterlily, White Water Lily, White Waterlily, White Water-lily (Nymphaea odorata ssp. odorata)

Click me for another Sapsucker Woods posting.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved.