Category: Decorative

A Personable Tree

Gifts from the past

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Pam and I ambled around the Arboretum for our Easter 2023 outing. Found here growing outside native range, being the Appalachian Mountains from Georgia to southern Pennsylvania, the Table Mountain Pine is named after the landform, not a particular mountain.

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All photography using the IPhone 14 ProMax triple camera, raw format, edited on the phone.

Its pinecones drew me to this scraggly, ungainly, poorly formed tree. All general mankind finds useful in the, scientific name, Pinus pungens, otherwise known as Hickory Pine, Prickly Pine and Mountain Pine, is to grind it up for pulp or chop it for tinder.

Last of the Mohicans

That said, the final scene of the 1992 film The Last of the Mohicans takes place in a nice Pinus pungens stand on a rocky mountaintop in North Carolina.

Personality

The tree has personality. Pinus pungens is the Lonesome Pine of the 1908 novel The Trail of the Lonesome Pine by John Fox, and popularized in the Laurel and Hardy film Way out West: “On the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine” Several “Lonesome Pine” hiking trails have been waymarked in the Blue Ridge Mountains and elsewhere in the Appalachians.

Pinecone Bud

Pinus pungens prefers dry conditions and is mostly found on rocky slopes, favoring higher elevations, from 300–1,760 meters (980–5,770 ft) altitude. It commonly grows as single scattered trees or small groves, not in large forests like most other pines, and needs periodic disturbances for seedling establishment. The three tallest known ones are in Paris Mountain State Park, South Carolina; they are 26.85 to 29.96 meters (88 ft 1 in to 98 ft 4 in) tall.

Reference: “Pinus pungens” Wikipedia.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Bluestone Monuments

Gifts from the past

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Pam and I ambled around the Arboretum for our Easter 2023 outing. A type of sandstone popular with Cornell monument builders, called “Lenroc” after a mansion build by Cornell’s founder, was used for these benches built into the hillside of the FR Newman Arboretum. The views are more interesting than the bench, the arch of stone in midground in one photo.

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All photography using the IPhone 14 ProMax triple camera, raw format, edited on the phone.

The stone is mined locally from surrounding hills. Calling it “Lenroc” (Cornell spelled backward) is a misnomer as the stone is mined widely throughout the region.

Feldspathic Greywacke

“Bluestone from Pennsylvania and New York is a sandstone defined as feldspathic greywacke. The sand-sized grains from which bluestone is constituted were deposited in the Catskill Delta during the Middle to Upper Devonian Period of the Paleozoic Era, approximately 370 to 345 million years ago…..

Glacial Landscape on an early spring day, Easter 2023

Textures

…The Catskill Delta was created from runoff from the Acadian Mountains (“Ancestral Appalachians”). This delta ran in a narrow band from southwest to northeast and today provides the bluestone quarried from the Catskill Mountains and Northeastern Pennsylvania. The term “bluestone” is derived from a deep-blue-colored sandstone first found in Ulster County, New York.”

You can feel the origin of this bluestone from these macros of two pavers from a monument bench.

Reference: “Bluestone” Wikipedia.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Lake on Early Spring Afternoon

Out of Season Dandelion

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A willow, nurtured by Cayuga Inlet waters, with a bench.

All photographs are from the Apple IPhone 14 ProMax, raw format and perfected on the phone.

Click Me for more photographic art from my OnLine Gallery, “Finger Lakes Memories.”

Stenciled on asphalt pavement along the Cayuga Lake Inlet, the white paint delimits dandelion flower stalk and seedhead, mostly denuded, with floating seeds held aloft by the pappus.

A circular bench that has seen better days, a hollowed out tree trunk repurposed as a children’s playgound house, picnic benches and, in background, a portion of the Farmer’s Market pavilion, to the right is Johnson Boatyard, Cayuga Inlet and lake. This is the Steamboat Landing, historically the southern port on Cayuga Lake. The entire area is long overdue for a facelift.

Painted on the side of restroom building, various shades of blue, black outlines, something or other holding a trident surrounded by fanciful fish.

On the trail to Lighthouse Point, this tree is in fine winter form on this early spring afternoon in March. Newman Municipal Golf Course

Cayuga Lake Views from Lighthouse Point

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Anniversary Tableau and Cards

Trunks Entwined

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Pam created this tableau in our den to celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary.

My card to Pam is on left, Her’s to the right. Pam presented these ceramic elephants to Michael on their 14th Wedding Anniversary, Monday, March 20, 2023. Ivory is the traditional gift for the 14th.

Pam’s card is a illustration of solid and variegated  tulips, a spring flower.

On Michael’s card is a Spine-cheeked ClownFish. This fish species lives among the tentacles of the Bubble-tip sea anemone, also in photograph. “Both organisms form a symbiotic relationship: the clownfish will rarely stray more than a few yards from its stinging tent of protection. The anemone benefits from the darting antics of the clownfish, which protect the anemone from its predators.” Quote from the Sierra club. Photograph on card by Mike Bacon.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Anniversary Floral and Card

Fourteenth

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I created this floral arrangement for Pam on Monday, March 20, 2023 for our 14th Wedding Anniversary.

All photographs are from the Apple IPhone 14 ProMax, raw format and perfected on the phone.

Click Me for more photographic art from my OnLine Gallery, “Finger Lakes Memories.”

The arrangement is composed of Pussy Willow, “Lollipop” chrysanthemums, Blue Larkspur (Delphinium) and an unidentified pink flower the grows from a spike, like the Larkspur.

On the card is a Spine-cheeked ClownFish. This fish species lives among the tentacles of the Bubble-tip sea anemone, also in photograph. “Both organisms form a symbiotic relationship: the clownfish will rarely stray more than a few yards from its stinging tent of protection. The anemone benefits from the darting antics of the clownfish, which protect the anemone from its predators.” Quote from the Sierra club. Photograph on card by Mike Bacon.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Musclewood

Memorial

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Another Cayuga Waterfront Trail stop is this memorial. The plaque reads ” ‘Grandpa’ (Ironwood) Trees in memory of John A. ‘Jack’ Dougherty; June 15, 1927 – March 12, 1995; City of Ithaca 1949-1989, Retired as Superintendent of Public Works.” Located near the intersection of Pier Road and Willow Avenue, Newman Golf Course, Ithaca, Tompkins County, New York. That is an Ironwood tree, midgound center.

The American Hornbeam (scientific name: Carpinus caroliniana) is also known as Musclewood for the rippled surface of the mature trunk. Other names are blue-beech, ironwood and muscle beech.

Nestled on the trunk……

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Goal Achieved

Here and There

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This week I hiked the entire waterfront trail from end to end, just not in one day.

Informational Signage at the Ithaca Farmers Market.

Ithaca has competitions for the honor of decorating storage buildings, electrical boxes and other urban accoutrements.

The Ithaca Farmers Markets is a venue for local farmers, artists and others, on the shore of Cayuga Lake and a stop on the Waterfront Trail.

Generations of children enjoyed this figure while turning and round on this now discarded spinner.

Stewart Park, Ithaca, New York

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Christmas Ornaments

The Nutcracker

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Our Nutcracker wooden figure carries a weight of memories.  Early memories are of my sister, Christina’s Sugar Plum Fairy solo for Saint Aidan Parish talent program, Mom’s appreciation of performance of Swan Lake in her pre-child past, a friend of my Mom was a former dancer who taught Christina ballet.  Hanging quietly, these memories swirl around the Nutcrackers open maw.   

Click this photograph for my Fine Art Photography gallery.
Click this photograph for my Fine Art Photography gallery

Thirteen years ago we observed New Years Day 2009 in the lobby of Winthrop Medical Center, Mineola, New York waiting for the outcome of Mom’s hip replacement surgery grateful the head of Orthopedics was performing the surgery.  That year saw large changes played out in the last four years of her life, she never returned to her home of 52 years.  

From then on her winters were spent with her daughter Diane in Mesa, Arizona.  Mom would call us, amused at the sight of neighbors walking by in 50 degree weather in winter parkas.  She was well known in Albertson for her habit of walking everywhere, it was fortunate she never needed to learn how to drive a car: all she needed was readily at hand.  

I needed to return to Albertson several times a year to our childhood home.  December 2009, Pam and I melded the trip with a day in New York City.  Memories of Mom’s enjoyment of Swan Lake drew me to purchase tickets for The Nutcracker.  The New York City Ballet has performed The Nutcracker every Christmas season since 1954, when I was one year old.  The 56th performance was our first. 

As with Dante’s version of hell, the David H. Koch Theater has rings.  I sprang for the highest ring, the fourth, the least costly and, optimistically, the best vantage to view the formations of grouped dancers.

A full orchestra is dedicated to each performance, the hall acoustics are fabulous, and we were able to appreciate the scenes, the grouped dancers and, even, the soloists.  The last scene of the first act, the Snowflakes (or Snow Crystals), brought tears to my eyes, the music, the scene was impossibly beautiful and brought back some experiences of mine in winter nature.

We were hooked after that, immersed in the very real (i.e., non-virtual) alternate reality at least two Sunday afternoon performances each year, seeing all Tchaikovsky’s ballets in the style of Balanchine for which the New York Ballet is famous.  For the 59th season of The Nutcracker were brought two granddaughters, took fourth third row orchestra seats.  We marveled at the experience.  It included, during intermission, a photo session with a character from the performance.

Here they are with a Snowflake.  This is a scan of one of the 8 x 10 prints we received from this session.

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Nia and Gabby with the Nutcracker Ballet character “Snowflake” during the intermission of a December 2012 performance.

 

We planned to share a performance of Swan Lake with Mom during the September 2013 season, in her 90th year.  Mom passed away in her birth month, June, 2013.  

Click this link for another Christmas postinhg.

Autumn Wonder

Cornell Botanical Gardens

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“Cornell Botanic Gardens is a living museum with a mature botanic garden and arboretum—part of what makes Cornell one of the most beautiful campuses anywhere. We steward over 3,600 acres of biologically diverse landscapes that represent the full range of ecological communities found in the Finger Lakes region.” — from their web site

Pam and I need venture no farther than across the valley, from West to East Hill, for an experience of autumn in all its glory. These IPhone 7 photographs and videos are from a recent visit.

We took in the artistry of the railing, the stone steps, gentle curves.

De Courcey Stairs

Buena Vistas

Granite boulders harvested for a Holocaust Memorial by Andy Goldsworthy
Sculpture Garden
Art Work

I marveled at the absence of Gypsy Moth egg masses on the Oak trunks, in spite of evident though modest leaf damage.

Labeled Diversity, specimens from the Oak Collection

Respite Bench
Encircled
Grand Oak
Striking Group
Ancient Red Oak Silhouette

Houston Pond is visible in several of the “Buena Vista” images…..

Houston Pond

Houston Pond reflections from the pavilion

Another version of reflections from Houston Pond taken from pavilion

Johnson Trail

“No Place Like Home” — Back on West Hill, our Japanese Maple was waiting for us.

Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Iron Grace

Spring Solstice is today

MichaelStephenWills17 Comments

A storage building fashioned into an overlook, just off South Pulteney Road, Route 76, as the road climbs the hillside. This cast iron decoration graces the fence around the roof. The building is built into the hillside, one edge level with the ground.

As far back as I can remember, over thirty years, yet unmarked on maps, this building and view has been part of the experience of Keuka Lake.  During that time, the fence was erected to protect us.  The place symbolizes the gracious hospitality of the Finger Lakes Region.

I caught this feature during an outing to Dr. Frank Winery, just a ways up the road, one day of an unusually cold early December.

Copyright 2021 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved