Category: Cultures

2020 Already?

2019 flew by

MichaelStephenWills22 Comments
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These were captured from the 2015 July Fourth fireworks at Ithaca’s Stewart Park. We have a clear view from our home’s front porch, the view is hampered somewhat by the wires, not registered when viewing but show up in photographs. The best shots, shown above, were from a Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L USM lens, the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III mounted on a Manfrotto studio tripod with hydrostatic ball head. ISO set to 1,600 and exposure set to 5 seconds. I started each shot when I heard the very first whooosh of the rocket.

Maybe I’ll set up on the roof for the 2020 July Fourth display? If Pam will let me.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Quaker Settlement Series 2

Gone too soon

MichaelStephenWills14 Comments

Joseph P. Lee, a middle aged gentleman with carvings of a mature willow flanked by urns. In the intervening 162 years the upper layers of slate flake at the edges.

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  • Born June 6, 1799 Died June 22, 1857 Lived 58 years and 16 Days

Rhoda Ann Mattison, a wife who died too young. What was the relationship of James and Rhoda to Catherine and John?

  • Rhoda Ann Mattison
    Born October 14, 1794 Diet April 8, 1822 Lived 27 years 5 months 20 days. Wife of James Mattison

The carving is a pineapple (for hospitality) set in a elegant vase on a plinth flanked by ionic columns, a simple arch (banded to imply a rainbow?) surmounts all. Cross hatching implies space. An implied eternal banding of stylized leaves as starbursts.

I brought out the characteristic slate coloring. There is evidence of ware from the intervening 197 years, though the carving is surprising crisp.

  • Rhoda Ann, detail

Slideshow of photographs in this series

  • Catherine A. and John Mattison
    Catherine A. Mattison Born 1792/1793, Death March 13, 1815. Lived 22 years. John Mattison, Death December 2, 1831, Born August 15, 1815 (5 months after Catherine’s Death), Lived 15 years, 3 months and 18 days.

Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Catherine A. and John Mattison

Quaker Settlement Series 1

Delving the past

MichaelStephenWills12 Comments
  • Taken from Perry City Road, NYS Route 142 on an early November afternoon.

On my way to Taughannock Falls, November 6, 2019 (see my post “Cuteness Break”, the first of that series) I explored a different route and came up this cemetery set among an appealing pine grove.

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  • A view of the Quaker Settlement Cemetery, taken from Jacksonville Road, NYS Route 143, on an early November afternoon.

Located in the town of Ulysses, New York there is a Quaker Settlement church a few feet further west on Perry City Road. I have Quaker ancestors, so took the opportunity to peruse the family names. The stones were unusually beautiful and touching, mostly local slate, some with intricate carvings.

Here is a headstone for two young people of the same family name. The white marble carved in the form of a willow, from the flowing lines and, knowing how our willows green up springtime, it calls to mind the same youthful greening as appropriate for two young people who lived 22 and 15 years.

Analysis of the dates, given in the following capture, tells the story of an young woman, a baby born 5 months after her death and who followed his aunt 15 years later.

  • Catherine A. and John Mattison
    Catherine A. Mattison Born 1792/1793, Death March 13, 1815. Lived 22 years. John Mattison, Death December 2, 1831, Born August 15, 1815 (5 months after Catherine’s Death), Lived 15 years, 3 months and 18 days.

I have a great aunt who also died young with a headstone naming her mother and father. Here is the granite headstone of Mary R. Daughter of George & Margarett Wills Died Oct. 3, 1886 Aged 20 years. Saint Mary of Assumption Cemetery, Sweetwater, New Jersey. My grandfather James Edward Wills was 9 years old at his sister Mary’s passing. He must have attended her church service and internment, standing at this spot.

Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

At Home with Tom and Hen Turkey

Thanksgiving Freedom

MichaelStephenWills14 Comments
The Catskill Mountains are not mountains. The Catskills started as a high plateau. Over eons, before the first humans, water, the sun, and wind carved high steep peaks: rounded, forested and teeming with life.
 
October 2008, on a return trip from my Mother’s house on Long Island, we traveled the winding road called “Route 17”, through the high autumn hillsides, one of our last trips to see her.  She broke her hip on New Year’s and lived with me and my sisters until her 2013 passing. 
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Route 17_FishsEddy_throughTheWindshield– CLICK ME!!!!

Fishs Eddy

We left Long Island early afternoon, as the sun passed over the western hills we stopped to explore a place called “Fishs Eddy”, a town on the banks of the Delaware River.

Delaware River at Fishes Eddy– CLICK ME!!!!

 
On the east side, facing sunset is a formation that would be a cliff if it was not for the hardwood trees growing from every available nook, crevice.  Everywhere a root could be sunk, roots fed trees that, one late October afternoon, made a hill bright with autumn.

Turkey Habitat

Turkeys live in this type of habitat. We took a trail, barely a road that climbed past failed farms and hunting shacks.

Catskill Hillside– CLICK ME!!!!

The Hens Flee

On a level place, in front of a ruined home, we came upon a Tom (male) turkey and his four hens. The hens fled at the sight of us.
 
With barely time to raise the camera I caught Tom and the last hen as she fled into the bushes.

Tom and Hen Turkey Flee the Scene– CLICK ME!!!!

Tom Turkey Defiant

I say she, because Tom stayed behind. He stood erect, all three feet of him, defiant and strutting in a direction opposite from the hens.

 

This is the bird Benjamin Franklin proposed as the national emblem of the new United State of America (the bald eagle won that competition).
Hunted into almost oblivion, across the United States the wild turkey is making a dramatic come back in many places, including the forests and farmland of rural New York State.

A Defiant Tom Turkey– CLICK ME!!!!

This fellow made no noise. His strutting posture and head bobbing said it all.
We left Tom Turkey in peace to his domain and hens.

Tom Turkey Stalks the Ruin– CLICK ME!!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, my friends.
Copyright 2018 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills