Category: American

A Day at Iron Kettle Farm

We miss you, Mom.

MichaelStephenWills6 Comments

One Saturday of October 2012 we enjoyed this last outing with my mother Catherine Ann Wills.  She passed away June 2013 at the age of 90 years.  We miss you, Mom.

A display of large pumpkins near the entrance to the Iron Kettle Farm.

Grand Entrance Display

Enter…if you dare….Corn Mazes are popular tourist attractions and are not simply corn fields. The plantings must be made later, planted thinner and fertilized less than those used for crops.

IronKettleFarm_121006--12

These small, inedible squash, once dried and hollowed out, become gourds. The plant is in the Cucurbitaceae family of the genus Lagenaria. The squash on this table are too small for anything but displays and decorations, such as centerpieces. Great fun and make and enjoy.

Ornamental Squash / Gourds

These ornamental squash, also know as cucurbita are not are large enough for use as food. When dried, will last a long time.

Ornamental Squash / Gourds

Take your pick of pumpkins….

Take your pick

…the pumpkins are sorted by size and price.

If you enjoy my work….click this link for my OnLine gallery. Your support is appreciated. Thank You.

The pumpkins are sorted....
We chose small to medium sized pumpkins.

Our choice.....
Thankfully, the trees kept to their usual habits and did not talk to us today.

Thankfully, the trees....
My dear wife, Pam, was in her element.  She loves gardening.

Pam, in her element
We left the wheelchair at home and Mom enjoyed exploring the exhibits, watching people and the exercise.

Mom was up and about this day...

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Late May, South Rim Trail

Dangerous Practices

MichaelStephenWills4 Comments

Today, I have a companion post to “A Summer Flower and Waterfalls” from a time of Coronavirus (COVID-19) from a walk cut short by inconsiderate people not following New York laws.

All photographs and videos are from an Apple IPhone 7.

Here is a long and close shot of Columbine Flowers thriving on the edge of a gorge cliff.

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With a video of the movement of this wildflower against a backdrop of flowing water over a 100 feet below.

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A scan of the upper gorge with some marvelous clouds.

Continuing onto the forest trail I spotted this Jack-In-The-Pulpit. Here is a photograph and short video.

My walk this day was cut short by joggers, unmasked, on the narrow trail. For each I stepped off to put 6 feet between us. So inconsiderate and unnecessary, selfish.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

First Water Trailhead, repost

A desert garden with plans

MichaelStephenWills

….Click me to visit this post of the Sonora Desert in bloom.

Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Mouse Collection

Happy Mother’s Day

MichaelStephenWills12 Comments

Here is a project completed for a “Fundamentals of Photography” refresher course. The task is to use a variety of lenses of my choice to document scene from my surroundings. These photographs document a family heirloom, mouse figurines collected by my wife, Pam’s, mother, Patricia Crist, assembled by Pam into two display cases with assorted figures created by Pam’s daughter, Denna.

24 mm wide angle fixed lens, f/22
50 mm fixed lens, f/6.3
70 – 300 variable lens, f/9.0
70 – 300 variable lens used for macro photography
Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Kite Encounter

catching the wind

MichaelStephenWills5 Comments

Awhile after encountering the hydrofoil the same north wind powered a large, eight foot wingspan kite high overhead. Cheri Down Park, my meeting point for lunch with Pam, was in sight as I took a detour to talk with the kite flier.

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Seated in a comfortable beach chair, he turned a one foot diameter reel pulling the kite in. Kite flying was a relaxation for this permanent resident. As the kite descended overhead I caught this short video. In retrospect the beauty is ominous, a metaphor for the approaching novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

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Copyright 2020 All Right Reserved Michael Stephen Wills Photograph

Bright Surf, High Tide

Invasion

MichaelStephenWills15 Comments

Morning walks through January 2020 were solitary events, more so on stormy morning such as this, January 23rd. Even the dog walkers stayed home. The surf surged to the dunes. Click me for my posting, “Rough Surf.”

Today’s photographs are a sequence of the surf’s high point. Click me for yesterday’s post including a video.

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The sun broke through between clouds to rake with light the beach scurf and wind scud. In the distance, a steady west gale blows surf onto itself as a white curtain.

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Copyright 2020 All Right Reserved Michael Stephen Wills Photography

Dawn Rough Surf High Tide

beyond belief

MichaelStephenWills5 Comments

At dawn I walked on the beach from North 1st street to South 8th Street Cocoa Beach. Tide was at peak of high, the surf still high from gale winds. Click me for yesterday’s posting, “Rough Surf.”

In the first video, set the effect of a strong west wind pushing surf spray back onto itself, the ocean brightly lit across dunes. I was standing on a boardwalk access from South 8th Street.

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South 8th Street is my turnaround, walking back the squall clouds broke, releasing sunlight for this video.

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Squalls returned, forcing me to hide the DSLR (digital single-lens reflex camera) under my waterproof shell. Then, the squall broken once again, releasing sunlight for this double rainbow.

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Click this link to visit “Man O War Beach Walk” on my blog.

Copyright 2020 All Right Reserved Michael Stephen Wills Photography

Drying Butterfly…..

….on a Sonic Drive-In Order Station.

MichaelStephenWills6 Comments

On Tuesday, December 17, 2019 a caterpillar dropped from vegetation to crawl across the parking lot of Sonic Drive-In, 2140 N Courtenay Pkwy, Merritt Island, FL 32953, crawl up an order station, affix its tail to the kelly green semi-gloss enamel, to form a chrysalis.

The afternoon of New Years Eve, 14 days later, we spied the Retro theme of this fast food business, finding it appealing, stopped for a hi-fat lunch of hamburgers, onion rings (“highly recommended, very delicious”) and (ha, ha) diet sodas, choosing this same order station where the emerged Brush-foot butterfly, of the family Nymphalidae, clung, drying in anticipation of flight.

Captured here with the Apple IPhone 8. I cannot identify the exact butterfly species this is. Source: wikipedia article on Nymphalidae.

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Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

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