The wonder of electricity through a timer, lights greet the sunset offering cheer until, precisely 4 hours later, surrender to the night UNLESS there is a power outage and the lights return for a renewed countdown.
Pushing Back….
…Darkness
Category: Holidays
Santa Elf Spotted…..
….on paddle board.
She was captured via IPhone coming…..
….and going on the Cayuga Inlet off Cass Park, Ithaca, New York, on a December afternoon.
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Visitor from the Good ‘ol Days
Our animatronic skiing snowman has entertained and terrorized a generation of grandchildren.
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Our Solo Thanksgiving Feast
We spread our Thanksgiving goodies over three meals for our 2020 solo celebration.
Breakfast: Homemade Apple Pie (Grannie Smith Apples), Coffee with foamed milk and cinnamon
Lunch: Relish plate, sour cream onion dip, potato chips (avocado oil), Irish cheddar cheese and crackers, Dr. Frank Pino Noir
The roses are the last blooms from our garden.
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
On the Tain Way, repost
A place of myth and wonder on foot and approachable
Click me to visit this Ireland post.
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Creeping up on 900 Readers….
….and a photographic gallery.
As of June 9, 881 is the count of subscribers to this blog, an interesting number. The individual numerals sum to a prime number, 17. I appreciate each and every “1” added together, you readers. Thank You.
Today, June 20, 5:44 pm Eastern Daylight Time, is the Summer Solstice for our Northern Hemisphere, the longest day of the year.
Here is a selection of images from past posts.
Click any photograph for a slide show. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.
The trail at Petrohue Falls is packed with tourists on a sunny summer afternoon. 
Pam and Mike Wills stayed with Marantha House B&B, during our Spring 2014 Ireland Tour. It was our base in County Cork. Our day of arrival, that evening, I visited Charlemagne and fed him an apple, saved from dinner. We learned from our hosts, Olwen and Douglas Venn, he is a retired show horse they rescued. The following morning I visited Charlemagne again with an apple and my camera. As I walked up, starting from the far end of his field, Charlemagne rewarded me with a series of astounding poses, trotting toward me in fine form. The morning mists, hawthorn in bloom, distant hills came together for this memory. 
Newlyweds on Cocoa Beach waiting for the photographer in a perfect early evening light. A cruise ship departing from Port Canaveral in the distance. 
Trillium bloom April through May in central New York State. I found these blooming on the rim of Fillmore Glen near Owasco Lake and the town of Moravia. 
Don Roberto is on the bow 
Mexican Poppies bloomed in profusion throughout the Superstitions after the plentiful winter rains of 2008. 
Pamela and Michael Wills with Iceberg Glacier, Bernardo O’Higgins National Park, Fjord Tempanos, Chile aboard the Oceania Regatta 
A swan and cygnet feeding from the pristine waters of the River Cong, County Mayo, Ireland. Outside the door of Ashford Castle. 
Ocotillo Sunset 
The crest of the Portugest Man of War is very visible in the water, the sac can be inflated/deflated to catch the wind or even sink the organism to escape surface feeders. 
Another solution to the crooked horizon is to level, crop, and build out the lost portions, as I did here. Very time consuming….better to keep the horizon level in the camera, difficult for me to remember. 
Taken from the entrance. 
Hydrangea Ensenada ClubAleman Chile February 15, 2016 
Click Me for my Shutterstock Gallery
Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Mouse Collection
Happy Mother’s Day
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.
Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Drying Butterfly…..
….on a Sonic Drive-In Order Station.
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.
Click photograph for the slide show. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.
Copyright 2020 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Creeping up on 800 Readers….
….or 800 creeping up on me.
797 is the count of subscribers to this blog, an interesting number. The individual numerals sum to a prime number, 23. The first and last can be swapped to yield the same number. I appreciate each and every “1” added together, you readers. Thank You.
Here is a selection of images from post posts.
Click any photograph for a slide show. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.
The trail at Petrohue Falls is packed with tourists on a sunny summer afternoon. 
Pam and Mike Wills stayed with Marantha House B&B, during our Spring 2014 Ireland Tour. It was our base in County Cork. Our day of arrival, that evening, I visited Charlemagne and fed him an apple, saved from dinner. We learned from our hosts, Olwen and Douglas Venn, he is a retired show horse they rescued. The following morning I visited Charlemagne again with an apple and my camera. As I walked up, starting from the far end of his field, Charlemagne rewarded me with a series of astounding poses, trotting toward me in fine form. The morning mists, hawthorn in bloom, distant hills came together for this memory. 
Newlyweds on Cocoa Beach waiting for the photographer in a perfect early evening light. A cruise ship departing from Port Canaveral in the distance. Trillium bloom April through May in central New York State. I found these blooming on the rim of Fillmore Glen near Owasco Lake and the town of Moravia. 
Don Roberto is on the bow Mexican Poppies bloomed in profusion throughout the Superstitions after the plentiful winter rains of 2008. Pamela and Michael Wills with Iceberg Glacier, Bernardo O’Higgins National Park, Fjord Tempanos, Chile aboard the Oceania Regatta A swan and cygnet feeding from the pristine waters of the River Cong, County Mayo, Ireland. Outside the door of Ashford Castle. Ocotillo Sunset 
My son, Sean, and I traveled to New York City for the first Saint Patrick’s Day parade after September 11, 2001. Every one there shared in the pride and resolve of the New York City Fire Department delegation. They had a huge presence. All of 5th Avenue from side to side, as far as we could see, was full of firemen. Each held a full size American flag, so there was a block of American flags up the street. I composed this image to capture the feeling of this moment.
Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
2020 Already?
2019 flew by
Click photograph for the expanded view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.
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.
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 