travel – Page 26 – Michael Stephen Wills Photography

Lib Slope Hickory

the largest and brightest yellow canopy on Libe Slope.

October 19, 2023October 18, 2023 MichaelStephenWills14 Comments

Libe Slope

Cornell University is on a west-facing hill above Cayuga lake. Libe Slope is between the West Campus and Quadrangle / Libraries.

Besides the exercise of walking the 18 degree incline several times each day, Cornell students and alumni remember The Slope for autumn color.

Built in 1868, McGraw Hall has the honor of having the first of Cornell’s towers. The building is built of Ithaca stone and is home to the American Studies Program, Department of History, Department of Anthropology, and Archaeology Intercollege Program. The first floor of McGraw Hall houses the McGraw Hall Museum, a collection of roughly 20,000 objects from around the globe used for teaching by the Anthropology Department.

Hickory

This is a Pignut Hickory (Carya glabra), the largest tree according to a 2009 Campus Tree Inventory (see link, below).

click pic for my OnLine Gallery — Seen from the north on a cloudy October day, this Pignut Hickory (Carya glabra) is the largest tree on the Cornell Campus, at 79 inches in diameter.

This hickory grows south of the Johnson Museum and among the autumn glories, it is the largest and brightest yellow canopy on Libe Slope.

Contrast

I remember this hickory for the contrast between the canopy and trunk, the way the clumps of yellow hang from dark boughs. An overcast day is the best to capture this spectacle. October 20, 2012 provided both bright sun and dark, rolling autumn clouds. I waited on the north side, sheltered from the glare of the sky, for these perfect moments.

Leaves and Nuts

The pignut hickory is native to these Eastern United States. It is known to favor moist slopes and this specimen has thrived on The Slope. The ground beneath it is thick with nuts.

One week later as Hurricane Sandy approached the east coast

Just one week later, late afternoon on a sunny Friday as hurricane Sandy approached the east coast the hickory has fewer, tawny golden leaves.

Wonderful Flow of Limbs among Gold

References

A Photo Tour of Key Buildings at Cornell University by Allen Grove

Websites

Cornell Tree Inventory

Lucifer Falls Slide Show

Autumn at Treman Park

October 18, 2023October 16, 2023 MichaelStephenWills10 Comments

Pam and I visited Treman for our last visit of 2017. It was a bright, warm October afternoon. Here is a slide show of our experience, the details shared in recent postings. Enjoy!!

Click photograph for a larger view. To do this from WordPress Reader, you need to first click the title of this post to open a new page.

Lucifer Falls Overlook from the Gorge Trail — Brink of Lucifer Falls

In November the gorge is closed for the winter due to dangerous conditions under the steep, crumbling walls. Robert H. Treman New York State Park.

Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

History and Ghosts of the Triangle T Ranch

1975 University of Arizona alumnus recounts annual homecoming trips and an encounter with a haunted ranch.

October 17, 2023October 16, 2023 MichaelStephenWills16 Comments

In my Homecoming Parade 2003, I described my initial reconnection with the University of Arizona (U of A) as a 1975 graduate and alumnus. This personal project of involvement with U of A and Arizona continued through 2011 with annual autumn trips to coincide with Homecoming. The travel was as a CALS (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences) Alumni Board of Directors member, a primary responsibility was raising funds for scholarships.

I met, Linda Kelly, the owner of the Triangle T Guest Ranch, while camping in the Chiricahua Mountains. I arrived a week before homecoming to photograph the landscape, nature and rock formations of the Chiricahua National Monument. Click this link for my Arizona Online gallery, including some work from that time. Linda and a friend were visiting that day and we struck up a conversation about the area and her Triangle T Guest ranch. The next day I was scheduled to guest lecture a class at the U of A, as an alumnus of CALS. The ranch was on the way and I needed a place to stay, so Linda gave me directions and I checked in.

She gave me a tour of the incredible weather granite rock formations of Texas Canyon and, meanwhile, shared stories of the history of Texas Canyon. It is appropriate for the Amerind Foundation to be here (see first photograph), the winter camp of an Apache tribe for generations.

Weathered granite boulders greet visitors to the Triangle T Ranch.

That night, my request was for a room storied to be haunted by a spirit they call “Grandma,” as in when her footsteps wake you from a sound sleep you say, “It’s all right, Grandmother.” She woke me that night, footsteps in the dark, hollow on the wood floor, the room filled with a hard cold. I talked to her, without a response, while swinging my legs out of bed to reach the gas heater in the wall. I turned on the heat and the sound of expanding metal heat fins lulled me to sleep.

It made a good story for the students. They were surprised I could fall back asleep, but after all I had to be there the following morning.

I gave Linda a few of my photographs from that day and we made arrangements for the Triangle T to supply a two night package for the CALS “Dean’s Almost World Famous Burrito Breakfast” silent auction during 2008 homecoming.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Newgrange VIII

The Newgrange facade and kerbstones consists of stones from various locations, believed to be transported by sea and river.

October 16, 2023October 16, 2023 MichaelStephenWills

The Newgrange façade and entrance of today is a creation from the large quantity of small stones unearthed and conserved during excavation given form by a steel-reinforced concrete retention wall.

The brilliant white quartz cobblestones were collected from the Wicklow Mountains, 31 miles to the south. Our guide called them “sunstones” for the way they reflect sunlight. In the following photograph is white quartz, the same excavated 1967-1975 from the Newgrange site and incorporated into the facade, I collected from “Miners Way” along R756 (above Glendalough).

You can also see in these photographs dark rounded granodiorite cobbles from the Mourne Mountains, 31 miles to the north. Dark gabbro cobbles from the Cooley Mountains and banded siltstone from the shore at Carlingford Lough both locations on the Cooley Peninsula where my mother’s family still has farms.

The stones may have been transported to Newgrange by sea and up the River Boyne by fastening them to the underside of boats at low tide. None of the structural slabs were quarried, for they show signs of having been weathered naturally, so they must have been collected and then transported, largely uphill, to the Newgrange site. The granite basins found inside the chambers also came from the Mournes.

Geological analysis indicates that the thousands of pebbles that make up the cairn, which together would have weighed about 200,000 tons, came from the nearby river terraces of the Boyne. There is a large pond in this area that is believed to be the site quarried for the pebbles by the builders of Newgrange.

Most of the 547 slabs that make up the inner passage, chambers, and the outer kerbstones are greywacke. Some or all of them may have been brought from sites either 3 miles away or from the rocky beach at Clogherhead, County Louth, about 12 miles to the northeast.

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Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Newgrange VII

Approaching Newgrange for the first time

October 15, 2023October 16, 2023 MichaelStephenWills4 Comments

Michael Joseph “Brian” O’Kelly was selected to undertake the direction of the excavation of Newgrange during a 1961 meeting of “those who had a professional interest in the monument” organized by PJ Hartnett, the archaeological officer with Bord Fáilte Eireann (Irish Tourist Board) and a former pupil of Professor O’Kelly’s. Excavation commenced in 1962 and continued every summer for a four-month season up to and including 1975.

The aim of the excavation was to discover as much as possible about the archaeological and historical context of Newgrange and the people who built it and to discover what its original finished appearance was so as to direct a reconstruction, conservation and restoration of the structure to its former condition and appearance.

The last year of excavation was 1975, Michael J. wrote “We determined in 1975 that that should be our last season of excavation at Newgrange. We had investigated approximately one third of the structure and we had discovered much about it that was new, both in its structure and in its ornament, while radiocarbon had pushed its date back by 1,000 years……”

“…We felt that the other two thirds should be left for a future excavator, who, working with new knowledge and perhaps with better methods and new scientific approaches, should have large areas untouched by us in which to test, check and re-evaluate our findings.” From The Restoration of Newgrange by Michael J.O’Kelly. Antiquity LIII, 1979.

“Between the bright sky and the long glittering silver ribbon of the Boyne the land looks black and featureless. Great flocks of starlings are flying across the sky from their nighttime roosts to their daytime feeding places. The effect is very dramatic as the direct light of the sun brightens and casts a glow of light all over the chamber. I can even see parts of the roof and a reflected light shines right back into the back of the end chamber.” The recorded words of Prof O’Kelly spoken in the tomb of Newgrange on the 21st December 1969.

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Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Newgrange VI

Newgrange and Knowth mounds were built and stabilized by structural experts.

October 14, 2023October 16, 2023 MichaelStephenWills1 Comment

At the same time as the passage and chamber were being built, work on the mound was going ahead.

At Newgrange, and the main mound at Knowth, an area around the tomb was left clear for a platform of stones to encase and stabilize the chamber roofs.

Once the passage roof was complete, structural experts returned to the kerb and continued to set the slabs in place — either in sockets or on prop stones, so as to achieve an even top-line all-round the mound.

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Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Newgrange V

Newgrange construction involved meticulous planning, stone architecture, artistry, and astronomical understanding.

October 13, 2023October 21, 2023 MichaelStephenWills7 Comments

The initial task for the builders of Newgrange involved recording the annual alignment of the rising sun over several years, which was likely achieved using timber posts as markers. Subsequently, the dimensions of the passage and chamber were determined, and the groundwork was prepared by digging sockets for the structural stones. This excavation process was carried out using antler picks and shovels crafted from cattle shoulder blades.

After the structural stones were carefully positioned and levered into their sockets, lintel stones for the passage could be lifted into place. The corbelled roofs of the cross-shaped tombs were built with great skill and finally capped by one slab. Sturdy timber scaffolding and bracing must have been used. As the stones were set in place, carvers and artists decorated the stones.

The whole process must have been overseen by social or religious leaders; the building of the tombs shows great skill in working and building with stone and knowledge of architecture, megalithic art and astronomy.

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Newgrange IV

How we sheltered at the time of Newgrange construction

October 12, 2023October 11, 2023 MichaelStephenWills

The Brú na Bóinne Visitor Center includes this tableau of the shelter of the ancient farmers who constructed Newgrange: the monument is in the background.

Notice the wicker fence in tableau foreground.

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Newgrange III

October 11, 2023October 16, 2023 MichaelStephenWills5 Comments

How the builders of Brú na Bóinne clothed themselves

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Newgrange II

Early Irish farmers introduced crops and domesticated animals, aided by milder climate.

October 10, 2023October 16, 2023 MichaelStephenWills7 Comments

The people who built the passage tombs at Brú na Bóinne and elsewhere in Ireland were farmers, a way of life which by this time had become well established in Ireland. All the mainstays of early farming life — cereals such as wheat and barley, and domesticated animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and goats — were introduced to Ireland by early farmers. T

he climate was warmer and drier than it is today which meant that the growing season was longer and winter was shorter and milder. The main crops grown appear to have been emmer wheat and naked barley. Flint knives and blades were used for cutting meat. Simple wooden ploughs with stone tips were probably used.

The cattle were Bos taurus longifrans, large animals with forward facing horns which were kept primarily for farm work and meat. Cattle may also have been important in a ceremonial sense; cattle bones were sometimes placed in a very deliberate way in the ground. Sheep were probably like Soay sheep today, without a woolly fleece and probably used mainly for their meat. Dog and pig bones have also been found.