Tag: 2023

Stone Bench Memorial

Old Testament

MichaelStephenWills

Pam and I ambled around the Arboretum for our Easter 2023 outing. We found a path new to us, with this memorial stone bench, a biblical quote engraved on the seats. Biblical Quote on bench: “What doth the lord require of thee / but to do justly and to love mercy / and to walk with thy god.” Micah 6:8

The Book of Micah is the sixth of the twelve minor prophets in the Hebrew Bible. Ostensibly, it records the sayings of Micah, whose name is Mikayahu (Hebrew: מִיכָיָ֫הוּ), meaning “Who is like Yahweh?”, an 8th-century BCE prophet from the village of Moresheth in Judah (Hebrew name from the opening verse: מיכה המרשתי). The book has three major divisions, chapters 1–2, 3–5 and 6–7, each introduced by the word “Hear,” with a pattern of alternating announcements of doom and expressions of hope within each division. Micah reproaches unjust leaders, defends the rights of the poor against the rich and powerful;[ while looking forward to a world at peace centered on Zion under the leadership of a new Davidic monarch. While the book is relatively short, it includes lament (1.8–16; 7.8–10), theophany (1.3–4), hymnic prayer of petition and confidence (7.14–20), and the “covenant lawsuit” (6.1–8), a distinct genre in which Yahweh (God) sues Israel for breach of contract of the Mosaic covenant.

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

In the quote tract, (6:6–8), Micah speaks on behalf of the community asking what they should do in order to get back on God’s good side. Micah then responds by saying that God requires only “to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Thus declaring that the burnt offering of both animals and humans (which may have been practiced in Judah under Kings Ahaz and Manasseh) is not necessary for God.

Reference: “Micah” Wikipedia

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

A Personable Tree

Gifts from the past

MichaelStephenWills2 Comments

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

MichaelStephenWills

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

Golden Gift

White on White

MichaelStephenWills

We mistook this magnolia tree for a “pussy willow” from its flower bud texture and shape.

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

The signage attached to a branch disabused us of this impression, incorrect all for being true until the flowers burst forth.

Magnolia “Golden Gift” Magnoliaceae

Description

A visually beautiful magnolia whose golden flowers bloom in abundance and persist well; a small tree or large shrub with a loosely pyramidal form and large relatively coarse leaves; flowers appear before the foliage; an ideal landscape or garden accent

Ornamental Features

Golden Gift Magnolia is covered in stunning fragrant gold cup-shaped flowers held atop the branches in early spring before the leaves. It has dark green deciduous foliage. The large pointy leaves turn coppery bronze in fall.

Landscape Attributes

Golden Gift Magnolia is a deciduous tree with a distinctive and refined pyramidal form. Its relatively coarse texture can be used to stand it apart from other landscape plants with finer foliage. This is a relatively low maintenance tree and should only be pruned after flowering to avoid removing any of the current season’s flowers. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Ancient

Magnolia is an ancient genus. Appearing before bees evolved, the flowers are theorized to have evolved to encourage pollination by beetles. To avoid damage from pollinating beetles, the carpels of Magnolia flowers are extremely tough. Fossilized specimens of M. acuminata have been found dating to 20 million years ago, and fossils of plants identifiably belonging to the Magnoliaceae date to 95 million years ago. Another aspect of Magnolia considered to represent an ancestral state is that the flower bud is enclosed in a bract rather than in sepals; the perianth parts are undifferentiated and called tepals rather than distinct sepals and petals. Magnolia shares the tepal characteristic with several other flowering plants near the base of the flowering plant lineage such as Amborella and Nymphaea (as well as with many more recently derived plants such as Lilium).

With a neighbor, Sycamore or “Buttonwood”

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Green Pillar

Unusual Oak

MichaelStephenWills

Pam and I ambled around the Arboretum for our Easter 2023 outing.

Click Me for “Finger Lakes Memories” my online gallery.

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

We marveled at this Pin Oak tree, unlike any other oak we have encountered.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Jack Pine

New York Native

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Pam and I ambled around the Arboretum for our Easter 2023 outing. Ezra Cornell had a large farm on the East Hill above Ithaca, New York. As part of locating New York State’s land-grant college in Ithaca, Cornell offered to donate the farm for use as a campus. Parts of this property remain in use as farmland. Our walk followed the outer Arboretum reaches along this research farm.

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

Growing off the road that loops around the Arboretum, this scraggly pine, the Jack Pine, attracted our attention by the grey colored growths curving around the branches 

Serotinous

These are pinecones with the unusual property of not opening, hanging onto the branch, turning this color, until the appropriate conditions arise, serotinous is the botanic term for this. They open when exposed to intense heat, greater than or equal to 50 °C (122 °F). The typical case is in a fire, however cones on the lower branches can open when temperatures reach 27 °C (81 °F) due to the heat being reflected off the ground. 

The Color of Younger Jack Pine Cones

Form and Behavior

Tolerant of conditions that preclude other trees, Jack Pines can form pure stands on sandy or rocky soil. It is fire-adapted to stand-replacing fires, with the cones remaining closed for many years, until a forest fire kills the mature trees and opens the cones, reseeding the burnt ground.

Native

Pinus Banksiana, Pinaceae, Jack Pine, Nova scotia to New York and Minnesota

Joseph Banks classified this pine during a 1766 expedition to Labrador and Newfoundland, the scientific name, Pinus Banksiana, is in his honor.  Jack Pine is native to eastern North America in the far north, south to northwestern Pennsylvania, including New York State.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

First Day

Spring Equinox

MichaelStephenWills3 Comments

Thank You for exploring with me the South Rim trail of Taughannock Falls State Park on this first day of Spring 2023.

Photographs with video from this walk, with nature sounds and music in 4K HD
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.
Here, before the epynmous creek flows over the falls, glacial outflow carved this deep canyon through relatively soft sedimentary rock.
Distant Lake View
The place for rest and wonder
Looking into the gorge
South Rim view of falls
Taughannock creek below the falls
Red Barn on Gorge Road, off South Rim rial.
Perched on the north rim of the gorge, the Visitor Center for the Falls Overlook is visible before trees leaf out.
On spring’s first day Taughannock Creek is full beneath the old railroad bridge, now a connector between South and North Rim Trails.
The creek here plunges into the chasm below a former railroad bridge.
Gorge from Railroad Bridge Walkway

Click me for another Taughannock post, “Cuteness Break.”

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

MichaelStephenWills9 Comments

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