on & off the five mile loop

After riding north on the Jamestown Ferry, I drove the five mile loop on Jamestown Island.











Though hardly a naturalist, I'd never seen this plant before.



One common name for it is American Beautyberry. I'd later see it growing near the river at Chippokes Plantation.





An osprey's nest, I guess . . .





I'm a sucker for wooden causeways.



And the places they cross.



After the five mile loop, I rode along the Colonial Parkway and stopped off by the James River. (Click here for sounds of the James that day.)





A distant view of Hog Island:

north on the Jamestown Ferry

Late September during an extended visit with family, I took the Jamestown Ferry just to cross the James River and feel the river breeze.

Here are some pictures while waiting at Scotland Wharf and riding north to Jamestown.





Below are a couple of the spare ferries, Surry and Virginia.



Virginia is one of those ferries I wish was running but rarely is when I ride. It has the open upper deck to take in a wide view of the river and feel the air. Great for a warm September day.






After boarding the ferry Williamsburg, here's a look back at Scotland Wharf from an upper deck window:



A heron on the pilings at Scotland Wharf:



Here we go . . .



Views of historic Jamestown:





Bridge on the scenic Colonial Parkway:



A whole other kind of bridge . . .



Abstracts of the deck's metal plating and painted markings:





The ships at Jamestown Festival Park:

heading south on the Jamestown Ferry

Posted out of sequence with the more recent north on the Jamestown Ferry. More images and tweaking of sequence to come . . .

ruins of old Smithfield

Old means: old to me, those things hereabouts as long or longer than me.

Sentimentality, nostalgia--they might be variants of emotional cancer undercutting what is now with what once was and is no more. A song like "Precious Memories" plays in the mind, each refrain an ebbing away from life as it is towards death.


Once way back as far as I can remember there was a Rich's Supermarket (now the True Value Hardware on Church Street), a Colonial Foods (in the now long gone shopping center where Gale's Furniture and the ABC store were), and Little's Supermarket.


Long after Rich's and Colonial Foods were history, Little's prevailed and was the only supermarket this side of town.

































But during my last visits down to this area back in January and May, the stock was low and it seemed the store would soon close. As it did on the 30th of June.




































In the 1970s, the Holland Haus restaurant opened. Ultimately, it became Angelo's. My mom & her friends would eat there often. Her 80th birthday party was held in the banquet room. I remember one of my first meals there I met up with my brother who was living in Churchland at the time. In the intervening years, both my sister and I when visiting would make a pilgrimage there for the steak sandwich and fries.

Since my last visit, all the Angelo's signage is down and the parking lot has been chained off.







On an up note, progress on the Schoolhouse Museum just next door to Little's seems pretty far along.

turkeys go roost

What were once turkey chicks (if I'm not mistaken) are now about full grown and roosting in the pines with the mother.

Above you can see one turkey (the mom, I think) working up the resolve to fly. Then a clip of the last of the other three turkeys flying up to roost. (I lost track of their roosting positions--so there's only three roosting turkeys in the final frame.)

Aunt Mimi online

Couple months ago, I posted a video of the acoustic duo Aunt Mimi playing out in the front yard.

Since then they've been playing clubs and such as you can see at their website.

If you're in Boston MA this Saturday night, they'll be playing from 10PM to 12:30AM at Porter's, 173 Portland Street.

Also some more info on Porter's.

penny postcards of Waverly & beyond

Thanks to a friend of a friend, a cool site of old penny postcards: http://www.rootsweb.com/%7Eusgenweb/special/ppcs/ppcs.html

Here's a for instance--a postcard image of Main Street in Waverly VA.

Originally posted on unterkayness.

hawk on wind vane

Our friend the hawk is perched on a wind vane on top of the Stone Library at the Adams National Historic Site in Quincy MA.


Here's the same vane without the hawk.


Closer views of the hawk . . .

add one butterfly

Along with dragonflies, moths & bees, a monarch butterfly showed up.

The barking of neighborhood dogs etc. has been replaced by an excerpt from a spacey instrumental of mine.

moths & bees & such

Starting with the "& such", we have a couple of dragonflies keeping watch.


Then our moths & bees . . .





And the silhouette of a lily--a lilhouette?