Jamestown (1/28/2016)

I drove the Colonial Parkway on the way back home today and snapped this picture of Jamestown Island and the calm James River today.  The water was like glass, the sky was grey, and it was very peaceful until a van with high school students stopped who were obviously on a school project. 

Took the day off today to go to a workshop at the Jamestown Settlement today.  It was a four hour course on"Nature Journaling."  While it was not exactly what I was hoping for, I did have a lot of fun and I did learn quit a bit.

The course was put on by the Jamestown/Yorktown Foundation and was part of a special antiques native plant botany exhibit that they have.  If you are a regular reader of my blog, that's right up my alley.  Yes, I was hoping to learn some tricks of the trade that I could use here in these blog entries, and I guess maybe I will some day.  Maybe I have entered the instant electronic gratification era with my digital photographs and the blog, and am I lost (forever) from the more elegant note taking of the past.

The 4 hour course was given by Betty Gatewood.  Betty is an absolutely delightful person with an energy that is enviable.  She is an amateur naturalist/water colorist; one of those renaissance people.  If you ever have a chance to take a class of her, don't hesitate!

What did I learn?  Journaling is not a crazy hobby or a way to pass time.  It can be beautiful and the way Betty does illustrates it, in particular with her quick drawings and small water colors, it is even very nice; a keepsake for future generations.  I asked her why she does it.  Things like this are very personal, you hope your children read it, and maybe you hope to ever get it published.  I think a lot of people I know are closet authors that hope to write their book and this is one overt way.  Some do however.  Journals from Thoreau, Leopold, McPhee, Hoagland, Ehrlich among others have had a huge influence on me, or the book that resulted from their (nature) journals.  This and some of the blogs I read are journals entries in their own way.  Somehow and for some reason I put them out there for the world to read.  My lame excuse is education and information.

Nature journals reflect your personal relationships with nature, I learned today.  It also chronicles changes over millenia and can document global warming.  So yes, I had a wonderful time, and I even learned how to tie die my journal (or paper) with shaving cream and food coloring!

I do write a lot about nature.  I think half my entries relate to it in one way or another.  It's precious and we need to protect it.  Betty taught us that by journaling, writing about it or drawing it, you observe it more closely and you become one with it:

I have learned that what I have not drawn, 

I have never really seen.

(F. Franck, arts and author of Zen of Seeing: Seeing/Drawing as Meditation)

I think the same hold true when you really describe it and write about it.  But one thing is for sure, get out there and enjoy nature!

York River (1/10/2015)

It was a cold but clear weekend, and so it was great to visit the museum in Jamestown.  We drove the "Parkway" on the way back and hit our favorite pull off just around sunset.  It was extreme low tide, and part of the mudflats were laying bare.  Moreover, there was no wind and the river was glass.  Took a number of experimental photos using the art filter on my camera.  Here is a normal one followed by a black & white manipulated one.  Donna remarked that it looked like Scotland out there.  We were in Scotland four years ago, and yes this reminded us a bit of Skye, minus the mountains and the vistas.  Honestly, we can find nice places even here on the Chesapeake Bay, that give you wonderful vistas and a great experience of nature.  Very different than what some might think of when you mention the east coast.  It is not that polluted, and even here you still can find solitude

.

I've never sailed up the York River, although it seems you could go even past West Point.  I really want to try it one of these days, but the river gets narrower and the wind should be right.  There are very few facilities up the river; the south side being mostly military.  It is amazing to see big warships and military freighters docked at facilities just past this point.  We kayaked the river once, a little further up the river, and boy it was rough that day; we even took on water.  I drive the Parkway almost every morning on my way to work.  At this spot I am always reminded that the world is round (sorry flat earth people).  When it is clear you can see smoke coming up from under the horizon.  The smoke comes from the saw mill in West Point.  Being 20 feet above the water line (at least) that would indicate that the plant is at least 8 nautical miles away (1.17.times the square toot of your the height of your eyes above the water in feet equals the distance in nautical miles ... see this wonderful website).  According to the map it is 20 miles, so the plumes I see in the morning are very tall can come from far below the horizon (my calculation show that at the point where the smoke comes above the horizon the plum is already 300 feet above the ground surface).  This is important for us sailors and boaters. 

Anyway a nice end to a chilly weekend.

Richmond (10/29/2014)

The one nice thing about working downtown in a larger city is often the sheer choice of places to eat lunch; although, there seemed to have been less choice when I started working in Richmond 5 years ago.  Yes you still have your Wendy’s, Hardy’s, Subways and Quiznos, but I think I have seen other places open, and then also, there has been an explosion of food carts.  Your choice is amazing, from an Indian food cart, to authentic Mexican tacos, to a Thai cart, a cart with more gourmet-like tacos, to carts that serve all kinds of wraps and salads.  It is really neat.  Contrast this with recent fights they had in Newport News about the placement of food cart placement.  I really wish there were more, as long as they are safe; but that is probably self regulating at least when they don’t kill their customers.

Regular readers of this blog know that I love to go for a walk during lunch time and I am always amazed by some of the big lines at these carts.  It is the social place to be; every so now and then on my walks I run into people I know.  They are patiently standing in a line at a cart and it is fun to talk to them for a bit.  Other times, the people standing in line take up more than half the sidewalk and it is difficult to walk.  But then on the sidewalk on the other side of the street are all the smokers and that’s a pain as well.   Breathing in secondhand smoke has been moved from the work/office environment to the environment where people do their lunch-time exercise or wait in line at food carts.  Somewhat ironic I would think, and it is the reason why I often escape to the park along the James River, or I walk around capitol square.  I need my walk and very often my Starbucks fix. 

Finally, another thing that is fairly common on the streets around lunch time are the beggars.  It is a shame that we still have people that need to collect money on the streets.  There is a lady who sells wilted roses, a guy without legs and your assortment of beggars that sit on the curb smoking cigarettes.  Being an ex-smoker, I do not think I would give to smokers in support of their habit, over food.  Others may say that giving them money support their begging habit and makes them lazy (see the article by Robert Reich that I reference below).  But so be it.  It is just sad to see that in a country as this there is still such a discrepancy in income or maybe a lack of income for some that people still need to beg.  It is a harsh reality, and it still makes me feel uncomfortable seeing them.  It amazes me too that there is such a lack of compassion and empathy (see also the article by Robert Reich).

Anyway, this is my entry to the weekly challenge by Cee Neuner.  This week’s challenge was to photograph feet.  Maybe not the best picture, but all these people are waiting at one of the favorite food carts in the area.  I like to take a picture at the time the challenge comes out.  This is not my best, but it shows what I meant when writing about the carts.  Actually amazing that everyone has their own space in this photograph and that there is obviously very little interaction going on in line.  To me everyone appears to be lonely in a crowd.

Colonial Parkway (6/27/2014)

I usually don't post two photographs (or entries) on the same day, but what the heck.
I desperately needed a haircut, so decided to drive to Wiliamsburg to get one.  I love driving the Colonial Parkway between Yorktown and Jamestown; although I stopped in Williamsburg this time.
The Parkway is part of the Park Service and considered part of National Park System.  For us it starts out along the Yorktown and ends in Jamestown, along the James River.  Jamestown is one of the first places the colonialists arrived, in particular captain John Smith.  Our area is also called the historic triangle.
Both rivers used to be very rich with seafood.  Over-fishing and pollution has really lowered the yields.  Having done a lot of historic (environmental) research in this area, I was amazed to learn that in the time of John Smith you could walk across the James river on top of oyster beds.  I've seen photos on downtown Norfolk where, during the turn of the century, they would convert oyster shells into lime.  They would harvest the oysters and in a lot of cases, not even eat them.  Oysters would go into kilns with coal and lime would come out the other side.
In addition, I have collected fishing data for my job, and found that in the past 30 years the amount and the type of fish caught by commercial and recreational fishermen has changed drastically.  Fish caught in large amounts 30 years ago, have disappeared and now they are catching different species and we are eating them as well.  This past week the state has announced crabbing limits.  We are catching too many crabs and the stock is not rebounding fast enough.  The same is the case with the menhaden.
Enough said, driving the Parkway, I got my horizon and water fix.  I love it and try to drive the road at least once a day during my commute to or from work.  You often see water men and their boats taking care of their crab pots and harvesting these delicacies.  This photo shows one of those boats.  There were a lot of crab pots in this area (which are a pain when you are sailing, but obviously great eating in the future).