Newport News (1/29/2015)

Last night was a special evening, we went to see a concert of Zap Mama and Antibalas at the Ferguson on Newport News.  It was a great concert.  I could not help taking this classic picture during our walk from the parking garage to the concert hall:

The concert hall is on the campus of Christopher Newport University, and it was built not so long ago.  When we moved into the area in 2000 there was no Ferguson Center.

The concert was great!  It's a pity that it was not well advertised.  I never saw it announced in the newspaper or not even a small article on this wonderful lady.  Zap Mama has a interesting history.  She was born in the same country I was born (the Congo) in and I guess that gives me somewhat of an emotional alignment with her.  I have been following her music since the mid 1990 and like it a lot.  Hence my excitement of seeing her life.  It was absolutely fun.

Newport News Park (1/27/2015)

I have not been blogging very much this month.  Probably because I am busy and with the winter in full swing, we are kind of home bound.  But today I had to share something.  It snowed overnight, and if we are lucky we get one or two snow days each year.

Of course I needed to go for a walk this morning to see the effect of the snow on the ponds behind our home, and just to take it all in.  Actually amazing.  I am someone who was born and raised in the tropics and I generally do not like cold weather.  But snow, I always have to experience that.  That is something different.  Not that I always liked snow.  I remember as a kid visiting Elliot Lake Canada in early March.  We lived in Caribbean at that time and my parents had this bright idea to go to Elliot Lake in Ontario, somewhere at the end of a road between Sudbury and Salt St. Marie (the U.P. of Michigan).  You can imagine what I though of that.  It was cold and the snow was at least arm pit deep.  I was suffering, and then our hosts had this bright idea to go and roast wienies on the middle of a lake.  They build a campfire and we went to roast hot dogs on a stick.  Man was I cold.

Oh well, we had only and inch or so and it was a fun walk this morning.  I did it again in the afternoon and most of the snow was gone, but the sky was gorgeous.  The clouds were pinkish and it beautiful and crisp.

The walk did me tons of good, after being stuck in a classroom, trying to teach people something about stormwater and erosion and sediment control.  The classroom had no windows and I really needed to get out and fight my nature deficit disorder.  I was surprised by an owl (or did I surprise it).  Owls are amazing creatures in the woods.  They are the most silent flyers and I am sure I would have missed it if would have been looking down to see where my next step would have to go.  But now, it scooted out of a tree in front of me and soared away from me through the trees at eye level not making a sound.  I could not identify it, but I expect it was a barred owl, knowing what we have in the woods.  A beautiful secretive sight that not many of us see.  Just what I needed.  It's been a nice productive day.

Richmond (1/21/2015)

Sometimes the simplest pictures give you the most joy.  Moreover, some pictures just beg to be taken because of its composition and simplicity.

Let's talk about the joy first.  I think a lot of people can rejoice with me about the gas prices.  I need a full tank every 4 days or so.  This is because of the large commuting distance I have to work.  Today I paid $1.86 per gallon of gas, and last week I bought it for $1.66 at Costco.  That is half the price that I paid a half year ago.  Considering I have a 16 gallon tank, I am currently not spending (some call it saving) approximately $30 per week.  That really helps the family budget.  I think a lot of Americans are experiencing this joy, in particular those that have a small income.  Most have not seen a wage hike in years, and it looks like there is absolutely no willingness to give us one in the near future.  Our law makers only seem to look out for the big guys; the people that fund their re-election campaign.

Oh well, enough politicking.  People often ask me why I don't move closer to my work.  For one, if you have been reading my blog, you know what a great "back yard" I have.  Granted it is actually Newport News Park, but my back yard runs right into it (guess you can still see the old fence), but in reality I have a 8000+ acre back yard.  And I don't have to mow it!  On top of that, the section behind our home is a nature preserve for the Mabee salamander.  Nothing better in curing my nature deficit disorder.  Regular readers also know how much I love Yorktown, the river, the Chesapeake Bay and sailing. Finally, I am a nomad, as my blog's name mentions.  I travel a lot and I am in Richmond maybe two or three days per week on average.  So yes, I burn a lot of gas and I am happy with the low prices.

Secondly, the picture it self.  I find far too often we take pictures of family or beautiful vistas.  That is all good, but what about recording mundane life.  I know sociologists, historians and archaeologist love discovering shopping lists that are more than 100 years old.  Even better are receipts that are that old or older.  Those types of documents are invaluable in developing a mental picture how people lived in those days.  I understand dairies in which people recorded the price of something they bought are invaluable.  I wonder when these types of people look back to our times what they'll see: screen captures of amazon.com pages?  So yes, I do think it is important that we have some photographic record of what life was all about, even a picture of pumping gas.  I do think it is important to document some of the mundane elements in addition to all the pictures of vistas and of people playing and having fun.

To me this picture has some classic composition elements in it.  I love the repetition in it: the vertical posts, the curved metal styles and even the pumps.  Moreover, the base of the columns, the pumps, styles and the trash can are in a diagonal.  Somewhat classic elements.  By no means is this a high quality photograph, but is has some of the elements of composition in it.

On an end note, yes gas is cheap, and I realize not all people are happy.  If you are an oil worker, a land owner who relies on any royalty payments, or you depend on business from these people, I'm sorry that your income is now even lower.  But I assure you this shall pass and prices will go up again.

York River (1/16/2015)

The York River is very interesting, it is only named the York when the Pamunkey and the Mattaponi come together at West Point.  At this point it becomes a very wide river.  The river has fairly steep slopes and except for some neighborhoods it is fairly undeveloped until you get to Yorktown.  Before Yorktown you have three areas that are owned by the Federal Government and you see signs on shore that tell you to stay away from these areas, or else!  Another stretch of the south shore of the river is a state park (York River State Park).  That's where we visited today.  The photo below was taken from the visitor's center, looking towards the northwest.

These facilities have a kayak launch and you can also rent kayaks if you don't have your own.  There is a great creek that runs through the marsh you can see below.  It has some fun wildlife, in particular a huge population of fiddler crabs.  Today we hiked along the marsh and saw a number of birds including two soaring bald eagles.  The north and west facing slopes of these marshes are spectacular.  I absolutely love the ecology of the area.  It still amazes me to see pretty darn big trees in this area and a dense understory of mountain laurel (yes they do grow here on the coastal plains).  The photograph below was taken near one of the bird watching platforms in the creek (yes this is a great bird watching area).

I assume that the park is across an area where the native American population lives that became a Disney legend. Archaeologists and historians place Pocahontas' village on north shore of the York. How's that for historical significance.  I guess that's why there was this thing in the local newspaper today telling us that some citizens are trying to get an historic and ecological significance designation for the river.  Hopefully this will be successful.

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.

Newport New Park (1/9/2015)

Yes another picture of the park.  This is one I have been itching to take after I saw it during my walk one day, but did not have my camera with me.  It shows what I would call heartwood.  Heartwood is typically formed in the center of the trunk of a hardwood tree and it the hard stuff you want to make flooring and furniture from.  Obviously this photo shows the old trunk of a tree that was cut.  The soft wood (aka sapwood) near the bark is completely gone (evidenced by the mossy ring), while the heartwood is still there.  It's great evidence of the hardness of this heartwood and its relative resistance to rot.  It really is what keeps the trees up.  Such a neat example.

The tree which was most likely an oak, was growing next to the pond I took the next picture of.  This pond seems to be used for research purpose, since it has white PVC pipes in it, which are probably used to study the water level in the pond.  I tried to hide the pipes when I took this picture.  

The water in the pond is currently about 3 feet deep, and by early spring it will hopefully be 5 to 6 feet deep; and then by summer it will be dry.  The reason for this fluctuation is not the runoff.  The level of the water in these ponds indicate how high the groundwater is.  As I mentioned in previous posts, this is so important for the amphibian in our woods.  A pond that is dry in the summer cannot have any fish, and so there are no fish in these ponds to eat the tadpoles of the frogs and salamanders that live in our area.  Our ponds are the breeding ground of the endangered Mabee salamander.  These gusy will come out on warm days in late February to breed and lay their eggs.  Probably the neatest thing is to hear their mating calls in late February.  The woods in the back really come alive around that time.

You can see the setting sun shining through the trees.  It has been cold these past few days, and the pond is currently frozen.  No problem, it looks like they'll be ready for the salamanders and frogs come late February, early March.

Newport News Park (1/4/2015)

Wow, 2015.  Happy New Year to all my readers.

Today's blog is a multipurpose posting first of course it is a wish to all to make the best of it all and enjoy 2015.  I am sure that some readers may think something like: "this guy had 11 days vacation, and all the time to take the perfect picture, and now see what he shows as his first of 2015."  I'll explain this below.  Remember, one of my favorite sayings is: "It is what it is", and there is not much we can do about certain situations, but to enjoy it (or maybe grin and bare it?).

So why this picture.  It is about unintended consequences.  Lets start: I believe in the inherent goodness in all and everything, and that we as humans are capable in screwing it up (or sometimes misinterpreting it).  I am often reminded of Aldo Leopold who made a 180 degree turn after he shot a wolf (in the early 20th century) and later on came to the conclusion that exterminating wolves was not going to save the sheep ranchers, but that it was actually going to hurt them since the deer no longer had any predators.  The loss of predators resulted in the explosion of the deer populations and overgrazing by the deer, which in turn resulted in the loss of food for the sheep and actually crashing sheep populations.  In other words exterminating wolves actually hurt the sheep farmers.

A lot of human interference in nature has unforeseen consequences, but wolves are great examples.  After their reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park, the ecology of the riverbanks and wetlands improved.  When the wolves were exterminated from the parks, elk became bolder and started grazing in these areas and greatly impacting the vegetation.  The reintroduction of wolves really helped in the restoration of these areas.  This link provides some great information on that.

So why this picture?  During our walks out behind our home, a sight such as this is very common.  The bark is stripped from the small pine tree, and I can guarantee that the tree will most likely not survive.  This is not necessarily bad in this case, you can see in the background that the the tree density is very high and killing some trees would be very good.  But there is a deeper issue here.  What is this stripping of the bark all about?  Well, bucks (male deer) shed their horns in the late fall, and they start growing out around this time of year.  You can imagine that horns that try to poke out of your skin hurt or at least are a little itchy.  That is where these small trees come in.  A buck can not ask one of the girls in his harem to give him a scratch on the head, and so he has to do this himself.  In that process they scratch so hard that the bark comes off the tree.

But briefly coming back to those deer.  We have no (or very few) predators in the woods out back.  We have sighted a few coyotes, but that's it.  Moreover, no hunting is allowed in the park.  As a result the deer have proliferated. eating everything in sight.  The woods very impoverished; seedlings are eaten as soon as they germinate.  (It is actually so bad that the deer are running out of food, and they have invaded our neighborhood.  The other night we almost witnessed a crash between a deer and a car).  So now, the woods out back have very little understory and they are not very diverse.  The only plants that grow there are the ones deer do not eat.  Although I understand we cannot reintroduce the wolf in our back yard, or allow hunting, I wish we could somehow keep the deer population under control, thus keeping the biodiversity in the woods behind us (and allowing me to grow nice plants in my yard).  As you can see, our actions have all these unforeseen consequences in nature that may show up much later and sometimes too late for us to do something about.