While September 22 was the first official day of autumn this year, the leaves in my area begin to show their colors several weeks later than that. Mid-October is generally when the colors begin to show in earnest.
Sometimes temps are not even particularly chilly yet. I took these photos in lovely 72 degree weather, two days ago, during yet another walk around the Res. (Have you figured out that I walk around the Res. a lot?)
As you can plainly see, the leaves are definitely beginning to turn their wonderful fall colors.
This is a glorious time of year to be in New England.
All photos are taken with my cell phone.
Reflecting Life
Here is a wider panorama.
Mirror Trees
Scene from the Edge
Though they are quite tiny in this next photo, those are cormorants on logs in the "center" of the image. I often see them relaxing atop those logs. The natural wide angle view of my cell phone is a little deceiving in that the cormorants are actually much closer to me than the furthermost trees seen in the photo, which are just beyond the reservoir dam.
Here are a few photos from our summer visit to the Cape. We stayed with our friends who have two cats, one of which is featured below. We went sailing with them and also walked along the shoreline.
This is a photo of a small body of water that sits adjacent to the reservoir I walk around. The walking path itself is atop the land which divides the two.
As I was walking by on this particular day, I noticed how extremely green the water appeared. I wondered if it was an algae bloom. My research found that some algae blooms are harmful and others not. Regardless, the striking color caught my eye and I grabbed a photo with my cell phone.
As I review my photos taken over different days, sometimes I feel the
need to share just a few, even if they're not necessarily related to one
another.
Perhaps a photo that speaks to me will speak to you as well.
Here's a cell phone shot taken of one of my favorite sections of the walk
around the Res. Whenever I'm there, I feel like the trees are inviting me to
walk among them.
Trees Show the Way
Back home, in our garden, bees get speckled with pollen on them as they go about their business.
Pollinator - Top View
Pollinator - Side View
This lily looks a whole lot better than it smells. We had a blossom from this plant inside for a few days, but the smell became a bit strong! Certain lilies are best enjoyed outdoors.
We have friends that invited us for a walk and lunch. We knew they had chickens and ducks, and had
recently installed a new duck pond, so we were anxious to visit and see the animals doing animal things.
During our walk, we encountered these additional friendly animals in a neighbor's yard.
Yummy Grass
After returning, we spent time at the duck pond along with its local inhabitants.
Ribbit!
The chickens were an unexpected attraction. I'd no idea how photogenic chickens could be.
Why the Face?
Here are the three ducks frolicking happily in their new pond.
Paddle Powered
Headstrong
I had to sneak in a flower photo among all these friendly animals.
I've walked around the Ashland Reservoir hundreds of times, yet I only just
learned the "correct" name and reason for the physical structure used for the
water to leave the reservoir. It is properly called a "stepped spillway".
Furthermore, because of the shape and location of the dam used to create this
particular reservoir, the designers chose to create a stepped spillway that
also turns around a gentle curve to give the water a path to flow out of the
reservoir. What I hadn't thought about - and thank you, Wikipedia, for this
observation - is the reason for the steps, as opposed to a smooth incline, aka
chute. It is to help dissipate all the "kinetic energy of the descending
water." "Failure to dissipate the water's energy can lead to scouring and
erosion at the dam's toe (base). This can cause spillway damage and undermine
the dam's stability." Quoted phrases are from these two articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spillway and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepped_spillway.
On a recent walk, I noticed the spillway flow to be quite loud and dramatic,
since we'd just had several days of rain. I've got one still photo, and one
video below, both taken with my cell phone, to show the power of the
descending water.
Roaring Spillway
Since I'm usually a still photographer, I had fun taking and post-processing
the video below. I used the "slow motion" mode setting on my cell phone to
take the video, then post-processed it with Blackmagic Design's excellent
DaVinci Resolve software to perform essentially two modifications: add a
"ramped" speed change during the clip, and remove a non-kid friendly word
written on the stone on the side.
Resolve (Studio version) is used to create professional movies. Go to
https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve
and watch all the really cool trailers at the top of their web site. It's a
very powerful tool to apply to my very low budget and limited resolution cell
phone video. Nevertheless I'm hopeful you get the basic idea that the amount
of water flow was impressive! And that slow motion turbulent water is kind of
fun to watch:)
Warning: geeky stuff follows...
As mentioned, part of my video post-processing challenge was "removal" of
a moving object. This involves cloning a different part of the scene over
the portion to be removed, so that it appears the object is not present.
After reviewing several YouTube instructional videos, I finally figured
out how to do this. Resolve has a tab called "Fusion" which allows the
user to design their processing steps using a map of connected nodes. Here
is the Resolve Fusion node map I created to perform the "moving object
removal" task. As you can see, this is not a simple operation. As I
understand it, there's a more automated way to remove objects from videos
in the non-free Studio version of the software, but that would take all
the fun out of it:)
During a recent visit to my sister-in-law Carol's house, I snapped some photos of her amazing garden, and of her Seppala Husky dog as well. The garden is the result of an intensive project begun during Covid to revamp the front yard from mostly grass to mostly gardens. The gardens are filled with intense color blooms which make it a joy to observe and walk through. Below are some of my favorite photos taken during the visit.
Her garden contains magnificent dahlias.
Delightful Dahlia
... and some other purple blooms, much loved by several insects.
Small Yellow Flyers
Bee on Task
While not as colorful as many of the plants, this blue spruce tree has plenty of camera appeal as well.
Bristling Blue Spruce
Here we take a brief intermission and introduce you to Akela, a Seppala Husky (also called a Seppala Siberian Sleddog). Check out the movie "Togo" (2019) to learn about Seppala Huskies. They're an intelligent and amazing sled dog, now considered a different breed from other Siberian Huskies.
Seppala Smile
Akela is one of, if not *the*, most alert dog I've ever met. He is always paying attention.
Eye on the Prize
Now back to more garden photos of a much smaller animal: a praying mantis.
Natural Pest Control
Special Garden Visitor
New Dahlia
Dancing Joyous Petals 1
Dancing Joyous Petals 2
Outreach
Bee Bliss
I enjoyed the textures displayed in the large petals of this hibiscus.
