Mon-

After a very cold, blah summer _ which nevertheless tremendously pleased city dwellers as it depressed beach sales and tourism _ the polar high pressure has retreated for a while, and we are baking in humid head.   Just in time to roast the kids in the non-air-conditioned schools, and make those returning to hard long desk jobs incredibly depressed and angry.  Ah, the mysterious ways of nature.  At least I have a chance to enjoy it, although it has also led to an incredible resurgence of tiger mosquitoes on our patio, which tend to drive me indoors more often than I would like.
Tue-

Lovely but inedible pokeweed fruit tucked in alongside the debris of the roadside.  I’m surprised it hasn’t been eaten yet, but then again the local bird and insect populations seem quite reduced this year.  I hope that is just a particular anomaly, but I fear from what I read that an ecological catastrophe continues to wreak havoc across the continent.  Well, I was given this day, and even if the end is rapidly approaching, I must make the best of it that I can.

On the other hand, I know that apocalypse of one form or another is a lovely Western tradition.  We like to believe, I think, that our own failings will be washed clean by a general destruction that makes them all irrelevant.  Anything can trigger this cultural artifact _ cold, hot, wet, dry, too many or too few insects or fish.  For all our sophistication, we remain at heart just as superstitious as the ancient Romans with their auguries in flights of birds and animal entrails.
Wed-

Yesterday when this was taken weather folks claim was the hottest, most humid day of the year in New York.  The beach is deserted, life guard chair and flags put away for next memorial day, rest rooms locked, parents and children back in their little cells.  Us old people, or the very odd or fortunate have everything to themselves.

Perhaps they would be inside anyway.  Dr. Oz and his ilk have terrified with tales of cancerous sun rays, debilitating smog, heat exhaustion, dehydration, sunstroke, coliform bacteria in the water, flesh eating bacteria likewise, ticks with lime, mosquitoes with west nile, tiger mosquitos with chikengunya.  Only bats have escaped so far _ oh, wait, they might have rabies.  I sometimes think H.G. Wells got it wrong _ in the far future the innocent sweet bubbleheads will all be happily underground in hermetically sealed environments, while only the brutish workers roam the horrible wild nature of the surface.
Thu-

An invasive plant, but handsome all year round, and now with almost bright seed pods ready to fluff out in the coming months like vast halos to catch the sun on frosty mornings.  The “invasive” is a kind of sneer, indicating something aggressive that is pushing out the paradise here before it arrived, presumably made up of non-invasive flora existing in some type of peaceable kingdom.  Anyone who studies botany knows better, everything at one time or another is invasive, and most often crowding something else out, slowly or rapidly, and quite often merely because the environment itself has changed.

Me, I consider myself and everyone I know, quite invasive, and not nearly so attractive on the outside as this reedy wonder.  Our amazing abilities are concentrated inside, although those abilities do allow us to wreak havoc with
any environment.  Hence this “weed.”  I will be gone soon enough, but I suspect that the offspring of this clump will be thriving, although they may have had to climb the hillside pretty quickly to do so as the tide rises higher and higher.
Fri-

Pretty hot today, feels like a good time to go swimming, summer is wonderful …. Oh, yeah, summer is almost over.  The spartina seeds have almost all dispersed into the surrounding sands and marshes.  Grass thrived this year, and the stands of salt grass are lush and full.  Kind of surprising, because after a rough winter the mats of roots were very scattered and broken and I wasn’t sure they would come back very well.  Just goes to show what I know.

Nature this week is like listening to an old clarinet solo, where a high note is held and goes on and on and impossibly on, without the musician taking a breath.  But take a breath he must, and this heat will suddenly break off just as quickly.  The music will go on, but the end of this tune is certain, sooner rather than later.  Isn’t it amazing that our minds can make such odd connections, let alone try to communicate them?
Sat-

I always think of goldenrod as the ushers.  Near the end of a fabulous function, while everyone is still having a wonderful experience with no thought of the time, they quietly slip back near the doors to be ready to herd everyone out of the ballroom.  When you see them, even though all is the same, the party will soon be over.  And now they are casting their colorful yellow over the entire landscape.

Admittedly, I enjoy all the seasons.  For those of us adjusted to this climate, every season drags on just a bit too long and becomes tiresome.  Summer heat and oppressively closed in foliage, the cold and snow of winter, the tantalizing but often chill promise of spring.  We’re glad _ especially initially _ of the new challenges of each turn of the climate.  Maybe it’s a small touch of some generic psychological trait that makes us crave the new no matter how nice the status quo.
Sun-

Ninety degree day, humid like soup, sweat rolling down forehead, and this little member of the compositae _ I don’t know its common name _ flowers and seeds and sends fluff packages off to the unknown.  If you look closely, you can see the ants crawling all over it.  For a moment I feel pity, because neither the plant nor the insects know what is coming, that this moment is an aberration in a long slide into barren deep freeze.

We tend to think we are quite superior, being able to predict the future.  We are aware that the seasons are due to change, that certain plants and animals will die and only offspring will survive.  We smugly know that we will (probably) survive because civilization will (most likely) meet our needs and that those asteroids (almost certainly) will not hit the Earth and as an individual we will not be a mere statistic of the (very few) who die in a car accident or from a bad case of flu.  In fact, when you think about it, we have a great deal of faith in what we think we know about the coming moments, but we don’t really know any more relative to our own paths than those ants or flowers.

  

 

 

  

 

  

Mon-

Still, there are merry times and days as long as nights and warmth.  Everyone is grabbing what moments they can, all keenly aware of the date and not only the coming natural cycle but the sudden onset of new obligations at school and work and family.  Ah, but this week _ this week remains wonderful, no longer in timeless summer, but a perfect few days of vacation when absolutely nothing needs to be accomplished that cannot be put off.  A procrastinator’s dreamtime.
Tue-

Although I do not seem to need much more than appropriate clothing, shoes, and some trail to happily take advantage of life, there are many who find their needs more “advanced.”  Usually that involves some sort of exclusivity or expensive toys, happily merged into one with pleasure craft.  Harmless enough, I guess, compared to giant machines that do real damage to the ecology.

As noted before, most of the boats around here seem ninety percent or more for prestige display.  This is no ancient fishing village, where the beaches and docks and water are cleared by early morning and filled again as the sun sets.  Most of the vessels you see here, including the one cruising the foreground, are taken out extremely rarely and might as well be set on concrete foundations.  But this is the end of summer, and if there is going to just be one or two uses a year, this is definitely the time to do so.
Wed-

Early misty sunlight falls on the old yacht clubhouse on the hill.  For those who  can tell time with the progression of plants, this could be no other time of year.  In this case, I think the ornamentals have improved on what would be here naturally.  I know that is heretical, but I am not really a fan of naked nature wilderness _ I like civilization and its comforts, including beautiful landscaping.

These days, we are encouraged to take an extreme path in order to make a difference and have some leverage in the world.  Scream at each bit of woodland that is lost to development, passionately worry about changes to places we have never seen.  I think we rather need to be more thoughtful, more balanced, more in tune with everything _ including other people and nature.  We begin that by understanding ourselves and our true feelings about the real, the artificial, and all points inbetween.
Thu-

A “weed” on Mill Dam road accents how loosely our definitions are applied.  Especially as September arrives, any wildflower still blooming, however we normally categorize it, is special.  Well, more special.  Well, you know what I mean.

That’s the problem, of course, with trying to apply superlatives to anything.  Everything is unique and marvelous and looked at properly incredibly special.  Fractal meanings into life and unity and cosmic order and human consciousness and appreciation.  How dare I single out anything as more interesting or important than anything else?  But that is my nature as well, so I will continue to do so.
Fri-

This is the height of “snapper” season _ baby bluefish reaching a size when they can actually be usefully cooked.  Generally, at the right tide, you just throw a hook, bait, and bobber in the water and pull one out.  For serious fishermen it is less sport than mindless harvesting, but for the rest of us it is a quick and happy return to childhood for a few hours.

Goldenrod and snappers are my perpetual alarms that the weather is going to turn soon.  There will be nice days to come _ quite a few of them, quite often.  But there will be increasing bouts of rain and cold, and inevitably the few leaves now drifting down will be increased exponentially.  Romantics would say it is a bittersweet moment, but enjoying the change _ all the changes _ always knowing there is something new and different right around the corner _ is the charm of living in a temperate zone.
Sat-

 

  

Wait a minute!  This hardly looks like people taking advantage of the last hot moments of true summer.  An all but deserted beach, under a blazing sun and only one person and a lifeguard on the wide expanse of sand.

A lot of people are doing necessary shopping for school _ which they would probably be doing if this were predicted as the last day on earth, regardless of weather.  And the sad fact is that there are many, many, finer beaches on Long Island _ some only five minutes a way _ and this particular town facility is a sad relic of a bygone era when people _ like my wife _ were far less mobile and had to make do with what was within walking distance.  Few in America remember those days of single car families, with the only transportation used to take the only bread-winner to work all day long.  And yet _ it’s a lovely beach, caressed by the same sun and water as all the others, with views just as magnificent.  Anyway, at least a few people (drive here) and still enjoy the clean, uncrowded shoreline.
Sun-

A parade of boats into the outer sound, as everyone wants a last chance to swim, and relax, have a beer, just hang out on the water.  And, to be honest, it is the beginning of season for stripers and bluefish, although I doubt many of these are seeking prey except as an excuse.  In our culture, it is always important to be seen as doing something _ even fishing _ instead of just goofing off and loafing and so on.  Although to the untrained eye, all those may look pretty much the same.

I don’t mind _ the pennants on the sailboat are a touch of exotic color, I enjoy the enjoyment of others.  I don’t say my way is better, it is simply my way.  The seasons of the year and the seasons of life are coming to all of us anyway regardless of our desires and acts.  Being able to vicariously participate in what people do is one of the wonderful abilities we have to deepen and expand our experience.

  

 

 

  

Mon-

Yet that is the glory of consciousness.  I think, sometimes, that were I a god, who knew and controlled everything, that I would seek to ditch it all in favor of being a mortal human.  To be born, to grow and be surprised and mold the world and reflect on impossibilities _ is that not more godlike than any omnipotent, omniscient being could achieve?  Bluntly, where there is no movement, there is no experience.  A cynic might ask, what is the real difference between such a god and a rock?
Tue-

Shells somehow deposited here high above the tide line.  Who and how, we ask, surely not from tide or birds, so it must be a person.  So much of the world remains so.  We are the supernatural creatures, who roam about doing inexplicable things, creating puzzles for the universe.

I am sad today, for I feel mortal.  This is a realization I try to avoid, although it is as much absolute truth as anything I have ever encountered.  Why sad, why now, why me?  Surely I have had my fill of the splendors of the world, of shells and summer and sun.  When I am gone, they will all remain.  I should embrace comfort in knowing that, yet I remain sad at the thought of the world without me.

Wed-

The dock looks solid enough, but that is apparently an illusion.  Our community has been informed that is becoming dangerous and must be (expensively) replaced.  Old pilings in ancient seaport towns can last forever _ look at Venice.

So much that seems permanent is transient.  We now believe the universe itself is hurtling toward oblivion.  People used to believe their lives were fleeting moments in eternity, but now it appears that the only eternity available is each infinite moment of our experience.
Thu-

Used to be able to “sit on the dock of the bay,” but time has relentlessly removed that from what seems an endless and unchanging green landscape.  Most of the singers I listened to in my youth are dead now, but their songs still pop up _ even more frequently now that my memories of olden days are clearer than those of yesterday.  Strange, a little sad, but of course it guarantees that my own life and times were unique to me.

Everywhere, if I look closely, there are signs of changing weather, here with one month to go to autumnal equinox.  The dogwood foliage is fading to brownish yellow, the roses are in in second bloom vigor, the annual weeds are largely done bloom and into seed and dry stalks.  A poignant time for those of us, still feeling the freshness of our late summer, knowing that our evolutionary duty is long completed and all that is required is for us to get out of the way for the next generations.

Fri-

Seems a lot of folks have suddenly discovered the summer is almost over.   More boats in the harbor than I have seen in a long while, some people in the water, others fishing, a few just looking and enjoying.  As often happens, you hardly appreciate what you have until it is being taken away.

Better late than never.  Anyway, it is impossible to take full advantage of every moment, no matter what the self-help books preach.  We soon burn out and become frustrated.  The trick is to somehow keep things fresh, but without excessive overload.  Not easy.  Anyway, good to see so many seeking rewards in being alive on the harbor.

Sat-

Maybe I should sit here several hours, or all day, watching clouds and reflections and life.  There would surely be more than enough to mediate on.  Possibly I could get closer to the meaning of it all, or at least an appreciation of how much there is to this existence I take for granted.    

But I am infected by the same contemporary disease of all those around me.  Like a Sisyphus released to run marathons instead of pushing rocks, I must always move from place to place, moving back to the same place, moving again and again.  Often seeing little of what I should, then restless to view what might be behind the tree or over the horizon.  And, although I sometimes make vows, I am pretty sure I will not change. 

Sun-

 

From this perspective it’s all perfect _ bright, cheery, sunny, green, inviting.  Well, it is, really.  But the day is late, the shadows grow long, the breeze is cool, close up those green leaves are curling and losing vitality, and other flowers have already packed it in, leaving the field to the late-bloomers.  The true curse of knowledge is the ability _ and innate necessity _ to foresee the probable future.  In the mind’s eye, the road is covered with snow and slush, the world reduced to brown and blue, and cold sweeps unceasingly from the north.

One way to look Adam and Eve is that until they ate that apple, they were immortal precisely because they did not know their fate.  They were happy and lived in a perpetual garden exactly because they could not imagine winter.  God, in that interpretation, treated them as just another animal, never knowing of death until it happened, never fearing catastrophe because they never thought.  In the unceasing quest to return to Eden, many try to achieve such a blissful state through drugs or meditation, shutting down reason, accepting these happy yellows as an eternal moment.

  

Mon-

As Darwin and Malthus noted, nature is profligate, and doesn’t care how many die as long as a few live.  That is so contrary to our modern notions of morality and meaning as to almost seem blasphemous, and is certainly so cold and horrible that it is little wonder many prefer more comforting religions where each individual matters.  I sure as heck like to believe I matter and am not merely trapped and doomed as most of these fish here.
Tue-

Absolutely the right mood – beach all ready, sun sand sky, boats, obviously fantastic weather, and an intimate table and chairs just waiting for some couple to have a picnic with bread, cheese, and wine.  And, typically, nobody there to take advantage of it.  Too busy, no doubt, with more important issues.

I know how it goes, I’ve spent much of my life working on what are, after all, very important things like keeping my family fed and housed and clothed.  Our culture provides great benefits, but requires great sacrifices of our meditative and reflective inner selves.  The most unfortunate occurrence of all, however, is when people internalize the cultural requirements so that they think that work, instead of being a necessary evil, is somehow connected with meaning and purpose and experiencing the infinite wonders of the world.
Wed –

Exhibit of a changing world _ pretty much the last of the once innumerable lobster traps piled around here.  In spite of lobsters apparently thriving in great harvestable numbers everywhere else, here they have irremediably died off in the ‘90’s.  Great catches and baymen’s livelihoods are things of the (recent) past, although nobody is quite sure why or how.  Year by year, piles of old steel frames disappeared from the shore and boats and moored docking rafts.  Now as antiquated as an old whaling harpoon.

Somehow, that school of fish survive and even thrive, clams and mussels are bumping along, oysters may even be making a comeback, but local lobsters are apparently gone forever.  Mysterious.  The only moral I take from this is that the world is more complicated than any of our simple rules and understandings would indicate.  We forget that at great peril.
Thu-

Final summer flowers now making a mighty effort in a race with time.  The days grow perceptibly shorter, and the vegetable world is mostly well aware of it.  The seeds and fruits on the perennials are all completely ripe or getting there fast.  Only the cultivated annuals of m
an _ blossoms, vegetables, grains _ are chugging along regardless of celestial influence.

It all seems so timeless, if not as a moment at least as part of an eternal cycle of the seasons.  Yet a minute ago, in geological time, this was all ice, year round.  That’s the trouble with geological time.  It may be true in some fashion, but it is not true of my particular life, and so, like a weed, I wonder if I should concern myself with it at all.
Fri-

Bright berries almost hidden in the tall reeds.  Even ignoring the infinite quantity and form of microscopic life that we can not see, each cubic foot of roadside (or any other surface) rewards long study with thoughts and meditations, if we wish.  Of course, there is never enough time.  And we always remember that such thoughts and meditations are merely fleeting electrical signals in our brain _ the berries certainly do not care how we judge them or their meaning.

We are so used to our strange duality _ self-declared important lords of all, but ignored by everything else _ that we accept the contradiction without question, and even consider it silly to question its existence.  Of course I am meaningful, we cry.  Of course I am meaningful, I tell you.  Of course.
Sat –

Strange spiky berries on the Japanese dogwood set off the long slope to Long Island Sound, lying beyond the harbor inlet.  Somewhat cool for the season, but otherwise a perfect day, filled with sun and scents and insect calls and butterflies and swallows swooping about the lawn a foot off the grass.  Ah, if we could just bottle this to pull it out in the depths of winter, when we need it most.

Oh, wait, that’s exactly what we do with our memories, isn’t it?  If we take care to be in this moment fully, to try to experience as deeply as we can, will we not be able to recall it well even when snow falls thick and the wind howls defiance?  That’s a marvelous, almost magical, gift, and one I too often take for granted or waste remembering bad times instead of good.  Carrying happiness within does require a little discipline and training, even on a lovely morning like this.

Sun-

Spartina flowers are not very large, magnificent, or even attractive, but they seem to get the job done.  Tidal grasses are intricate habitats for the health of the littoral ecosystem, and we rightly worry that they are disappearing with rising water, global warming, and heavy pollution and development.  Still, they’ve been around a lot longer than our species has, through lots of eco-catastrophes, and in spite of what we may think of their flowers I’d tend to place more bets on their long-term survival than that of homo sapiens.

Of course, cosmic thoughts about cosmic time is as useless to me this morning as dreams of winning a lottery or being declared king.  What I have in front of me are interesting flowers and plants, beautiful scenery, and the late summer sun providing melancholy hints of winter to come.

 

 

 

  

Mon-

Wild grapes seem to grow just about everywhere, and hardly ever manage to get ripe since the birds get to them quickly.  These never get very large anyway.  I think the original inhabitants of the continent never managed to harvest, ferment, and store them.  That is unusual only because it seems every culture everywhere has discovered some way to make alcohol out of something _ coconuts, apples, cactus, honey, whatever happens to be lying around.  Of course, the native Americans did discover a lot of narcotic pharmacology, which is also a standard human ability.

As all the crops ripen and overwhelm in August and September it is easy to believe in a benevolent divine providence, filling our days with easily acquired bounty.  Being human, we easily forget the hard work of saving seeds, preparing soil, planting and weeding all spring, praying for rain all summer.  Besides, the hard work remains of somehow saving all this stuff for the cold and desperate days to come.  Well, anyway, that used to be the rhythm.  With supermarkets and whatnot, in these corrupt modern times few think much about it any more.

Wed-

Edible ripe berries not yet harvested by the birds and raccoons.  Hard to say if that indicates laziness or satiety on their part, or if the numbers of relevant species have been so decimated that not enough remain to clear them.  It’s unusual to find so many in the open like this, but they do add a fine dash of color to the landscape.

For almost the first time this year, the temperature is near summer normal around here.  That’s odd only because the world is heating up, incontrovertibly, and yet in this chunk of the continent we are having the coolest seasons in decades.  Such anomalies are seized on by the stupid to prove climate change is not happening.  I shouldn’t complain; the weather has been “pleasantly mild”; but I tend to not feel I have had a real July or August unless at least on a few days I’ve built up a good soaking sweat.
Thu-

Entropy rules the universe, and docks weather away pretty easily over the seasons.  Once the frenzy of preparing and launching boats is complete in the late spring, and before the rush to winterize them and pull them onto dry land in late fall, there is a space for idle marine workers to repair the supporting infrastructure.  On sunny, warm days it looks like the best kind of job anyone could ever have.

Office work is welcome in the winter _ nobody wants to be out fishing or fixing piers in ice and sub-zero temperatures and howling north winds.  It’s too bad we can’t all cycle work with the earth’s orbit,  hibernating and performing financial and other tedious operations in the colder months, doing physical outside chores as nature beckons.  But our tight machine-based culture dare not allow such flexibility.  Except of those of us who are older and useless and have happily stepped off the treadmill.
Fri-

I think this is called sea lavender, although the colors are fairly subtle and hard to catch.  More a light purple mist than actual blossoms.  But, in the interest of something a little different, here it is, with the obligatory water scene. 

Cool temperatures and shortening days are advancing the plant calendars rapidly now.  Any moment there will be a great deal of goldenrod,  every day masses of former high summer bloom go to brown seed.  Trees are heavy with seeds in various colors and shapes, ready to cascade down in any storm.  As dry weather continues, leaves show signs of discoloration, burning, and insect damage.  The world becomes, bit by bit, a bit more ragged in appearance, a bit more ready for coming weather internally.  If you are not careful, in the midst of a paradise of plenty, it is quite possible to turn melancholy over everything that is inevitably slipping away.
Sat-

Perfect little nook on a perfect summer day with all the ingredients that make being here special.  Unfortunately, I can not include a shot of the perfect summer night clambake the neighborhood held later on the beach with torches and bonfire and near fifty neighbors barely squeezing onto remaining dry sand at waxing moon high tide.

For all the problems in the world _ there are many, probably unsolvable, and they have always been there throughout history _ there are wonderful moments for most of us.  Which we should cherish, if for no other reason than as homage to whatever has allowed us to experience them and, even more than that, appreciate the experience.  Sometimes I think that might be one of our main purposes in life itself.
Sun-

I don’t know if the flags mean anything, even if they could be read, or if they are just subsidiary territory markers to old glory (e.g. state of New York, county of Suffolk, town of Huntington, Wyncoma Yacht Club.)  Anyway, at least one guy seems in a purposeful hurry under crystal blue skies with temperature threatening to climb near the nineties.

Always amazing is that these extremely expensive craft, clustered and paying incredible fees for docking rights and yearly maintenance, are stacked up nearly full.  Why own something like that if you are not going to use it?  And yet, that is typical, most days they all remain forever in port, only one or two lonely pioneers willing to venture into the rugged (that’s irony) waters of Huntington Bay.

  

 

 

  

  

Mon-

Near clear morning after storms.  Sometimes nature is so dramatic _ of course we see it all the time in sunsets and sunrises _ that if we weren’t experiencing it, we’d assume it was fake.  The thing that always strikes me is how different the types of ambient lighting are when the air is saturated with water or, like this morning, from a heavy mistiness that once in a while condenses out into light drizzle.

People in hermetically sealed environments and minds _ inhabiting cars, offices, malls, and sports stadiums, for example, or possibly buried or submerged arcologies in the future _ will miss all of this.  They may claim that their own spectacular effects make up for the loss.  I simply pity them.

Wed-

  

The big hoist at the boat yard is as quiet as it ever gets.  All the yachts that are going in the water this year are already there, and none that are in the water are nearly ready to come out.  The marina staff is all busily engaged keeping the folks tied up at the floating docks happy.  Or at least willing to keep paying the high fees.

It is when you see incredible huge machinery like this sitting idly by at an obscure marina, one of countless others around the world, that you appreciate the massive ubiquity of industrial civilization.  One device like this would have been a wonder of the ancient world, even a wonder in the relatively recent high point of the Venetian Arsenal boatyards.  Yet this is a trivial bit of flotsam among our mighty machinery.  I am never sure whether to be proud, or scared, or both.

Thu-

It’s easy enough to understand why we try to beautify bleak surroundings like city courtyards with colorful flowers and other ornaments.  Yet our desire to add interest extends to views that are fully magnificent on their own.  Lonely cabins looking over endless mountain vistas often have a patch of flowers nearby, and here on a beach with all the ingredients needed for an endless visual feast are beds of marigolds adding brilliance.

I think it is wonderful that we do this.  I refuse to be a purist and claim there is anything so perfect that it might not be enhanced with a flower border or a fountain or even a small shrine.  Maybe I am just a Philistine unable to cope with the natural world.  But I sure have a lot of companions.

Fri-

I’ve walked over here every week for over twenty years now, and never noticed that the tree next to the harbor produced apples.  It was kind of a shock to suddenly see them hanging there.  Another example of how we never fully know even what we think we know, because the world is just too intricate for us to fully comprehend.

Perhaps I should throw in some clever biblical reference to the tree of knowledge, but even as a metaphor I have always found that story particularly ignorant and in its own way evil.  If we have been blessed with senses and brains and all the many wonders of thought, wasting them following dry words by rote instead of exploring and experiencing and enjoying all the miracles about us is one of the greatest sins against god and nature of which I can conceive.
Sat-

 

The hard-to-make-out starfish in the lower foreground here were probably dumped on this sand by some fisherman beaching his dingy.  Starfish, eating the clams still harvested in these waters, are not welcomed by the local commercial baymen.  Children delight in them, of course, and they intrigue us all being so different from everything we find familiar, but that does not prevent them from being pests.  After all, mosquitoes are quite uniquely fascinating as well, in the abstract.

Like many other bottom dwellers, starfish are rarely in our thoughts unless hauled out and shoved under our noses.  We assume the water under the surface is somehow still and clear, very like a big tank of tap water, with maybe a cute goldfish swimming here or there.  Instead, of course, it is a dense soup of every organism imaginable, from the smallest to the largest, and the fiercest of nature’s ongoing laboratories.  None of us lords of creation could live down there, naked, very long.  Such thoughts should probably humble us, but we are lords of creation precisely because nothing can.
Sun-

Verdant green leaves with just a glimpse of promised shoreline beyond.  Unwary children would plunge right through.  But we quickly learn that nature has teeth, and poison ivy is something best left alone when possible.  Pretty, shiny, lovely, but …  Not quite a trap, I am sure, but certainly a possible bad surprise.

You wonder, if humanity grows up and manages to survive and control their world, whether pests such as mosquitoes and poison ivy _ to say nothing of smallpox and flu viruses _ will be granted a place in it.  I would not miss mosquitoes ruining my outdoor evenings, and my memories of horrible bouts with poison ivy on extremities could be abandoned without a second thought.  And yet, those are all part of what is, and surely even their permanent loss or exile would diminish our experience of existence.  Glad that it is not to be my decision.

  

  

Mon-

There are droughts, floods, storms, tornadoes, damaging winds, hail, fire, whatever.  Except here, where it has been a little cool but otherwise fair with adequate rainfall.  That all calls into question how accurate the reporting is _ the Earth is vast and news by definition concentrates on the tiny.  For the moment, we seem to be in a protected little bubble of normality, with flowers blooming and insects humming as the have _ or seem to have _ since time immemorial.  A lovely illusion, which I shall inhabit while I can.
Tue-

Berries for the birds in Mill Dam park.  Not all that long ago, our ancestors would happily gather these for lunch and dinner, preserving what they could.  Now, I suppose, my children hardly know where their produce comes from.  Supermarkets are a convenience, but perhaps something is lost by having them easily accessible.

On the other hand, it’s obvious that there was always keen competition as they ripened.  Strawberries get attacked by birds as soon as they ripen, and most of these fruits have already fed birds, raccoons, and who knows what else in this little corner.  We think of nature as a big open bonanza, but it’s a sometime bonanza, you may have to work hard for your food, and a bunch of creatures are rushing around at all times of day and night to beat you to it.

Wed-

Seems like the week for bindweed.  Another ordinary picture of another ordinary day in a strange, infinite, miraculous universe. 

Sometimes it is best to just let the mind go blank, and simply appreciate existence.

Thu-

  

Quiet pond at Hechsher, with geese and swans and leafy reflections and even the algae starting to scum the surface, is also part of summertime here.  In the evenings there are free music concerts.  In the days, when it is not too hot, children cavort in the new playground.  All year, old people in various happy or grim moods stride and stroll on the path going around. 

A park like this is one reason I am not happy with those who believe we should be totally back to nature.  I enjoy manicured grounds, cultivated flowers, and the company of fellow cit
izens quite as much as I do vast woodlands or even wide expanses of water.  We are people, after all, and pretending we are deer is just as ridiculous as claiming that deer have no place in our world.
Fri-

Around the world temperatures are at record highs, but here it’s been one of the coolest years I can remember, from a blustery blizzard winter to a wet miserable spring to a summer that has only really arrived a few days at a time, and then in a kind of half-hearted way.  The weather forecasters keep using words like “delightful” but I find it too out of whack _ I like my heat when it should be hot.

None of the vegetation or animals seem to care in the least.  Oh, the ducklings just hatched last week, which is a bit late, and the flowers seem to be trailing a bit as well, but not my much, and in full power like these when they arrive.  Everywhere is beautiful now, fully green or fully flowered or almost brightly fruited.  If there ever is a benign moment in the relentless selective pressure of nature, surely these brilliant days contain it.

Sat-

As explained, I normally don’t bother to capture wildlife with my old digital camera, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t all around, nor that I am not interested.  There are always hawks and gulls and crows and warblers and cardinals, always at this time of summer fish jumping and swimming, sometimes turtles, never snakes. Not counting the other animate species _ rats, raccoons, dogs, cats, people.  But usually, I prefer the imagined solitude of reflections and vistas.

Anyway, here are a couple of swans preening, as they so often do.  When they want solitude they simply demand it of everything else, chasing away anything up to and including people.  Children are often quite frightened when they are in an aggressive mood.  No question however, that although they are imported and possibly invasive, swans add elements of grace and beauty to aquatic scenes.  I suppose there are lessons in there somewhere, I leave them to you “as an exercise …”

Sun-

 

Marsh grasses making their best effort against the encroachments of a highly populated modern environment.  Nothing wrong, really, with docks and boats, and beautiful houses along the shore.  It’s the transportation and support such as sewage disposal that civilization requires that causes most of the problems.  Pollution was a lot worse locally decades ago, when people took everything more or less for granted.

Now attention has shifted, responsibly, to the global environment, for which amelioration may unfortunately be too late.  But at least for a while, localities can fight the good fight and seek to save what makes them special for a while as forces beyond their control raise the water level and increase the damage of the more frequent storms.  Perhaps we should be sad, but there is, after all, today, and nature in the raw with its ice ages and asteroids is hardly a benign force.

 

 

  

Mon-

Elsewhere in the world it is Bastille Day.  The only fireworks here will be strong thunderstorms, but they have their own seasonal charm.  This is one of the finest times of the year, when the trimming and weeding are pretty much under control, the annuals are planted and thriving (or not), and everything is doing what it must do regardless of my intervention.  A good time to sit back and simply enjoy being alive, which is what everyone tries to do.
Tue=

Just relaxed summertime beauty.  Wonderful moments occur in all seasons, but in this climate in mid-July it is easy to feel one with a benevolent world, and to meditate on how right everything is.  There seems to be little reason to worry about the future, nor to dwell on the past.  Except for an occasional mosquito, nothing breaks our reverie.  Even a storm rain-drop can be welcome, just for the change of pace.

Purists would argue that if this harbor were wilderness still it would be more intense and profound.  There should be no place for docks and boats and roses.  What nature and god provided is always better than anything blighted by the hand of humanity.  I obviously do not agree.  I think our conscious interaction with the universe, our appreciation of being, our unique happiness is the great gift we bring to the cosmos, and we are right to cultivate it and to manipulate the environment _ at least somewhat _ to make it more accessible.
Wed-

View across the lawn of a long-time neighbor at the bottom of our hill.  Like Joan, he grew up in the house he now owns _ in fact a lot of the homes around here tend to be kept in the family.  It is easy to see why, with views like this (although his is probably the best.)

The huge beech tree in the front yard seems immortal, but it requires constant attention and we worry about it during every increasingly violent storm, blizzard, and hurricane.  I suppose he worries a lot more.  The trouble is, of course, that nothing is as permanent as it seems.  Up here near us, an equivalent beech dating from the time of the Revolution suddenly up and died for no apparent reason over a few seasons.  Probably old age, which reminds us of our own mortality in what seems to be our infinite daily existence.

Thu-

Classic.  Pine needles sweeping down, tranquil water, empty mind.  Anywhere with such possibilities seems more open to contemplation than, say, a bus stop on a busy street.  Of course, after about five or ten minutes, most of us modern Americans might start to prefer the bus stop. 
We are hardly culturally adapted to sit still with “nothing to do” for very long.

I find I must always force myself to pause.  Much of life must be passed nearly unconscious of local surroundings, as we are concerned with plans and worries and where we are going and what must be done.  It is impossible to survive without spending most of your time doing that, unless you are very fortunate or unfortunate in life with no need to strive and do other’s bidding.  Even now, in retirement, I am too concerned with what I am thinking or what’s next.  So I try to pause and count slowly to twenty, and take a little while to appreciate the glory of the world which can always be found around us.

Fri-

 

Now is the heyday of the “old reliable weeds” that pop up all over where people don’t want them.  The various members of the compositae family.  One would think that it would be easier to change our aesthetic judgments than to change the world, but people don’t think like that.  A plant like this in a garden is an invasive pest.

A perfect part of summer, on a gorgeous day, with little to do.  I am free as any eleven year old used to be, with a world to enjoy and explore and endless opportunities for self-discovered entertainment.  At such times, I often believe I have been the most fortunate person who ever existed.

Sat-

Field bindweed is the bane of gardeners around here.  It is impossible to eradicate, once it gets a hold in any corner it will, if unchecked, rapidly cover everything else in a thick mat of vines, and no matter how often you weed it out, it pops back in strength within days.  It is not only an invader, but an entire occupation force at the same time.  It is only slightly compensated for by having flowers that are quite pretty, in their morning-glory way.

I guess here I should throw in some analogy to human affairs.  Like the biblical “wheat and tares together sown.”  But this morning, I think it is enough to just regard what “is.”  Everything need not be a signature, omen, example, nor trigger to greater truth.  More profoundly than all the interrelations we may construct in our fertile minds, everything in our universe just “is,” and we should also appreciate that fact. 

Sun-

 

  

Like some relic of an antediluvian age, this little pocket park sits quietly squeezed between commercial buildings, not exactly neglected but in need of repairs along the waterfront.  Having nothing exotic and special about it, the space is extremely underutilized.  Undoubtedly eventually an enterprising town manager will “improve” it tremendously with a children’s playground or some other grand gesture, and thereby ruin the current ambience.

There are those who fight updating and modernization in any form fiercely, seeking to preserve patrimony.  Others are ripping into the future, leaving behind the blighted past.  Balance is impossible, because the one thing that cannot be achieved is some kind of rule-bound tension concerning past and future.  That is, after all, reserved for the actual present, which obeys no rules and simply is what it is.

 

  

Mon-

Tue-

Beyond the grass, children play in the muddy water at the town beach, their cries of freedom from class echoing charmingly (as an older person mostly charming because distant, I admit.)  It all seems so perfect and timeless.  My logic tells me that is not so, to worry about the future, to understand disaster is everywhere.  My inner child has also left the classroom this day, and says to forget all I want, smile and shout my own gladness at these moments, which are, after all, reality.
Wed-

The dune grass is also well on its way to summer peak, presiding over the sand drifts above the calm water.  There is such an infinite of interplay in the visual world around us _ even ignoring everything else which is just as infinite _ that I could shoot a picture from here every day and hardly become repetitious.  Each hour, each weather pattern, each season _ each fleeting moment of focused consciousness and attention _ is unique.

It is too easy at my age to wake in the morning and be bored.  There is a constant wash of memories and a lethargic pull that whispers “you have already done all that already.”  One response is to try to push harder and harder for the novel and new by finding totally new experiences such as travel.  I have found for my own peace of mind it is better to make the effort to understand why I feel that way in the face of overwhelming evidence that my universe is untarnished, fresh, and unexplored each day.
Thu-

Don’t get too many birds in these photos _ nor for that matter special sky and water effects.  I have a cheap old camera, by design, no fancy lenses or filters, don’t even use the standard options and doodads available on everything electronic these days.  I’m not a photographic artist and have no desire to be.  These pictures are taken to encourage me to see more, and the next day to formulate a few minor observations on myself and the world.

The important thing about any beauty _ created by art or otherwise _ is not that we can analyze its components nor basis nor creator.  Beauty is a gift to allow us to appreciate each moment, to feel that all the patterns around us are in balance and that we belong.  Beauty is the full sensory equivalent of an intellectual “religious impulse,” identical except for our need to create artificial categories in all we perceive.
Fri-

I like to think this scene on East Shore Road has not changed much since the mid-nineteenth century.  The houses were there, perhaps almost as big, and the harbor filled with sailing craft.  Of course we have none of the animal smells, the roads are paved, and in the biggest change the hills all around are forested instead of being used as pasture and meadows.  The way we imagine the past is rarely how it was, even visually, and certainly not emotionally nor in terms of human experience.

The world constantly changes and evolves, in spite of the conceit of each generation that what it knows happens to be what is normal and eternal.  Stability is illusion.  Old people worry about what is lost, but they are soon gone, and the tribes move on with only occasional reminders and fantasies of what must have been in the old days.
Sat-

Old fat guy lurking in the bushes like an aged panther waiting for prey.  At least, I guess he imagines prey.  I’ve never seen anybody catch anything this far inside the harbor and discussions I’ve caught mostly spoke of imaginary flounder (not in this season) or inedible spider crabs.  At this point, he is just a picturesque part of the scenery, like some ancient Italian peasant in a fishing village.

I like to think that my life is more purposeful, what I do filled with meaning, more important than merely sitting all day, smoking a cigar, watching a futile line stretch off beneath reflecting waters.  Of course, I am wrong.  Cosmically wrong always, from the standpoint of the mechanical universe.  Socially wrong in that nothing I do will result in financial rewards at this point.  Personally wrong in that walking and thinking is not really more elegant than sitting and meditating.  Still, we all like our little points of better-than –you comparisons in our competitive society.
Sun-

Yep, nothing but green.  No focus, no break, no composition.  That’s the point.  A short time ago, this tiny roadside meadow was filled with flowers.  Already many of the annuals have finished flowering and are busily storing energy in seeds for the coming year.  Most of the leaves on the trees and other perennials have already reached full extent, the new growth is beginning to halt and the nutrients sent back to the roots.  Basically, this is as green as it is going to get.

We think of timeless nature and its great cycles, as if it were some quiet library or majestic swells on the ocean.  But the ocean is not alive.  Life is roiled by constant disasters, plans, adjustments, chaos, and only survives by getting what it can when it can.  And that is just the plant world!  This quiet boring verdant patch is seething with tension and energy and competition.  Me, I just enjoy the lush ambience.

  

 

 

 

 

  

Mon-

We really should.  Any wonderful day for any reason is worth celebrating.  The flowers are still blooming, the moon still rising, the tides still flowing, the birds still singing.  And through it all I am a year older, and all my family and friends continue to have their own trail of experiences.  Life, for all perceived problems, remains good for many of us.  We should be grateful for that every day, and pay respects to the universe, and do all we can to absorb the wonders that have been given to us.
Tue-

Whatever boats might be going out this season are pretty much prepped and ready.  This is one of the big weekends _ a kickoff when everyone is still excited about a summer stretching seemingly forever before them.   Many make the forty mile or so jaunt to New York to watch the fireworks from the water, more just go out and party on the water with friends.  The heat and warm bay are cooperating, so far, although storms are always a possibility.

Others have told me I would eventually want a boat.  I never did.  I like walking on firm ground, even if I enjoy watching happenings on sea.  That is not some admirable lack of envy of those who can afford such things, it is just a natural disposition.   Part of it, of course, is just that I’m old and set in my ways and any changes to my comfortable routine are usually more disturbing than exciting.
Wed-

Another common weed in a neglected patch of parkland.  Common is usually best applied from a distance, since close inspection of anything in our marvelously fractal world quickly reveals that nothing at all is common except our own insufficient categorization.  These flowers are just as magnificent as anything in a botanic garden, and in a way more admirable for surviving on their own where other species fail.

So our own lives, of course.  There is no “common” human.  We are all filled with glorious experiences and handle immense tragedy and go through the world thinking and judging and remembering and wishing and having an outlook on the universe that may even be superior to that of the gods themselves, condemned to know all and be consequently amazed at nothing.

Thu-

Children these days must apparently be kept busy all the time, or at least their busy parents must be freed to go about their multiply necessary duties.  So as soon as school ends, summer camp begins.  I don’t remember life being quite so frantic when I was young, but then my memory is not what it used to be.

I know for sure, however, that this group will find far less biodiversity and large interesting creatures with their searches than Joan and I did.  The waters may finally be recovering a little, but they were deeply destroyed by forty or more years of neglect.  I only hope the youngsters don’t get too discouraged about disappointing nature.

Fri-

Tree and bush fruits are maturing rapidly _ I even saw some blueberries newly planted on the roadside work at Halesite.  The early annual flowers are dying back a bit, and from here on it is fun to watch the different competing strategies of the various species.  Some find Darwin’s theories depressing and joyless, but I find that thinking of the l
ife I see in terms of evolution makes it far deeper, richer, and more meaningful than simply believing that _ plop, magic _ something shows up here or there at the whim of the gods.

As for me _ well we all have our own peculiar thoughts about our deeper relation to the universe.  No use burdening you with mine, on this fine day.  Go work out your own destiny!

Sat-

Queen Anne’s Lace _ don’t know why her clothing was so much in vogue, but many common names are a folklore mystery to me.  These days, of course, you can look anything up quickly on line.  I’m not quite sure that is a gain _ sometimes ambiguous understanding is more full than when it is complete.

I always like these flat-headed white flowers just because they are so different.  Well, many flowers, of course, are if you in inspect them, but for me these pop out even when you are driving along a roadside.  Relative of the carrot, I hear.  Maybe.  I refuse to Google it.  I am too busy and interested in other things.

Sun-

This nicely encapsulates the ambience of the fourth.  The land of liberty and flags flying, as a chained link fence protects private property from unwanted visitors.  More confusingly, the beach is community property of the landowners, but the line below high tide is by law public (although nobody would ever know it around here) and the water is open to everyone.  Well, open and free as long as you abide by increasingly strict regulations of use.

In fact, for all our blather about following the wisdom of the founding fathers, we actually live in a society like any other that has evolved and adjusted to this exact time, place, and circumstance so that a society can continue and let people get along relatively smoothly.    I admire our culture greatly, but I do not mistake its patchwork of laws and customs for a designed logical edifice build on a foundation of inalienable anything.  At least, for the moment, the sun and air are still free, and the roadside available to all who walk along it.  Good enough for me.