A Walk Through The Park

Ola!

I thought I would dust off this blog and give everyone a treat today. Why? Because about a month ago, I received a b'day present of a slightly used digital video camera. A camera that is 1000 times better than the cheapy Colby camera that I had used for the past few years.

Anyways, today's pictorial will feature pics taken on a picnic I took with the wife on June 20th at Mill Pond Park. Enjoy!

 

 1) This is similar to one that I took a couple of years ago, in which I was laying on my back and looking up. Strangely enough, my wife did ask what I was doing, and strangely enough, I answered.

2} A very distant shot of ducks, even though I used the zoom feature on the camera. As you can see by the algae, it's been wickedly hot and dry this year so far.

 

3} With this shot, I was able to get much closer to the pond (a bench for people to watch and..ahem...feed the geese from was nearby) and thus make better use of the zoom feature.

4} Another shot of the geese from the same area.

 

5} This was taken from the bridge that crosses the waterfall, which was bone dry this particular day. My wife thinks that one of the ducks in this pic used to visit our little pond back in the day before the dogs chased them out.

6} Another duck sunbathing on the rocks. The sad part is that you can usually see these rocks when there has been a distinct lack of rain in the area for an extended period of time.

 

7} Still more ducks. Ducks at the pond are just about the easiest animals to take pictures of.

8} Yup, you guessed it, more ducks. We have a large population of two types of feathered friends: ducks and Canadian geese.

 

9} And still yet more ducks taking their hourly bath at the edge of the waterfall.

10} This was taken with a zoom as I wanted to get a shot of the duck swimming inside the water fountain.

 

11} The water fountain, which was donated by the Newington Garden Club back in the late 70's. There are two of them, one at the northern and the other at the southern end of the pond. They only come out for play when there's been a distinct lack of rain in the area for an extended period of time, thus giving Mother Nature a helping hand in maintaining the minimum water levels.

Hiking On Cedar Mountain 2

Continuing on a theme, here is part 2 of my leisure weekend hike up Cedar Mountain.

On this part of the hike I decided to explore a bit of the ridge. Photo's 2 and 3 were taken from a rocky outcrop that gave me the willies while I was hiking up (diagonally) and while I was hiking down (also diagonally, which was very dangerous). In the remaining pics, you can see worn out paths that although were great for walking on, did provide a few places along the way for me to sit and proverbially smell the flowers, or in the case, the trees and the birds. You can also that autumn is indeed taking place on Cedar Mountain.

And while the grade was roughly 7% or more in some places, the downward trek on those paths made it feel like I was walking down a slightly steep hill. So overall to this point, the hike was going very well.

Hiking On Cedar Mountain

Recently I went for a hike up Cedar Mountain and took roughly 20 pics and one video while spending an hour tramping around the mountain. I thought now would be a good time as any to resurrect this blog and share one of my favorite places to get lost within myself. So without further ado, here is Cedar Mountain.

 

 

These pics were taken within the first fifteen minutes of my hike. The first one shows the entrance to Cedar Mountain, which located directly across from the end of my street. The remaining six were taken at various points while I was hiking up the initial 8-9% incline (it eventually grew to about a 11% or so incline the further up I went), either facing towards the street or off to my right as I faced the mountain.

 

Even though the temps were in the hi 60's/lo 70's outside, once I got about ten feet inside the mountain the temp dropped roughly five degrees. The higher I went the chillier it got as even though the sun poked its head through (as you can see in some of those pics), the ratio of shade to sun was about 4 to 1 in favor of the shade.

 

As you can see, autumn hasn't quite taken hold in the mountain yet, but in the coming weeks, maybe it has.