Yesterday, while photographing the Mrs Skipper troll, I flew my drone up the Providence River to capture a photo of the city skyline. I decided to share it today rather than include it with yesterday’s rather long post. I flew behind the tugboat, knowing it would eventually make a great foreground element, especially with its elevated pilothouse. This towering design primarily serves to provide the captain with an unobstructed line of sight over large barges. In my photo, it serves to mirror the skyscrapers in the background.

Thomas Dambo is a Danish artist, trained at Design School Kolding, who since 2014 has built giant troll sculptures from recycled materials as part of his “Trail of a Thousand Trolls” project, starting with “Hector the Protector” in Puerto Rico. Now installed in 16 countries, his trolls are assembled almost entirely from salvaged wood, pallets, and branches, and rather than the menacing figures of Norse folklore, they act as gentle forest guardians, each carrying its own environmental story. Building one is a communal effort, with dozens or hundreds of local volunteers assembling the body on site from donated scrap wood.

Today, Jeanine and I visited all five of his recently completed Rhode Island trolls with our wonderful friends, Lou Ann & Alex, and Stefanie and Sal. We could not have wished for a more perfect summer day for this outing.

To sustain our energy for troll hunting, we paused to hunt for something much smaller and harder to find: quahog clams. From within the John H. Chafee Rome Point Preserve, we hiked to Bissel Cove, where we waded into the shallow water to dig for our late morning meal.

Before joining the group for the clam hunt, I did a little aerial photography to provide a sense of our idyllic location. I managed to collect 15 clams, but five did not meet the minimum size requirement and had to be returned to the water. Jeanine had one of the largest hauls, including several scallops.

Our bounty went straight from the water to the grill, where Alex cooked batch after batch on the portable grill he carried in.

In addition to the clams, we had sausages and Jeanine’s scallops as well as cheese and fruits. Quite the elegant feast after a long hike.

I happened to be in the vicinity of Brandeis University and remembered taking a photo of the Usen Castle about four years ago. I recall thinking that it needed afternoon light for more flattering illumination. As long as I was in the area, I popped in for a quick photo. On the way home, I decided to capture another castle-like building to create a theme for the day’s photos. The ivy-covered one below is located on the grounds of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. I used the telephoto lens on my drone to shoot it from far away and high above Flint’s Pond.

It is miraculous that any of our coneflowers have survived, given what a delicacy they are for the local groundhog community. Apparently, they are also a favorite of the Green Lacewing shown here enjoying an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet.

For better or worse, we live in the affluent town of Concord, MA. When I saw this property advertised in the local paper for $18,000,000, I was curious to see what you get for that kind of money. I copied the Zillow listing below, complete with a spelling error.

This exceptional 6-acre estate offers supreme privacy and tranquility on a quiet cul-de-sac bordered by conservation land and completed fenced in with 3 gated driveways. The luxurious main residence includes 7 bedrooms, a gourmet kitchen with scenic views, solarium, library, private theater, billiards room, 2025 Built state-of-the-art Fitness Center with infrared room, juice bar, club house with a connecting wing to the Indoor Outdoor Heated Pool with full spa experience. Two greenhouses, multiple fruit tree orchards, tennis court w 4 Bed guest house, 2 add’l guest houses, commercial kitchen with live in chef’s suite. A multi-car garage completes the offering.

It was originally listed for $21.5M two years ago and I suspect the price will fall further before this property sells.

When I first noticed this parking lot located along Route 2 about 5 miles from our house, I assumed it was for a shopping mall. If you study the picture, however, you quickly realize that the buildings are way too small to require this much parking space. My next guess was a park-and-drive lot for the airport, but there are no shuttle buses anywhere to be seen. Finally, I thought it might be a huge car dealership with lots of inventory, but there is no form of signage whatsoever. After some sleuthing, I discovered that this is where used cars and trucks are auctioned at wholesale. Once a week, hundreds are sold all over the northeastern region of the country. The inventory comes from rental car companies, fleet managers, manufacturers, dealerships, and finance companies. The company is called ADESA and has 56 such locations across the USA. It was recently acquired by Carvana.

It has been two weeks since my surgery, and it is now safe to start doing increasingly strenuous activities, although full recovery will take another month or two. Several months ago, the motion-activated floodlights on the corner of our garage started behaving erratically. Replacing the light fixture has been on my to-do list for some time, and I was happy to complete the task today. I spent 30 minutes on the ladder and another couple of hours waiting until it turned dark for testing and adjustments.

In our family, Nico is the most famous soccer player. Kyle, however, is also a gifted athlete and soccer star in his own right. After watching the World Cup Final with our friends Tom and Karen, I remembered a video I shot of a teenage Kyle playing indoor soccer and his skillful antics. It took me hours to find in the massive amount of video I shot of the kids as they grew up. Unlike my photo library, I have not made the effort to add keywords or an index to the collection. Once located, I edited the game down to the short highlight reel linked above.

Nico enjoyed the World Cup final in person and shared this photo as his group entered the stadium.

Known as Tenshin-en, or the “Garden of the Heart of Heaven,” this serene 10,000 square-foot space behind the Museum of Fine Arts merges Japanese symbolism with the natural beauty of New England. Designed by Kyoto garden master Kinsaku Nakane, the contemplative space is a karesansui (dry landscape) that uses meticulously raked gravel to mimic water and over 200 carefully placed stones to represent mountains and islands. It features over 70 plant species, including towering pines, cherries, and Japanese maples.

Jeanine and I have decided to integrate a Japanese garden into our home’s landscape. It is still an early notion, and we have decided to visit several gardens to seek inspiration. Our outing this morning also included a visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and a rare rhinoceros sighting.

When Jeanine and I go for walks together, it is almost always in our immediate neighborhood. For a change of pace this morning, we took our walk in the Minuteman National Historical Park near the Old North Bridge, where I photographed a new perspective of the bridge and monuments. Because of the early hour, we encountered few visitors other than the Rock Pigeons that are invariably perched on the bridge railing.

While out for a morning stroll, I encountered this Brown-belted Bumble Bee (Bombus griseocollis), a native pollinator widely distributed across North America. It is pictured foraging on the bright purple flowers of a Purple Loosestrife plant. It was so engrossed in feeding that it was oblivious to my camera positioned about three inches away for this close-up.

The air quality today was terrible due to the smoke drifting in from wildfires in Canada. On the positive side, the sunset was spectacular. Wildfires cause highly vibrant, intensely red and orange sunsets primarily due to a physics phenomenon known as Mie scattering. Under normal conditions, clean air particles are tiny and scatter short wavelengths of light—like blue and violet—which is why the midday sky looks blue. However, wildfire smoke pumps millions of much larger particulate matter and aerosols into the upper atmosphere. Because these smoke particles are significantly larger than standard air molecules, they act as an aggressive filter. They completely scatter away the shorter violet, blue, and green wavelengths of light. This allows only the longest wavelengths—vivid oranges and deep reds.

The flower pictured in its bud stage is an American Lotus (Nelumbo lutea), a large aquatic perennial also commonly known as the yellow lotus, water-chinquapin, or volée. It is the only lotus species native to North America, thriving naturally in quiet ponds, lakes, and slow-moving river systems. While typical water lilies float directly on the surface of the water, the American Lotus is an emergent plant characterized by its massive, umbrella-like leaves and single flowers that are held high above the water on long, stiff, vertical stalks. When fully mature, this pale-green bud will open into a fragrant, cream-to-pale-yellow blossom that can reach up to ten inches in diameter. Thousands can be found at the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, where I took this photo.

I decided to do a little drone photography today, revisiting the Annursnac Hill Reservoir. Several weeks ago, I lost my drone while shooting images for the Concord Bridge. The model I replaced it with has three cameras instead of one. The two additional cameras provide a mid-telephoto and full telephoto capability in addition to the standard wide-angle field of view. This allows for much greater latitude when framing an image. In the photo above, I decided to include the Northeastern Correctional Center in the background, which I think makes for a more interesting composition.

Earlier in the day, I visited the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, where I found fewer birds than in our own backyard. That said, I spotted the Great Egret pictured below which we have never seen on our stretch of the river.