For a change of pace and locale, Jeanine and I spent the day house hunting on the Atlantic seaboard. We started in Beverly and work our way down through Marblehead to Nahant. We found a couple of interesting properties that will make our “saved” list as well as two lighthouses. Pictured above, is the Hospital Point Light Station (now a private residence) named for a smallpox hospital built on the site. It is one of 5 Massachusetts lighthouses that still retains its original Fresnel lens. Pictured below, is the Marblehead Light Station, one of about 14 examples of pyramidal skeletal lighthouses surviving in the United States today, as well as the only one of its kind still standing in New England. The 105-foot tall, cast-iron structure with a central tower cylinder was built in 1896.
We are having our house painted this week including the 34 shutters that flank the windows on the front side. Of that number, four were in need of repair of one type or another. I spent several hours fabricating and installing missing or damaged parts. Thus far, I am very please with the work of our painters who are taking the time to do the job right. Today they spent the entire day doing prep work and probably will not start painting for a few more days.
I joined Jeanine for an evening stroll to Mattison Field just as the sun was setting. Pictured here is the barn of one of my former soccer teammates and brother of Christopher Reeves of Superman fame. On the way home, we enjoyed looking over our cornfield at the home of another neighbor.
Today, I received an e-mail from a favorite Truevision colleague. She reached out to get copies of the photos I took at her daughter’s wedding for an album to celebrate their five year anniversary. She was specifically interested in photos that the couple may have not seen before. I was able to send her 40 images from my archive. Just to put things in context, I have known the bride since she was 7 years old and she is now pregnant with her third child. Boy, do I feel old.
Occasionally, I have an opportunity to utilize my photography skills at work. Often, it is for marketing photos or employee headshots. Today, it was for forensic failure analysis. I am not at liberty to divulge what you are looking at but can say that having this image helps my team and I identify the root cause of a failure we observed.
A quick visit to Great Meadows on the way into work netted me this image of a Great Blue Heron perched atop a birdhouse. I really liked the composition. The birdhouse has a similar silhouette to the heron and the colors are also very similar.
A gift from my mother, this Japanese lantern has graced our garden since we moved in some 16 years ago. It looked on, as the entire family worked together to clean, declutter, and organize the shed that is attached to the back of our house. The intensity of work was matched only by the oppressive humidity and temperature of the day. The transformation after a couple of hours, however, was nothing short of dramatic. Elsewhere in the yard, there were many late-blooming flowers left to enjoy.
Our corn crop is getting fairly tall despite this guy’s propensity for dining on the plants. It will not be long before s/he is able to traverse the field unobserved. Pictured in the foreground and outside the depth of focus is a birdhouse with its resident sun tanning on the roof. If you study the aerial photo below carefully, you may find another instance of our frequent diner.
I recently photographed a dragonfly with a macro lens at a very close range. Today, I used one of my telephoto lenses to shoot one from about 3 feet away. Even so, he was quite skittish. Fortunately, he kept returning to the same perch which made it somewhat easier for me to get a nice photo. I just love the faces and variety of colors that can be found among these magnificent little helicopters.
I am coining a new phrase; “work art.” It describes artwork made during the course of work not intended to create artwork. This image, taken last week on Digital Alloy’s scanning electron microscope, provided very important evidence to help us diagnose a problem that we have been trying to solve for some time. When I saw it for the first time, my initial response was that of a photographer, admiring it for the beauty of the image rather than a researcher looking at the answer to a long-standing mystery.
It seems like only yesterday that Nicolai was just a toddler, choosing to navigate the world on forearm crutches rather than use a prosthetic. He has always chosen to stand out rather than fit in and we could not be prouder of him. Today, he turned 26 and we gathered for a small birthday celebration featuring the Thai cuisine he requested. He shared with us his plans to embark on a road trip to visit with his amputee soccer teammates and friends all over the country. All the details are not yet finalized but he plans to bring a camping tent so that he can minimize contact with others. We are less worried about the Covid-19 risk than we are about his car breaking down in the middle of nowhere. Even so, Nico has a knack for skirting calamity and we trust he will return no worse for the wear.
We are in the process of having our house painted and one of the workers removed this robin’s nest from the ledge of our sunporch so he could power wash all the surfaces. Before doing so, he removed the nest and left it under Maya’s care. Naturally, she placed it back in the original position and reports that mama Robin is still tending to it. With the painters set to start work next week, it is not clear if the nest will have to be repositioned and, if so what that will mean for the eggs. Stay tuned for updates.
On the way into the office this morning, I stopped to check out a lot for sale in Concord only to discover it was being cleared of trees in preparation for the construction of a new home. It was amazing how quickly it was deforested with the highly specialized equipment being used. Although the lot is nicely situated on high ground, it offers little more than a forest view and would cost almost as much as our house for just the dirt. I think we will pass.
This website is dedicated to sharing, with family and friends, the day-to-day adventures of the Calabria family.
