Taylor is a farmer. She has worked for the last four years at Millstone Farm in Wilton, where I buy flowers. Previously Taylor farmed in Hawaii. Before that she traveled around.
Millstone Farm grows produce and flowers and raises sheep and pigs. Taylor photographs the happenings at the farm and posts her images on Instagram as @millstonefarmct. I follow her. Take a look.
I have shown Lounsbury House numerous times. Everyone in Ridgefield passes it on Main Street multiple times a day. Every time, it calls out for attention.
The most recent time I stopped was because the sky was blue and pink flowers hung along the front.
The plantings around the fountain but behind the war memorial were lush and colorful.
Another war memorial honoring soldiers from earlier wars is half a mile south on Main Street. I have unsuccessfully photographed it several times. I need to try again.
She walked past with long black hair and a flowing white sundress. Then she walked up to a white Tesla with black tires, windows and trim. What would you do? Me, too. I went over and met her.
Stacy is retired from work in marketing for a jewelry company. She and her husband lived across the line in New York state for 25 years but moved into Connecticut last year. They have three kids, one of whom is getting married next week. Not everyone coordinates as well with their car.
In the same neighborhood of South Salem as the tree and farmhouse I showed yesterday, I stopped several times to appreciate small architectural touches owners incorporated into otherwise ordinary buildings.
I liked the rich, dark paint job and the colorful sun within an arch engraved "Elmwood" (the name of the road) in the gable of this building. I imagine it is a studio of some kind.
Someone took the time and bore the expense at this simple farmhouse to decorate the gable and space between the front windows with semi-circular shingles.
This is a simple, well-maintained house with stained shingles (not especially common here). Hanging a huge American flag over an entrance is becoming increasingly common. I don't know why.
Same idea, but in paint instead of cloth, and a heart substitutes for the field of stars.
I would like to see more of this big Craftsman-style house, but it is set back from the road, hidden behind a stone wall and unruly bushes that I peeked through, and obscured by inartfully planted trees.
Sue's Mini Cooper has the license plate "MINISU." I can confirm that it is Truth in Advertising.
Hurricane Henri became a tropical storm and then passed through here mainly as a lot of rain. Fortunately, no major issues with trees down or power outages. But, it did keep me inside.
On my one quick trip outside yesterday during the rain, the only interesting thing I saw was a gaggle of four nondescript geese walking across the street. Not interesting? Maybe you're right.
I am back in Connecticut, housebound from the minor effects of Tropical Storm Henri. (We got lucky.) So, I spent time checking the images captured over the past week on my new trail camera.
My property abuts a stream and a preserve. The bottom of the property is wild, with ferns and skunk cabbage . . . food for deer. There were 354 images, most blurred or obscured. But, some were fun to see.
This young doe passes through the property regularly, several times a day. She is often accompanied by one or two fawns. The fawns also visit by themselves, but I didn't like any of their images.
A young doe and a young buck passed through in the late morning.
The trail cam photographs with infra-red light after dark. The nighttime images are much grainier and the shutter speed is slower, often producing blur. But, this image of a deer was decent.
I wonder if I will capture a bear sometime. One was in the neighborhood three weeks ago.
The tall chimney-like forms are called "hoodoos," after a Native American word meaning something like "men standing in holes they dug for themselves."
We spent half a day at Bryce Canyon. Some intrepid souls hiked down to the floor, but I have a problem with heights, so I stayed on the rim. We took a nice bicycle ride out of the park before heading home.
Zion is in southern Utah. After leaving the park, we crossed into northern Arizona to visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon for two half days.
What can I say about views like this?
To see the narrows calls for a couple of miles walking in the Virgin River, sometimes above the knee.
In Zion National Park for a hiking trip at altitude with temperatures of 106 degrees Fahrenheit. The first day's trip was brutal in the heat. The second day should be in The Narrows but I am trying to decide between beauty and great images and hiking to exhaustion. Common sense might prevail. Stay tuned.
At the end of the 18th century, George Peabody was born into poverty in part of my home town. Peabody became a wealthy merchant and financier first in Baltimore and then in London. He took on a young Morgan lad, and the firm eventually became the predecessor of J. P. Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.
After retiring from banking in 1864, Peabody became America's first great philanthropist. There are Peabody libraries, museums and educational institutions all over the eastern part of the USA. This is Peabody Institute Library in Danvers, Massachusetts, the second library he funded. My mother was a reference librarian here for 15 years or so. The library was a short walk from the house I grew up in.
The town hall is a hop, skip and a jump down the street. Growing up, I thought there was a requirement that every town had to have a conspicuous Civil War monument.
I was in Norwalk to rent a van and turned down a nondescript side street.
A mural proclaiming "Love More Than Ever" faced me. It is signed by 5iveFingaz, a Norwalk artist who is anonymous except for his Instagram handle.
Tokeneke is a neighborhood of Darien, Connecticut, south of US Route 95 and north of the Long Island Sound. Several peninsulas jut into the Sound, and there are numerous coves, lagoons and inlets. (Don't ask me about them . . . I stole the description.) Tokeneke is a very high end location.
