Ultra MAGA

 Eight cars and trucks with Ultra MAGA signs drove through the downtown, loudly honking their horns.

I said hello to them with a raised middle finger.

Birds at the Feeder

 Do these count as my photographs if I own the feeder with the camera?

Male and female cardinals.

Song sparrow.

White-breasted nuthatch.

A Serpentine Wall

 Curved brick walls, often called crinkle crankle or serpentine walls, offer structural advantages over straight walls, particularly in resisting lateral forces like wind.  Architectural records show that building continuous, wavy walls was a technique known to the Egyptians some four thousand years ago.

While they may appear to use more bricks due to their length, they often require fewer bricks overall because their curved shape allows for a thin single-layer construction that is still stable and strong.

Gilbert Street, Ridgefield, Connecticut.

Art Walk

 Ridgefield turned into a strolling art gallery when the 12th annual ArtWalk  kicked off on Friday evening with artist meet and greets outside downtown stores.  I visited on Saturday afternoon, when the artists returned.  Art Walk continues through September 7.

Nancy Moore creates wildly colorful works, often of women, sometimes of animals.  She is a longtime book editor.  A half dozen of Nancy's imaginative works are displayed during Art Walk at Books on the Common.  Somehow her paintings fit well with books.  (And with her clothes.)

Mira Vitarello paints with pastels.  She is an instructor at the Ridgefield Guild of Artists, the sponsor of Art Walk.  Some of Mira's lovely works are displayed at a women's clothing boutique during Art Walk.  Her style is a blend of impressionism and modern contemporary representational art. 

Suzanne Charbonneau's works have a Cape Cod feel.  I mentioned that to her and she agreed.  Suzanne was born in Rhode Island and spent a lot of time on Cape Cod as a child.  Suzanne recently retired from longtime work as creative director of New York City advertising agencies.  More time to paint!

Farmer's Market

 Every Saturday morning in the summer, a farmer's market opens on the lawns of a local church.

Organic vegetables are popular.

Pesto.

Bubble tea.

Hummus.

And, home-made pastries!

Cemetery

 

The Beers and Cornen families have nearby monuments.  

Many names are on each monument, but the biggest and most ornate memorial on the Beers monument is for a boy who died at six years old in 1864.

The biggest memorial on the Cornen monument is for a seventeen year old girl who died in 1865.

"The rose blooms, it withers and is lost to sight, but not to memory."

Abstract Art

 

Love those roots.

Hydrangea

I lived in West Hartford for nearly 40 years.  About 12 years ago I planted limelight hydrangea plants in a hedge along one side of my property. 

Yesterday I drove past.  I am delighted that the current owners are taking good care of the hydrangea hedge, as well as good care of the entire property.

The Park

 Back in Connecticut after a truly special visit to the Galapagos Islands.

I had business in West Hartford, so I detoured past Elizabeth Park.  Canna lilies are blooming.

The annual garden is replanted every year, so every year it looks different.  This year's edition looks great.

Smile!

 

Land iguana.

Variety

The islands of the Galapagos have many variations.

Lava on Santiago Island cooled fast, leaving rope-like fields.

Sombrero or Chinese Hat is beautiful.  Lava-formed basalt rocks in the foreground.  Red carpet weed in the middle.  A hill behind.

Lava flowing down the side of a volcano on Bartolome produced lava tunnels.

The copper on Rabida turns the soil red.

Some islands host "chandelier cactus."

Prickly pear cacti are on other islands.

Sand and lava and water in various combinations are common among the Galapagos Islands.

Tortoises of Santa Cruz

 Santa Cruz is a major Galapagos island, one of the few with an actual town, Puerto Ayora.  We were driven inland to highlands in the center of Santa Cruz.  Tortoises  were plentiful in the fields we passed.  

After reaching a preserve and having lunch, we walked paths in fields where some of the tortoises were ten to 20 feet away.

Some tortoises seemed to wonder who these white-skinned people were.

Their curiosity didn't last long.  They promptly went back to the important thing.  Eating.

Charles Darwin Research Station

This biological research station is located on the shore of Academy Bay in the village of Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos Islands.  

It honors Charles Darwin who was in the Galapagos for geological research in the 1830s.  While there, Darwin made acute observations about birds and other animals in the Islands, that later influenced his Theory of Evolution.

While the research station has long lists of objectives in its mission statement, a central job is conserving Galapagos tortoises.  They breed tortoises, always keeping track to assure that they do not intermingle tortoises from different Galapagos islands.  I think these are about two years old, all from one island.

Most Galapagos tortoises are domed, but there is a small subset of saddleback tortoises like these.  Males challenge for dominance by stretching their necks.  The one who reaches higher is the boss.  The other slinks away and tries again another day.

Tip Top V

 

Two pelicans and two blue-footed boobies rest in front of the catamaran that has been taking us around the western Galapagos this week.

Dinner in the Galapagos

 

We're eating fresh fish tonight!

Blue-footed Boobies

 

Blue-footed boobies deserve their own day.

Mosquera Wildlife

 In addition to the sea lions on Mosquera that I showed yesterday, there were other creatures.  Many are endemic, meaning they are native to the Galapagos islands and not found elsewhere.

These are Galapagos terns.

Yellow warblers are native but not endemic.

A marine iguana with a pair of Galapagos lava lizards.

Striated herons look a lot like the green herons I see in Southwest Florida.

This isn't endemic.  A sea urchin shell.  But I thought it ws gorgeous and worthy of a photo.