Five Photos/Five Stories Part 4 – Loving Our Pets, the Weekly Photo Challenge: Today Was a Good Day, and one Not-So-Good Day

When walking in Piedmont Park, we  find lots of folks loving their pets.

Poodles in Piedmont Park!

A day in early spring: “Sunday in the Park with Sam”

A cat on a leash, a dog in a back pack, a friendly pot-bellied pig, who knows what you’ll find?  Here’s a round-up of pets in the Park. And by the way, Hooray for National Dog Day today.

Thoughtful pet owners give their friend a rest on the way home.

Pepper the Pig – Dog meets Pig, Pig meets World, in Piedmont Dog Park

Cat on a leash – we asked: it was her first walk in the park (no pets were harmed in this confrontation).

This cat enjoys an outing in her Kitty Walker.

Some 2D critters watch over the park.

Now, the not-so-good day: This post is dedicated to KoKo, Sam’s pet and friend of 16 years. We said goodbye to KoKo one week ago today.

In Memoriam: Rest in Peace beautiful KoKo.

Five Photos — the rules are: “Post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. The stories can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or a short paragraph, with each day including a nomination to challenge another blogger. I don’t have a pass-along today, but will try to catch up next post. Thanks once more to Jean at Social Bridge for nominating me for this blogging challenge.

Now back to the good days — do you take your pet to a Park?

More on the Weekly Photo Challenge: Today was a Good Day

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Five Photos/Five Stories Part 3, and the Weekly Photo Challenge: Today Was a Good Day

It was a good day at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on our recent trip to Washington DC. I even got to visit my (TWA) roots —

Let’s back up for perspective on what I think of as the “Hall of Now-Defunct Airlines”…

TWA, Eastern, Pan-Am, Braniff, Northwest, Air Tran… there could be many more.

It’s a concert. Can you believe they were playing “I fell into a burning ring of fire…” in a room celebrating airplanes? To be fair, they followed it up with something like “Up, Up and Away…”

Here’s my gallery of Air and Space – click on an image and cycle through to see some Good Old Days and some Bad Old Days, and hold out hope for humanity that we’ll soon manage to get better.

Air and Space – Hall of now defunct airlines.

DC 7 cockpit – Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

How many people do you see reading their smartphones? – Orbital Workshop, Skylab, Backup Flight Unit

Let’s back up for perspective on the Orbital Workshop, Skylab, Backup Flight Unit

The boys were very interested in this one.

The Bad Old Days of discrimination.

And still more Bad Old Days.

Say WHAT?

Hey, I have some vintage airline playing cards — eBay anyone?

It’s a good day today because, speaking of things that (could) fall from the sky — no, not airplanes, these —

This tulip poplar towered over both houses.

Today it was my neighbor’s day for tree work. Thankfully, this one didn’t fall from the sky on either house, and that made today a very good day.

Here’s hoping yours was good too.

As for Five Photos — the rules are: “Post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. I had a break in my five days, but more on that later. The stories can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or a short paragraph, with each day including a nomination to challenge another blogger. With thanks once more to Jean at Social Bridge for nominating me for this blogging challenge, today I’m passing the torch to ace photographer Mabel at MableKwong.com.

And, here’s more on the Weekly Photo Challenge: Today was a good day.

Five Photos/Five Stories, & the Weekly Photo Challenge: Creepy, Part 2

Sorting through yet more basement stuff, I came upon a box of pulp sci-fi magazines from the 1960s through 1980s. How about it — brains, anyone? …

Maybe instead of ‘Part 2’ I should honor sci-fi conventions and title this post ‘Son of Creepy”…

These days we’re more worried about the Zombie Apocalypse than what went on in Atlantis. The characters with open skulls would look mighty attractive to our zombie friends.

Of course I can’t resist posting some more of these great vintage cover illustrations. Here’s a sea serpent of unequal heads, ridden by what appears to be a spaceman in a cape. I wish I could find attribution for these pictures, but I don’t see a signature, or even a credit inside.

And this faun is a ringer for a younger David Bowie, though I suppose he was still in school in 1961.

When I found these pulp ‘zines I thought I had a collector’s goldmine, but there doesn’t seem to be much demand for them. I’m considering framing a few.

I don’t think they’re too creepy to be art, do you?

As for Five Photos — the rules are: “Post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or a short paragraph, and each day nominate another blogger for the challenge. With thanks once more to Jean at Social Bridge for nominating me for this blogging challenge, today I’m passing the torch to Pip at Sustainability Soapbox.

More on the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Creepy

and More on Fantastic Stories of the Imagination (1952- 1980)

Five Photos/Five Stories, Fun Fruit, and the Weekly Photo Challenge: Creepy

Fresh Georgia peaches, figs, watermelon, honeydew… yum. If you crave fresh fruit, it’s a great time of year for food tourism. I love grapes and had been waiting for the return of creepy-looking Witches Fingers, even if they’re not locally grown. One day last week I found them…

Thank you Fresh Market.

Take close look at these weird witchy-looking grapes. I already had plenty of fruit, so thought I’d wait until later in the week to get some. I knew I was taking a chance. They’re only available for a short time and sure enough, when I went back they were all gone.

This is my first Five Photos/Five Stories post. The Five Photos rules are: “Post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or a short paragraph, and each day nominate another blogger for the challenge. With thanks to Jean at Social Bridge for nominating me for this blogging challenge, I’m passing the torch to Alexandra at alexandrarochman.com.

As for the Witches Fingers, I sense a lesson here — What was I thinking? — I should have hoarded some grapes.

What’s your favorite creepy fruit?

More on the Weekly Photo Challenge: Creepy

Compost, Tree Removal, and the Weekly Photo Challenge: Beneath Your Feet

What’s beneath my feet? It’s the spot that held what was left of last fall’s giant leaf mountain, created when raking the yard in November/December. I forked the remaining foothills into the compost bins a couple of days ago.

Compost: aka ‘black gold’

Every fall there are way too many leaves to fit in the compost bins, so the leaf-mountain grows beside them. Then the seasons turn, the compost shrinks, and eventually it’s possible to get everything in.

Here’s the row of bins, all topped off.

You saw what’s underneath my feet — now look up. See what’s over my head?

I hurried to clean up the compost area so a tree removal company could get through to take away this dying oak tree.  It was leaning toward the neighbor’s house.  What’s sadder still — it wasn’t the only dying oak, there was another one, even bigger. Here’s a “Where’s Waldo” type photo of one of the tree removal guys at work (orange shirt, very high up).

And a closer look —

I would have nightmares after a day of climbing like this, especially with a chainsaw hanging  beside me.

After they left yesterday, I was disappointed to find a lot of smaller limbs they should have picked up, but left lying on the ground, and a trail of empty plastic water bottles they left behind littering the woods. They mashed one of the other compost bins, knocked off the top of my neighbor’s fence, and if I count tree stumps, I see an extra —  they must have clobbered and taken out another small tree near the bigger one out back.  It seems unprofessional that they didn’t mention any of these things. Now I know it’s necessary to watch more closely, even when there are chainsaws involved.

As for the compost, there’ll be fewer leaves to feed it this fall… R.I.P. beautiful oak trees.

For more on the Weekly Photo Challenge: Beneath Your Feet