Little Bang Theory

a.k.a. “Images From My Day:”

A Jack-in-the-pulpit:

The fertile fronds of an interrupted fern, heavy with spores even as they unfurl on a cool Spring day:

Blossoms reigning over Rolling J Farm in the absence of their masters:

A bucolic detour through Cheshire on the ride home, with Lake Onata leering in the background:

So Jen over at A Few Choice Words had this up, and in case you’re in one of these Venn Diagram subsets which doesn’t intersect with Jen, here it is.

I expect to see a few astonished looks around here:

Just got a new toy, and I’m aching to use it.

I hope you’ll enjoy watching as I explore the ins and outs of it, probing ever more deeply into the intimate natural world, exploring moist places, seeing how things grow before your very eyes.

I’m in Love with a Sigma F2.8 DG MACRO.

Hope it titillates you too.

……………….

Solar Sex Panels unfold above an atmosphere of moss in a gambit for first dibs on The Light:

The Moss Strikes Back with a phalanx of moss-goslings:

…While above them, a columbine beneficently blesses the battle:

Yeah, I’m gonna like this toy a lot.

On one of my recent homeward meanderings, I decided to visit the Chesterfield Gorge on the East Branch of the Westfield River.

Just saying that evokes a sort of geographical ambiguity, and interestingly, I’ve always found that area of the state to be in some sense ambiguous. The three branches of the Westfield share a common geology and a common destination, but otherwise their characters can be so very different.

The East Branch seems to be the largest of the three, though I don’t have any hard data on that. It just seems more present and powerful a lot farther north. And by the time it passes through Chesterfield, it’s a real river, and the high waters of Spring are a thing to behold.

Like the Deerfield River to its north, the Westfield has carved its signature in the land, most impressively in Chesterfield, where the river passes between the walls of a schist chasm, crashing through drops and eddys into deep, dark pools beneath shadowed walls:

The bracing spray of a youthful Spring flow is slowly supplanted by the mists of a steamy summer, and all the while the river infuses its surroundings with the Water of Life. Mosses grow in profusion on surfaces too steep for forests:

The late afternoon sun throws long shadows across the walls as evening approaches; the parking lot clears out, and you’re left alone in the chill air.

Savor it. Listen to the river.

This morning, on the last miles of my epic trudge to work, I saw two VERY LARGE moose grazing along the Westfield River. I pulled over and fished out my (ever present) camera, but by the time I fired it up and dialed in the appropriate settings, the pair were gone.

So as a consolation prize, here’s a moose:

If this rings a bell, you’re old.

And to think, it’s Poetry Month!

Hucka-who??

Baaaaaaaa!

This profoundly titillating and spot-on Musical Interlude, that is! Apparently it’s making the rounds.

Good. Us Godless Heathens deserve to contract all sorts of Plagues of Indignation and Pestilences of Truth.

Besides, Eric Schwartz needs the exposure, and he ain’t gonna get it in the M$M.

So in a show of solidarity with Mr. Schwartz and M’Lady DCup, here’s another contagion which ought to be spreading like hot oil on shaved skin:

‘Cause you know, as bad as this all sucks, sucking ain’t necessarily all that bad!

So I wasted a little time skulking around youtube and came away with this:

The name “Kona” caught my attention…

Some people have way too much time on their hands (Thank Gawd!)

PS, “Costumes Design by Edith Head.” Love it!

It was a Big Day at The Job today, when we found out if the beams fit. If they didn’t, I would be pretty much toast.

Here, my Gaucho friend Isaiah rides one down in the rain:

The Bad News: This bridge was half-built when I came on board, and was a mess, with the abutments being slightly too close together for the size of the beams.

The Good News: I managed to tweak the shit outta the layout, scarfing a few extra millimeters from each of several unsuspecting design features and making them fit.

Just barely.

But hey, barely works for me!

…of cropping and balancing and resizing the past weekend’s pics for posting over where The Climbers go.   I’ll be back and raging soon as I’ve thanked this gathering’s attendees.