Favorite Things

Christian (formally: London Fog's Lord Christian), 1974-1988. This photo was taken in North Huntington, PA, probably Memorial Day 1974.


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Christian. Cropped version of previous photo in this album. I believe this was the day we brought him home.


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Christian. This photo is posed, of course. He couldn't really read. He was just looking at the pictures in the book. Probably taken around 1976.


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Christian. North Huntington PA. Probably around 1980. He LOVED his back yard.


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Canada Geese. The object protruding from the water in the lower left-hand corner of the photo is the head of an otherwise submerged turtle. There may be additional turtle heads in the background beyond the geese.


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Great Blue Heron, Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC -- 6 May 2008


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Canada Geese , Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC -- 6 May 2008.

Note that there are also babies (goslings) in this photo.


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Hunmingbird, Sacramento CA -- 18 Oct 2008. Jan and Dave's back yard. These things are VERY difficult to photograph.


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Hunmingbird, Sacramento CA -- 18 Oct 2008. This image cropped to try to enlarge it.


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Front yard in Aiken SC, 21 July 2009, about 6:40 am. A "neighbor" stopped by for breakfast.

Took several photos, some with flash, some without. This one (with flash) seemed the clearest. It apparently has some kind of reflective tissue in its eyes (similar to cats and deer) that reflected the flash. The eye didn't look like that in the non-flash photos. I see this bunny perhaps two mornings per week at about this same time. It's probably here the other mornings too.

Later: During the first 16-17 years at this house, had perhaps 6 sightings of rabbits, in total. Had heard their populations were very depressed (relative to, say, 1960} due to the spread of fire ants into the area. It's said the ants sting baby rabbits to death (rabbits nest in shallow ground burrows). Between around 2008 and 2011 (when this is written) have seen perhaps 100 bunny sightings in the yard -- and nearby yards and the adjacent fairways. There has also been a noticable reduction in the number of fire ant nests, so perhaps the folklore about the ants suppressing rabbit populations has some validity.


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Tiger guarding his Christmas holiday rubber ducks. Aiken SC. 21 December 2009.

If Tiger (born about September 1994) looks a bit odd, it may be because he is missing his right rear leg following cancer surgery in March 2008. He's lying on towels on a ledge around the bathtub.

Later (5 Feb 2014): Tiger is still with us, and apparently doing fine (but slowiing down somewhat, perhapshe's entered a well-deserved retirement). I'm the one who arranged the rubber ducks -- finally having figured out what the expression about getting one's ducks lined up meant).


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC -- 26 Dec 2009.

Dogwood Course at Houndslake Country Club. A Great Blue Heron is on the lake shore in foreground. The light colored areas in the upper right hand corner are sand traps around the 7th green. The light colored areas in the upper left hand corner are sand traps around the 8th green.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC -- 26 Dec 2009.

Dogwood Course at Houndslake Country Club. Great Blue Heron. Cropped from previous photo.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC -- 27 Dec 2009.

Probably a female Ring Neck Duck.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC -- 27 Dec 2009.

Probably a male Ring Neck Duck.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 30 Dec 2009.

These are male Bufflehead Ducks (foreground). Most of these lake photos were taken in early morning -- generally between first light and actual sunrise. In winter, that's probably before 7:45 AM in almost all cases.

There are female Buffleheads in the background.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 30 Dec 2009. Cropped version of previous photo. Most of the early-2010 duck photos that follow are cropped to provide more of a close-up of the ducks.

Male Buffleheads have dramatic coloration, but are difficult to photograph. The problem seems to be a combination of: (1) the males (especially) tend to keep away from shore (so I'm using max telephoto zoom); (2) the early morning winter light is not great; (3) the light and water tend to "fool" the AUTO exposure setting on my Cannon camera, so the white areas on these ducks are overexposed; and (4) I do this handheld, so there is some camera motion (camera has "image stabilization", but it doesn't counteract all motion). When I've tried to employ manual exposure settings, that uses up time the ducks spend swmming directly away from me, so that hasn't worked out either.

Some morning I'll take a tripod with me to see if I can do more with that.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 7 Jan 2010.

Female Bufflehead Duck. I think one of the reasons this one was selected for the album was that I liked the interesting reflections and wave patterns on the surface of the water. That also applies to several other photos that follow.


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Pond uphill from #7 fariway, Dogwood Couse, Houndslake County Club, Aiken SC, 7 Jan 2010.

The surface of the pond is frozen. My recollection (as this caption is written on 4 Mar 2010) is that the pond had frozen the night of 5/6 Jan. Then it partially thawed during the day of 6 Jan, leaving floating home-plate-sized slabs of ice that drifted around a bit. These re-froze the night of 6/7 Jan into a thin crust covering essentially the entire surface of the pond. The small slabs frozen into the new crust made for an interesting pattern.

Temperature was 14 deg F the morning this photo was taken. Very cold for here.

I sat on the shore and pressed my foot down onto the ice. It began to crack after I put what I estimate is perhaps 10-12 pounds of force. The ice crusts in all of these photos are pretty thin. This IS South Carolina.


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Azalea Lake, Aiken SC, 11 Jan 2010.

Houndslake County Club has three 9-hole golf courses. Each of them contains a lake. There are also at least four smaller ponds. This is a lake on Houndslake's Azalea course. This is sort of a close-up of the surface showing stress patterns on the crust of ice completely covering the surface.

Interestingly, at this time Dogwood Lake (only about 500 yards away) had only narrow crusts of ice at a few points around the shoreline. I suspect the different in freeze characteristics MAY have been the total volume of water. Dogwood Lake has perhaps 4 times the surface area of this lake. Also, Dogwood MAY be deeper on average, so it could contain something like an order of magnitude more water volume.


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Azalea Lake, Aiken SC, 11 Jan 2010.

This is a pond just off the 4th hole of Houndslake's Dogwood course. The surface ice on this pond was smooth and glassy.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 7 Jan 2010.

Female Bufflehead duck


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 7 Jan 2010.

Female Bufflehead duck.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 7 Jan 2010.

Female Bufflehead duck.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 11 Jan 2010.

I believe this is a Ring Neck Duck -- probably a female.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 12 Jan 2010.

I believe this is a Ring Neck Duck -- probably a female. I probably selected this mostly for the wave pattern.


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Aiken SC, 12 Feb 2010, about 5:30 pm, perhaps 30 minutes after the snow started falling. Photo taken facing east. Most of the trees are in the back yard. The open area in the far background is the 5th fairway of the Dogwood Course of Houndslake Country Club.

Beginning of a snowfall. Probably taken with flash to get image of falling snowflakes. I didn't know how heavy this snowfall would be (by South Carolina standards) when I took this photo, of course.


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Aiken SC, 13 Feb 2010. This is my driveway, facing west (looking toward the street). All of these 13 Feb 2010 "snow" photos were taken between about 7 AM and 8 AM


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Aiken SC, 13 Feb 2010.

Home. This is facing roughly east. You can see from the snow on the veritcal tree trunks that wind was blowing from roughly northeast during the snowfall.

I don't recall taking a photo like this previously. There have been only a few snowfalls this heavy in the almost 19 years I've lived here (as of 2010). Most of those were probably when I had to leave for work before it was light enough for photos (assuming I was in town in the first place).


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Aiken SC, 13 Feb 2010.

Back yard. The view here may be a bit deceptive. The branches on the right hand side of the photo are on a small pine tree that is in the foreground.


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Aiken SC, 13 Feb 2010.

Fifth fairway of Dogwood Course, facing north, looking toward the tee


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Aiken SC, 13 Feb 2010.

Sixth fairway of Dogwood Course, looking east. Standing near the tee, looking toward the green. The dark "road" is an asphalt-paved cart path. It was odd how the pine trees to the north and east of certain points seemed to intercept much of the snow.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 13 Feb 2010.

Seventh fairway of Dogwood Course, facing east. I took this while standing just downslope from the tee, looking downhill toward Dogwood Lake (the south end of the lake is in the center of the photo). The slightly sloping (but mostly horizontal) line just below the center of the photo is a cart path.

This hole is a long par 5. The fairway goes down to the lake, then around the south end of the lake (right hand side of this photo), and then doglegs north. In this view the green is hidden by the trees on the left-hand side of the photo.

Highly skilled golfers can drive to within perhaps 50 yards of the near lake shore and then hit their seond shot across the lake. There is a (small) "secret" landing area over there where a fade trajectory on a second shot will kick toward the green. (I can't do this -- not even in my dreams -- but I've seen it done. I once saw a woman -- who had hit from the (men's) white tee marker -- play the hole this way; her third shot was a chip from perhaps 5 yards off the edge of the green. Actually, I've hardly played golf since I moved here. Many years ago, when I did play, I fantasized about a time when I could play golf every day. Now I could, but I don't. Go figure.)

Incidentally, I number the holes from "one" for each of the three 9-hole golf courses. Sometimes, Houndslake talks like they have an 18-hole couse and a 9-hole course. In that nomemclature, the Dogwood course is the back nine of the 18-hole cousre (and this is the 16th hole, not the 7th)


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 13 Feb 2010.

Dogwood Lake, facing north. Seventh fairway is in the foreground and on the right hand side of the photo. Seventh green is about in the center of the photo


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 13 Feb 2010.

Facing north. Telephoto (and also perhaps cropped) shot taken from same place as the previous photo. The "three-trunked" tree is near the 8th tee. Eighth hole is a short par 3, where golfer drives north across the lake. The snow-covered area in the background at center-left is the 8th green.

Later (5 Feb 2014): Alas, about 10 months ago (or thereabouts), they cut down this tree. The groundskeepers at the course have been thinning trees at several places around the course during the past 2-3 years. Apparently they have grown so tall since the course was built (early 1970s) that they shade certain important tee, green, and fairway locations that it's become difficult to keep grass growing on them. This tree was apparently a victim to that work. Hated to see this tree go -- and it's difficult for me to see how it shaded any vital portion of the course, but maybe it did.

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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 13 Feb 2010.

This is the north end of the lake, facing east. The linear feature at left-hand center is the dam forming the lake. The 9th fairway of the Dogwood Course is beyond the dam (that hole is a steep uphill). The clubhouse is visible in that e distance at the top of the hill near the ninth green.


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Aiken SC, 13 Feb 2010.

Dogwood Course, sixth fairway. Facing north. My next-door neighbors made this snowman.


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Aiken SC, 13 Feb 2010.

In back yard. This tree was bent over by the snow loading on it. I believe this same small pine tree was bent over this way by an ice storm back in Jan 2004. After the ice storm, it took several months for the tree to return to vertical. It appears to be about 3/4 of the way back as this caption is written on 4 Mar 2010.

Later (5 Feb 2014): Tree is still living, but it has never returned to fully vertical.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 14 Feb 2010, around 7:30 AM.

Seventh fairway in both foreground and background (far side of the lake). The snow didn't stay long.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 14 Feb 2010, around 7:30 AM.

Bufflehead Ducks, male and female


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 14 Feb 2010, around 7:30 AM.

Bufflehead Ducks, male and female


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Dogwood Course, Aiken SC, 19 Feb 2010, early morning. Facing east. Dogwood Lake is in the background.

They were replacing a buried drain pipe on the 7th fairway. I know this is an odd place for a photo of earth-moving equipment -- it's an engineer thing.


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Dogwood Course, Aiken SC, 19 Feb 2010, early morning. Facing roughly north, looking across part of the 7th fairway of the Dogwood Course.

A ~35-year-old drain pipe under the fairway had been deteriorating for 2-3 years. Sinkholes developed in the surface over the pipe. Eventually several sinkholes merged to form sort of a trench (the linear feature slighly above the center of the photo). There is a difficult-to-see sinkhole, in line with the others, immediately north of the cart path. The terrian here is complex. The hole plays left to right in this photo (downhill toward the lake), and when you are on this part of this fairway, it slopes down toward the players right. I'm facing upslope taking this photo, and there is a steeper slope to my left.

One smaller hole in the fairway, in the background (a bit east of the main line of the trench), is a test pit dug as part of this work. They dug the test hole to locate an irrigation pipe, trying to prevent it from being inadvertently cut by this work.

The earth moving machines from the previous photo are in the upper center of this photo. A fairway sand trap is at lower right. The thing just above the sand trap -- between the sand trap and the cart parth -- is a brick-lined collection pit (with concrete cover). The pipe that is being replaced (and several other drains) empty into this box. Another buried pipe carries water from the lower portion of the collection pit down to the lake. There are slots at the top of the brick walls of the collection pit to take in surface runoff. The surface runoff has caused some surface soil erosion in the area surrounding the collection pit structure.


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Dogwood Course, Aiken SC, 19 Feb 2010, early morning, facing roughly northwest.

The black pipes at center left are the new (plastic) pipes that are being installed. The misshapen objects at center right are pieces of the older pipe that have been removed (made of galvanized steel, apparently). The older pipe was mangled during the removal process, but it was in poor condition even before removal.


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Dogwood Course, Aiken SC, 25 Feb 2010, early morning, facing roughly northwest.

A few days later in the drain pipe replacement project. The pile of old mangled pipe that was revoved from the trench is larger here. Just on the left hand side of the pipe pile are some tree stumps that had apparently been buried under the fairway surface for 35+ years. I'm not sure how it was the old pipe could be laid with these stumps in place, but they had to be removed for the new pipe. Last year there was some work done on the course (rebuilding sand traps) that also uncovered some of these mysterious buried tree stumps. I'm sure a good deal of the mangling of the old pipes was done during the process of removing them.


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Dogwood Course, Aiken SC, 25 Feb 2010, early morning, facing roughly northwest.

They put this temporary tape barrier up at night and on weekends to try to prevent anyone walking on the course at night from falling into the excavation.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 19 Feb 2010.

About 3 years before this photo was taken, a beaver lived in and around the lake for several months (perhaps close to a year in all). It cut down several small trees, and tried to cut down several others (including the one shown here).

In mid-Feb 2010, the course groundskeepers did some work where they removed some trees. They also removed several stumps left by the beaver. I took this photo to preserve evidence of the beaver's work, before this tree is taken down too. (Most of the stumps, where the beaver had been sucessful in cutting down trees, were much smaller diameter than this one.

This morning (as this caption is written on 4 Mar 2010), I saw what appears to be another beaver (or perhaps the same one) at the lake. (What I saw today MIGHT have been an otter -- I saw only its head, and only for a few seconds.)


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 26 Feb 2010.

I finally got some OK photos of the Bufflehead Ducks. Not great, but OK. Most of these have been cropped. This is a female.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 26 Feb 2010.

Male Bufflehead Duck.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 26 Feb 2010.

Bufflehead Ducks. Two males and a female.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 26 Feb 2010.

Bufflehead Ducks. One of each.


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Dogwood Lake, Aiken SC, 9 March 2010.

Bufflehead Duck. Male.


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Buffleheads


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