Irene, Sunday AM

 Cel in the driveway.

We still have electric but the land line telephone is out. The bay is still about one and a half hours from high tide and the eye of Irene is about forty minutes away. The bay across the street looks fairly calm for a tropical storm. It looks a lot worse closer to the city. Hey Elisabeth, you guys alright in NJ? Stay safe.

The sun sets over Cold Spring Pond

The craziness of the election season starts today for me, campaign photos, e-mails about campaign photos, phone calls about campaign photos...it's a living. I'm thankful to be working.

I took a bike ride yesterday evening and on the way back home stopped at the boat ramp and made this photo.

The scene reminds me of late September or October, not August. Those houses you see in the photo are on a man-made strip. That strip separates Cold Spring Pond from Peconic Bay. As the season ends, come evening, less and less of the houses on the strip have any lights on. Last night the strip looked dark. The vacationers are either gone, or green or sleeping early. I stood there enjoying the sunset, wondering if summer was ending early. 
If it was, someone forgot to tell the gnats.

Dock Poles

Sometimes when the bay freezes over many mariners and people with docks and boat slip lose their dock poles. The ice causes the poles to lift and eventually come loose, like this one around the block from where we live. My in-laws have a dock and have lost poles in the past. I'm not sure how they faired this season.

Some people put in bubble systems that keep the water moving around the poles and prevents the water from freezing. The system works when the winter doesn't have a long cold stretch that freezes the moving water.

Made with the Canon G10 and processed with ACR.

A beautiful Monday

The weather was beautiful today, high fifty's, the sun was shinning and I was fairly busy. Covered a press conference about taking guns off the streets which was very interesting. I feel a lot better today and I'm sure the weather helped.

Today's photo is of a clammer in Cold Spring Pond. This is a scan from an original black and white negative. The image was made about twelve years ago. It's one of my favorite images.

 

Frozen Cold Spring Pond

Today's post is of the frozen Cold
Spring Pond on Christmas night. Cold Spring Pond is not a pond at
all. It is said that the strip is man made, put there to make an
expensive development. Most of the homes on the strip are seasonal.
I'm not sure about the the A frame on the left, but my boys were in
school with the children that live in the other lit house. I think
the strip is beautiful this time of year, especially from our side of
the pond.

I used the Canon 5d and Photomaxtix
Tone Mapping Program for this image.

Bay Skiff

The frigid cold hit Long Island today. Since early this morning, we've had high winds and temperatures in the twenties before the wind factor. The wind is sill blowing relentlessly, and it's a mere seventeen right now. I'm glad I'm in for the night. My wife walked to a neighbors house a few doors away. He sister and mother, the neighbor Lorraine and my wife get together every so often and play games. As of late, they've been playing Nintendo Wii games. Tonight, as I understand it, my mother-in-law wants to play Rock band. I'm sure it's a sight to see, bur it's way too cold for me to venture out into the night air for entertainment. Even if it might be really funny.

Today's photo is from the dock around the corner, in fact, it's a few yards from Lorraine's house. This is one of the skiffs used by the baymen to harvest clams and oysters that grow in Cold Spring Pond. Except for the inlet into Peconic Bay, the pond is frozen over. After today, the inlet and Peconic might also be mostly ice.

 

Cold Spring Pond

I made this image Monday evening at the in-laws. This is the sand bar at Cold Spring Pond during an ebb tide. I have always been a sucker for a beautiful sunset and beautiful sunset pictures, even when the sunset is not in them.