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Posts tagged as:
at work
” Ya, we homesteaded for ten years..”, the man on the scaffolding told me as he nailed the quarried slate shingles to the side of his house. The statement didn’t surprise me one bit, given how the property itself stood out from its neighbors: no finely manicured lawn here, but a magical profusion of perennials, shrubs and berry bushes (red raspberry, black and red currant) where it used to be, and the whole place such a wonderful work in progress.
What did surprise me were the black currant bushes – laden with berries – the first I’d ever seen in New England. They had been banned for nearly a century in the US, a suspected vector for a fungus that significantly impacted the commercial viability of the Eastern White Pine. That ban was lifted in NY state in 2003, and Vermont also has no restrictions on their cultivation. I’ve been a believer in organic black currants for some time now, for the myriad of health benefits, especially for eyes.
A note on the processing: the photo was taken under a bright midday sun, not the best of circumstances for the nuances of color or light. It seemed to work best in post-processing as an INFRARED or this one, OLD POLAR.
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An end of the day photo taken in the early 80’s, when I spent six weeks working at Shelburne Orchards in MA. It looks like we were picking Red Delicious at the time, though MacIntosh was probably the largest variety by volume. Some of the tools of the trade are at the top: the kidney-shaped picking bag, and a big jug of water, replenished regularly through the day, particularly when it was warm and sunny.
The photo was probably taken with the aforementioned (9/12/18 post) Sigma 18-200mm telephoto lens – see the curved side of the bin? It was truly wonderful but hard work, and in retrospect, i can say the wages were but the icing on the cake.
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The wind was steady at about 15 MPH left to right at the time, which made this osprey’s efforts all the more amazing. This was taken some seventy yards out with a Canon 100-400mm rental about an hour before it went back.
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A colony of great egrets has discovered the marsh out behind our neighbor’s house. There’s usually at least one out there all day, and sometimes as many as twenty, two thirds of them juveniles. Initially skittish on approach, they seem to be OK now, particularly with a fence and brush and phragmites between us.
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The traffic through the channel here at the Clothesline Dock in North Cove is mostly pleasure boats, but every decade or so, a vehicle like this comes through to clean up the silty sediment that accumulates over time. The work itself seems to be synced to the tides; bringing new sound – not unpleasant – to sleep and dreams.
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Here’s one from the article that captures the gestalt of the whole day nicely – coming into the barnyard for the drop off – the day’s work nearly done, for the oxen anyway.
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The November 2017 issue of INK magazine carried my article, Team of Six, which I will share in its entirety as soon as the publisher sends off the PDF version. It’s a six page spread, with sixteen photographs in all. For now, you can still get the issue around the area (free!), and see some of the photographs from my visit to Earl’s farm here.
ADDENDUM: full PDF can now be found here.
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Red and Rock in action; Red (foreground) seems to be more tuned in to Earl’s direction, and also seems to be the harder worker of the pair.
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