Views near Golden Grove

This post concludes a four-part series comprising eight photographs of the sunset on July 1, 2010. The series shows the sunset as it progressed from 8:08pm until 8:32pm. These two photos are close-ups of the sky (so to speak!) taken at 8:29 and 8:32pm–enough elapsed time for the sun to go down and for those two people to get their vehicle safely off the bar.

Views near Golden Grove

This week, we continue the time-sequenced presentation of the sunset on July 1, 2010. This sequence began at 8:08pm (the blog entry on July 15th) and will conclude next week at 8:32pm. Here are two views at 8:26 and 8:28pm.

Both of these were taken from my deck, but at different magnifications.

Views near Golden Grove

Last week, this week, and and for the next two weeks, I am posting in chronological sequence a series of pictures all taken from my deck on Block Island on July 1, 2010 between 8:08pm and 8:32pm. Last week’s view near Golden Grove showed the sunset at 8:08 and 8:16pm. Now we see how the sunset progresses. Here are two views of different parts of the sky at 8:24 and 8:25pm.

Views near Golden Grove

How much difference only a few seconds may make in the way the sky looks as the sun sets! And even at the same moment, how different one part of the sky looks from another!

For this week and the following three weeks, I’ll post in chronological sequence a series of pictures all taken from my deck on Block Island on July 1, 2010 between 8:08pm and 8:32pm.

8:08pm

8:16pm

Views near Golden Grove

How wonderful to be back on the island this week!

We arrived on Monday on the 7pm ferry. This time of year, that means we reached the house still in time to see the sunset. Oh, these long days of summer!

Despite weather forecasts predicting clouds, showers, thunderstorms, rain heavy at times, humma humma yadda yadda, we had a perfectly glorious sunset, one of those sunsets made even better by an unsettled skyful of clouds.

Mt. Auburn Cemetery

I took my mother to Mt. Auburn Cemetery last week at her request to see the graves of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Isabella Stewart Gardner. She had a map from the Boston Globe that was–I guess I shouldn’t say that it was criminally inaccurate. Let me say rather that it wasn’t sufficient to actually find these graves. With a 91-year-old woman in tow on a hot summer’s day, the map was particularly insufficient.

The cemetery, however, was astonishingly beautiful. And interesting. I confess here that I’m not particularly interested in seeing the final resting places of notables of New England’s last century (or two). In many cases, the people we’d never heard of were more interesting (based on their memorials) than those we had. But the trees were more noteworthy than those of most arboretums. And the gravestone art–we could have wandered looking at interesting tombstones all day, if we’d had all day to do it in.

Which we didn’t.

Today we returned with a better map.

I became fascinated by those stones that showed a draped object. Mostly vases, but it began to seem that almost anything might be portrayed as draped and carved in stone. I didn’t have my camera with me that first day, but today I captured a few. Here are a small number of vases (the most popular), a sheaf of wheat, and a broken column.

And yes, we found Isabella Stewart Gardner (in a family crypt) and threw in Winslow Homer for good measure (tombstone not as art-noteworthy as his paintings, but then he wasn’t the one who designed or selected the tombstone).

I could make a coffee-table book of the trees, if no one has done that yet. Oh, the breathtaking trees! For now, I’ll show only an unexpected Dawn Redwood.

Views near Golden Grove

Happy summer solstice! The sun has reached the northernmost point in its arc and will now slowly begin rising and setting farther and farther to the south. Summer is here, and on the island that means sweet flowers and mown grass; beach weather; and long, languid afternoons and evenings on the deck as the sun sets.

We worked hard all spring to get the house in peak shape for the season. Next week we get to relax as we hope our guests do and just enjoy the season. Well, at least I hope Dan will relax a little…

Here’s a photo from our visit earlier this month.