Taking Pictures With One Arm In A Sling

I was hit by an opening car door while I was riding my bicycle and I injured my shoulder. For a few weeks, I had to wear a sling when I went out. It limited what I could carry.

I could not even carry my little point and shoot camera. The only pictures I have taken with it were on this one afternoon when the light was pretty in the garden.

Instead I used my camera phone as I wandered around the city, staring forlornly at the cyclists reveling in the mellow autumn weather.

All of my pictures were a little tilted, thank heavens for Photoshop.

When I was photographing this post Halloween confetti of party fliers, a car drove up on the sidewalk just to my right. It made me feel as if the city was trying to kill me. Indeed, 13 pedestrians have been killed by cars since Halloween. According to the Gothamist, 4 of them were on the sidewalk when they were struck.

This is what Bike Snob NYC calls a hipster high lock.

I have been out of the sling for two weeks. This is actually from a week ago. I was about to post it when I heard about the attacks in Paris. The blog post didn't feel important so I left it a few days. Violence continues, even today, in Mali. I could wait forever.

A Little September Light

Summer stretched out languidly and I spent most of it focused on my seed planting project for Urban Demeter. It was more of a learning experience than a brilliant flowery success, but I learned a lot for next season. When I photographed the end of my three sisters planting, the light was so beautiful. I took some other pictures.

The days are clearly shorter and the light changes frequently.

The tape reminded me of a face, a bit like the snow god I captured a winter or two ago.

Some more pretty September light:

Garden In Flower

Sunflower about to bloom

Pollinator Flowers

Hydrangea flouncing around

Butterfly bush

Everything is overgrown

Milkweed on the left

This spot used to be shady before the neighbor cut down the tree. Now I may need to move the ferns.

Catnip also attracts pollinators

Plants on the patio

Midsummer

The Solstice was hot and moody. I suggested burning a small bonfire, but before we could, it started to rain. 

It was a big cooling storm with lots of wind.

The sun made brief appearances lighting up the raindrops on the screens.

Today is midsummer's eve and another storm blew through, this time with some excellent thunder and lightning. Still no bonfires.

Gardening

After a dry spell that lasted for most of May, we finally had a week of cool rainy weather. It started with a long deluge. The trees seemed to dance under the rain. All of the greens became more verdant.

I have not been trimming the little patches of grass that I haven't pulled up. They are growing very high. The wisteria has climbed the fence and begun to battle the neighbor's ivy for supremacy.

I am in a strange place with my work. I finished a virtual street art piece that I spent a few months on. I used the Domino Sugar factory to represent a building from a dream. The problem is that the factory is being slowly demolished. I am worried that if I put my piece up while the factory is still intact, it might distract from the point of my piece. I need to wait until more of the building is destroyed.

I am going in a new direction with my Urban Demeter project. I want to plant seeds in empty tree pits rather than put plants out. The picture above is the beginning of a Three Sisters Planting. The problem with growin from seed is that it takes a while and in the meantime there is nothing but dirt, and maybe some small green sprouts. The corn has come up on this spot but it is not growing very quickly. I may need to feed it. Many tree pits have compacted soil which is very hard to work with.

I am in a bit of a holding pattern so I have thrown myself into the garden.

We put some bamboo fencing on the walls of the patio to hide the ugly stucco.

It makes the light warmer.

I love lobelia, even though it rarely survives the July heat.

The milkweed I planted last year has come back. The plants are growing every day, one really tall, the other three smaller.

This is one of the beds where I planted flowers to attract pollenators.

Spring With Red Highlights

For a while it felt as if spring would never come. Finally, the trees started flowering, but the weather turned cold. Today seemed like the perfect spring day.

The oversized ad featuring Kate Moss did not irritate so much when framed by pear blossoms.

Something about the light made the reds pop out.

These are the only pictures I have from the past month where the snow does not dominate. I had beautiful pictures of the last winter storm. The snow melted so quickly this week that the pictures do not seem relevant.

It will rain tonight and tomorrow. I hope it will wash away some of the filth and detritus that the melting snow has uncovered.

I would see this tree from the J train in the morning. I love the graceful way it carries its plastic bags.

Just a little morning light on the discount store.

Blue February

Usually I like February. When the sun is out, the light is beautiful, there is usually a good blizzard, Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day. But this year it has been so gloomy. Icy cold days followed by pitiful snow mixed with sleet.

The frozen sidewalk near my house has aquired a layer of grime that offers a little traction.

The piles of snow have strata of grey representing each miserable storm. Although I had work to do on my new street art idea, I could stay in the gloomy house. So I went to Central Park, which usually restores my sense of New York.

I started out near the Metropolitan which seemed like the right place to be on a cloudy day in February.

Everything felt different inside the park.

I have been noticing the bleached bark of the London Plane trees.

They are a bit luminous.

The sun fought its way out adding a little glitter to the frozen puddles. The day became brighter but the sun never really got free from the clouds. I hope the weather turns less punishing.

I really wish I had these bushes in my garden.