She is my lab assistant here at work. She also works as the moral officer ;)
She is there to great me in the morning when I get into work. What a job!

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October 18, 2022
Common Burying Ground and Island Cemetery in Newport, RI

Mary L. Lawton, June 10, 1858 - June 19, 1896

Thomas A. Lawton, February 18, 1851 - March 22, 1914

In 1890, Thomas A. Lawton married a 32-year-old widow named Mary and she died six years later. Thomas was heartbroken and mourned her loss so much that he commissioned a double memorial – for his beloved and himself – featuring a magnificent bronze angel with outstretched wings at Island Cemetery in Newport, Rhode Island. When asked if he wanted to add an epitaph, he replied, “No, the angel says it all.” Thomas managed to get over the loss of Mary and married a lady named Ida, but when he died in 1914, he was laid to rest beside Mary. Ida lived until 1927 and she, too, is buried in Island Cemetery.

Tags:   Newport Rhode Island United States Sony A7RIV angel wings angel with wings hdr luminar grave dead death memorial statue bronze monument Island Cemetery Commong Burying Ground

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Acushnet, MA
June 6, 2021

As I was walking into our woods behind the house to empty out the hummingbird feeders (they were getting nasty from the heat), I saw an owl fly away from the entrance of the woods as I entered the woods. I am still amazed at just how silent the barred owls fly. If you don't see them, you certainly do not know they are there...and neither do their prey. So I run inside to grab the camera because I am determined to get some shots of the barred owls that share our property. While looking up into the trees I thought I saw some movement. And there what I first thought was a raccoon turned out to be a fisher cat (yes, I know they can get really nasty). Well, not one fisher cat by seemingly a family of them. Another climbed the tree to follow this one up. After snapping away I brought the camera down because I heard some movement on the ground near me in the ferns. Up pops another fisher cat. It gets a good look at me and dashes away to join the others way up in the tree.

Tags:   fisher cat Acushnet Massachusetts New England Sony A7RIV Sony200600 nature wildlife

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I don't think I'll ever tire of these edits that show the beauty in the sequential motions during a pitch.

Tags:   American Legion Acushnet Post 265 baseball senior Massachusetts New England photography America's pastime sport sports batting catching first base second base third base home run outfield baseball diamond pitching pitcher team team sport bat ball catch hit Pope Park Sony Sony alpha A7RV A7R ILCE7RM5 200600mm SEL200600G coaching coaches coach sportsmanship American Legion Baseball Summer Summer league camera monopod tripod action photography baseball photography 2023 season district 10

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There is nothing like a shared photo adventure. When I go out with Ed (seascape photographer guru), you never know what the morning will bring. This weekend brought, the magic of whales frocklicking off the shore of Provincetown right near Wood End Lighthouse.

I nearly always have to get a shot of Ed doing one of the things he does best, aside from somehow convincing me to drag my butt out of bed to leave my house at 3AM for an adventure :)

Some history on Wood End Lighthouse:

"The first two lighthouses in the vicinity, at Race Point and Long Point, were established by 1826. By the 1860s, it was determined that another aid was needed at Wood End, the southernmost extremity of the curving spit of land that protected the harbor. A white pyramidal day beacon was first erected at Wood End in 1864, and Congress appropriated $15,000 for a lighthouse on June 10, 1872.

A 38-foot brick tower -- originally painted brown -- was erected, and the light went into service on November 20, 1872. A fifth-order Fresnel lens exhibited a red flash every 15 seconds, 45 feet above the sea. A keeper's dwelling was built about 50 feet northeast of the lighthouse. The first keeper, Thomas Lowe, remained at the station for 25 years.

The lighthouse was automated in 1961 and all the other buildings except the oil house were destroyed. The lighthouse's original lens had been replaced by a fifth-order lens in 1916, and this was replaced by a modern optic when the light was automated. The light was converted to solar power in 1981.

The Cape Cod Chapter of the American Lighthouse Foundation has been licensed by the Coast Guard to restore and maintain Wood End Light. Volunteers painted the tower and oil house in the fall of 2000. At this writing, there are plans for a volunteer work party to repaint the tower in spring 2007.

You can walk to Wood End Light across the breakwater built in 1911, but breaking waves sometime make the going tricky at high tide. It's a fairly strenuous walk of 30-45 minutes each way to the lighthouse. There are limited parking spaces available near the start of the walk; it's an additional walk of around 20-30 minutes from the center of town.

The lighthouse, still an active aid to navigation, is also viewable from some of the excursion boats out of Provincetown."

Source: lighthouse.cc/woodend/history.html

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