Some scenes from Cape Cod

The Bourne Bridge, our entryway to the Cape. There are two other bridges that cross the Cape Cod Canal onto the Cape proper. To the north is the Sagamore Bridge, and to the south is a railroad bridge with a lift span that stays up to let ships pass and is only lowered when a train needs to cross. Rail passenger service to the Cape was restored recently after many years' absence.

Skaket Beach, on the Cape Cod Bay side of the Town of Orleans, at high tide.

Skaket Beach at low tide. Note how far out on the sandbars people go.

Typical Cape marshland. What's that tower?

Aha! It's an osprey nest platform, and an osprey has nested on it.

Here's a close-up of the osprey.

This rabbit was often seen near our friends' driveway.

Provincetown harbor.

Looking back at Provincetown from the MacMillan Pier. The building in the background is the Provincetown Public Library.

On the way back from Provincetown, we made our second visit to Truro Vineyards; a photo of their vineyard is above (compare to photos taken in early June of 2013 in the post linked above). I bought a bottle of their estate grown cabernet franc and one of their estate grown chardonnay. I'll be tasting both and reporting about them here; stay tuned.

Here's a tiger swallowtail butterfly getting nectar from a butterfly bush in our friends' backyard.

A weekend in the Beaverkill Valley.

Thanks to the kindness of a neighbor, we were invited to spend Memorial Day weekend in this splendid house located in the Beaverkill Valley, in New York's Catskill region. We had visited the same house in November of 2012, as memorialized in this post.

The Beaverkill (or Beaver Klll: "kill"is the Dutch word for stream; the Dutch were the first Europeans to settle in the region and found many beaver dams along the watercourse) is renowned as a trout stream. The photo above was taken just across the road from the grounds of the house in which we were staying.

We visited the Catskill Fly Fishing Museum in nearby Livingston Manor, New York.

This is a view from behind the house in which we were staying, looking toward a pond and the hillside beyond.

An artificial waterfall conveys a small stream through a breach in a stone fence, from where it flows to the pond, and beyond that to the Beaverkill. On our previous visit I made a short video while walking along this stream from above the waterfall to near the edge of the pond.

Two Canada geese were paddling on the pond. I saw several different species of birds over the weekend, and will publish more photos in a subsequent post, "Birds of the Beaverkill."

On Saturday morning I saw this doe and fawn on the meadow near the pond. That evening I had a closer encounter with what may have been the same pair which, along with photos of other animals, I'll show in a later post, "A Beaverkill Bestiary."

Apple blossoms in the small orchard on the opposite side of the house.

Our Sunday dinner was a delicious chicken barbecue prepared by the Beaverkill Valley Fire Department.

Parked in front of the Co-Op Store across from the firehouse was this antique pickup truck belonging to a Connecticut construction company.

Parked beside the store was this beautifully maintained early model Mustang.

Another view of the house grounds, with storm clouds and mist gathering.

iPod and photo log from a short walk around Brooklyn Heights and Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Yesterday morning I took a walk down the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, across the pedestrian bridge to Pier 1 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, around the pier, and then along the new path through the Pier 3 and 4 uplands to Pier 5. I did a circuit of Pier 5, then went up Joralemon Street to Hicks, across Hicks to Remsen, over to Montague Terrace (former address of W.H. Auden and Thomas Wolfe), then home. On my walk I had my iPod set on shuffle, and made a log of the music I heard on the way. As each song played, I took a photo of what I was passing. I've listed the songs, with video or audio links where available, below each photo. I've let the photos speak for themselves, except for some explanatory notes at the end of the post.

1. Martin & Neil, "Baby": Vince Martin's and Fred Neil's only album together, Tear Down the Walls, was released in 1964. My college roommate had a copy; I loved it and got my own. Years later, I met Vince at the old Lone Star Cafe on Fifth Avenue. I told him I how I liked that album: he asked if I wanted to sing a song from it. He borrowed Rick Danko's guitar and we sang "Dade County Jail", with me trying to reach Freddy's low notes. "Baby" is Florida blues at its best, about "sailin' on that St. John's River", with raga-style strumming on the twelve string guitar and John Sebastian on harp. You can hear it here.

2. Neil Young & Crazy Horse, "Cowgirl in the Sand": This has been a favorite of mine since I got their first album, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, during my last year of law school. The version on my iPod is from Live at the Fillmore East, March 6 & 7, 1970. Video of another live performance here.

3. Rod Stewart, "Reason to Believe": Rod the Mod takes a Tim Hardin song and makes it a gut-wrenching masterpiece. It's from Every Picture Tells a Story, one of the best rock albums ever. Live performance video here.

4. Fleetwood Mac, "Station Man": a driving rocker from Kiln House (1970), the band's first post Peter Green album and the last to feature Jeremy Spencer, and with cover art by Christine McVie. Hear it here.

5. The Byrds, "The Times They Are a Changing": jangling Rickenbacker guitars and vocal harmonies make this Dylan song a rock anthem. My generation were "your sons and your daughters" then. Live performance video here.

6. Yvonne Fair & the James Brown Band: "I Found You": From Roots of a Revolution, a chronicle of James Brown's early days with King Records, based in Cincinnati. The Ambassador of Soul later took this song and made it a hit under the title "I Feel Good." Hear the early version, with Ms. Fair, here.

7. The Flying Burrito Brothers, "Do Right Woman": Gram Parsons' and Chris Hillman's post-Byrds group did this Chips Moman/Dan Penn song, a favorite of my mom's, on their first album, The Gilded Palace of Sin. Hear it here.

8. Sue Foley, "Shake That Thing": uptempo blues by a Canadian singer I like a lot, and not just because she shares my wife's surname. Listen here.

9. Dolly Lyon, "Palm of Your Hand": solid R&B from 1957 by a singer who, not for lack of talent, never made it big. There's excellent instrumental backing, including what I'm pretty sure is Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson on sax. Read about the singer and hear the song here.

10. Bunny Berigan, "I Can't Get Started With You": one of my favorites from the Bells of Hell jukebox. Hear it here.

11. Bob Dylan, "Gospel Plow": from his first, eponymous album, a frenetic blues and one of his earlier original compositions. Hear it here.

12. Turner & Kirwan of Wexford, "Second Chance": T&K were the house band at the Bells of Hell for a year or so. Pierce Turner has since become a successful solo artist while Larry went on to front the soon to disband Black 47 and to be a playwright and novelist. There's no video or audio link to this song, but there's one video, with less than optimal sound quality, of them doing "Freeborn Man of the Traveling People".

13. Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, "Stay All Night (Stay a Little Longer)": the King of Western Swing and his band got together in 1974 to make an album titled For the Last Time, which includes this lively number. Live performance video here.

For architecture and theater buffs, photo 1 is of the Arlington Apartments (Montrose Morris, 1887), 62 Montague Street, a fine example of the Romanesque revival style, and home of playwright Arthur Miller before he married Marilyn Monroe.

For tugboat buffs, photo 3 is of JoAnne Reinauer III heading out of the East River toward the Buttermilk Channel, with Governors Island in the background.

For picturesque ruin and rail buffs, photo 7 is of the collapsed outer end of Pier 4, formerly a rail car float terminal at which freight cars were loaded onto, and unloaded from, barges that ferried them between the railheads in New Jersey and the docks below Brooklyn Heights. The remains of Pier 4 are being made into a sanctuary for birds and marine life.

For ferry buffs, photo 10 is of the ferry that runs between the lower tip of Manhattan and Governors Island, seen at its Governors Island dock.

For horticulture buffs, photo 11 shows some colorful ornamental kale along with a small evergreen and something that might be ivy.

For steeply inclined street buffs, photo 12 was taken on Joralemon Street between Furman and Hicks, perhaps the only block to live on in Brooklyn if you miss San Francisco.

Cape Cod photos: the walk to Skaket Beach and back.

Following our visit to Cape Cod Brewery on Saturday morning, and a satisfying pizza lunch, the sun came out. I decided to take a walk. This sign, near the end of the short road leading to our friends' house, pointed me in the right direction.

On the way to the beach, the road crossed a stream emerging from a swamp.

Farther along, I passed the Captain Linnell House, built in the 1850s by a very successful sea captain who, unfotunately, died in a tropical storm off the coast of Brazil before having much opportunity to enjoy it.

There was a brisk, chilly breeze, and the beach was nearly deserted. This was the view towards the southwest, and the upper arm of the Cape.

This was the view to the east., looking toward Wellfleet and Truro.

Heading back from the beach, I came to Wildflower Lane. What might be growing there?

There were these (can anyone identify?).

And, there was my old friend Rosa rugosa. 

This eastern box turtle had just made it safely across the road.

Azaleas were in bloom next to the road.

As I approached our friends' house, I saw a male American robin perched on a fence rail.

Just opposite our friends' door a mourning dove sat on crossbar.

Later we went shopping in downtown Orleans. We visited Main Street Wine & Gourmet, where I got this encouraging message.

A Catskill weekend.

Last weekend, thanks to the kindness of a neighbor, my wife, daughter, and I were able to spend a relaxing weekend at a house (photo above) in the Beaverkill Valley, between Mongaup and Touch-Me-Not mountains, in New York's Catskill region.

The falls of the Beaverkill.

A small marsh in a meadow.

A chickadee.

A stone fence.

Whitetail deer in the meadow behind the house.

Fungi and moss on a log.

A stone fence, end-on.

Streamside flora.

A view from the hillside.

The kitchen Buddha.

The front porch.

Postscript: Although there was some evidence of the recent transit of Hurricane Sandy through the region, in the form of freshly downed tree limbs and broken trunks, there was also much remaining from last year's Hurricane Irene, which hit the Catskills much harder, as witness the fallen logs below.