Kryssie's Weekly Photo Blog

Reach Out

2012-01-26T09:08:00.001-05:00

“Remember that you don't choose love; love chooses you. All you really can do is accept it for all its mystery when it comes into your life. Feel the way it fills you to overflowing then reach out and give it away.”

Kent Nerburn

Jackson, NJ

Cutting Deep

2012-01-09T19:38:00.000-05:00

" When you are in love and you get hurt, it’s like a cut... it will heal, but there will always be a scar "

unknown

Collier Mills Wildlife Refuge

New Jersey

Loving Freedom

2011-12-05T06:16:00.000-05:00

“A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself -- to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart.”

Leo F. Buscaglia

Bradley Beach NJ

Taken on a beautiful December afternoon!

Frost on the Punkin

2011-10-30T09:33:00.000-04:00

WHEN the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock,
And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens,
And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it's then the time a feller is a-feelin' at his best,	5
With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

James Whitcomb Riley

Manchester, NJ

We were all surprised with rare October Snow last night. Snow for Halloween!!

Autumn Harvest

2011-10-23T15:33:00.000-04:00

“What though youth gave love and roses, Age still leaves us friends and wine”

Thomas More

Laurita Winery , New Egypt, NJ

Contrast

2011-10-09T08:33:00.000-04:00

“Our lives at times seem a study in contrast... love & hate, birth & death, right & wrong... everything seen in absolutes of black & white. Too often we are not aware that it is the shades of grey that add depth & meaning to the starkness of those extremes.”

Ansel Adams

Manchester,New Jersey

Summer Is Over

2011-09-17T20:58:00.000-04:00

“The Summer hath his joys, / And Winter his delights. / Though Love and all his pleasures are but toys, / They shorten tedious nights.”

Thomas Campion

Seaside Heights, NJ

Tiny World

2011-09-02T09:59:00.000-04:00

The mushroom is the elf of plants,
At evening it is not;
At morning in a truffled hut
It stops upon a spot

As if it tarried always;
And yet its whole career
Is shorter than a snake's delay,
And fleeter than a tare.

'Tis vegetation's juggler,
The germ of alibi;
Doth like a bubble antedate,
And like a bubble hie.

I feel as if the grass were pleased
To have it intermit;
The surreptitious scion
Of summer's circumspect.

Had nature any outcast face,
Could she a son condemn,
Had nature an Iscariot,

That mushroom,--it is him.

Emily Dickinson
Manchester, NJ

Mystery

2011-08-21T14:39:00.000-04:00

“He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.”

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Freehold Fin Fur and Feather Club grounds

Bubbles

2011-08-04T16:37:00.000-04:00

"The world 's a bubble, and the life of man less than a span.”

Francis Bacon

Howell, NJ

Evolution

2011-07-23T09:10:00.000-04:00

“Evolution made civilization steward of this planet. A hundred thousand years later, the steward stood before evolution not helper but destroyer, not healer but parasite. So evolution withdrew its gift, passed civilization by, rescued the planet from intelligence and handed it to love.”

Richard Bach

Congo Gorilla experience

Bronx Zoo

Complete

2011-07-06T07:39:00.000-04:00

Do everything with so much love in your heart that you would never want to do it any other way.”

Yogi Desai

Ruben Museum, NYC

It Gets Better

2011-06-22T21:21:00.000-04:00

“Okay. Listen up, people.

It gets better. You being here makes this world a more blessed place. There’s art to be made. And there are songs to be sung. There’s so much to learn about yourself. There are sexy people to make out with. Yeah.

There’s joy coming for you. So stay with us. It gets better.”

Jules Skloot

17th St. New York, NY

Gentleness

2011-06-13T20:54:00.000-04:00

“I will not by the noise of bloody wars and the dethroning of kings advance you to glory: but by the gentle ways of peace and love.”

Thomas Traherne

Brendan T. Byrne State Forest

Magic of Learning

2011-06-06T07:59:00.000-04:00

The best thing for being sad," replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake in the middle of the night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world around you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting."

T.H. White

Merlin, at the New Jersey Renaissance Festival

Bordentown, NJ

Door

2011-05-24T07:34:00.000-04:00

"Men live on the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which they never enter, and with their hands on the door-latch they die outside.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Point Pleasant, NJ

Spring

2011-04-30T19:09:00.000-04:00

“Enjoy the Spring of Love and Youth, to some good angel leave the rest; For Time will teach thee soon the truth, there are no birds in last year's nest!”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Taken at Delaware Valley College, Doylestown, Pa

Affection

2011-04-19T07:31:00.000-04:00

“Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne

taken out of my kitchen window

Fickle Moon

2011-03-31T11:15:00.000-04:00

“O, swear not by the moon, the fickle moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circle orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.”

William Shakespeare

Super Moon

This was taken in my back yard in Manchester, NJ

Feed the Wolf

2011-03-19T11:28:00.000-04:00

“A Native American grandfather talking to his young grandson tells the boy he has two wolves inside of him struggling with each other. The first is the wolf of peace, love and kindness. The other wolf is fear, greed and hatred. "Which wolf will win, grandfather?" asks the young boy. "Whichever one I feed," is the reply.”

Native American Proverb

Jackson, NJ Howling Woods Wolf rescue

Howlingwoods,org

Friends

2011-03-12T12:40:00.000-05:00

"A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself-and especially to feel. Or, not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them. That's what real love amounts to-letting a person be what he really is.”

Jim Morrison

Pine Lake, Manchester, NJ

Love Hurts!

2011-02-24T16:13:00.001-05:00

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love!

Neil Gaiman

Out my kitchen window. This looks like a kiss but it was actually a bite and the bully squirrel chased the other one away.

The Rose

2011-02-12T16:28:00.000-05:00

“Love is the rose. Lust is the thorn.”

Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Lebanon State Forest.

I was walking around a lake inside the forest and this silk rose was leaning against this tree.

Very strange. Maybe a memorial!

Loneliest Loneliness

2011-02-07T17:40:00.001-05:00

“What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'?”

Nietzsche

Lakehurst, NJ

Flow on

2011-01-22T10:36:00.001-05:00

“Try to realize it's all within yourself no one else can make you change, and to see you're only very small and life flows on within you and without you.”

George Harrison

Lake Horicon, Lakehurst, NJ

Absence

2011-01-02T12:25:00.001-05:00

“How like a winter hath my absence been. From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen, What old December's bareness everywhere!”

William Shakespeare

Leisure Village West, small pond, Manchester, NJ

Winter Begins

2010-12-26T12:42:00.000-05:00

“Seek Love in the pity of others' woe,
In the gentle relief of another's care,
In the darkness of night and the winter's snow,
In the naked and outcast, seek Love there!”

William Blake

Out my kitchen window in Manchester, NJ

Higher Animals

2010-12-20T08:00:00.001-05:00

"Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.

Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh--not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court."

— Mark Twain (Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings)

Manchester, NJ

All that Glitters

2010-12-09T18:06:00.001-05:00

“Man being reasonable must get drunk; The best of life is but intoxication; Glory, the grape, love, gold - in these are sunk - The hopes of all men and of every nation”

Lord Byron

Beijing Noodle House #9

Educational TV?

2010-11-19T18:53:00.000-05:00

“The young watch television twenty-four hours a day, they don't read and they rarely listen. This incessant bombardment of images has developed a hypertrophied eye condition that's turning them into a race of mutants. They should pass a law for a total reeducation of the young, making children visit the Galleria Borgese on a daily basis.”

Federico Fellini

Taken in Salem Mass during our Halloween Trip. These costumes were totally awesome.

Lock Me Up!

2010-11-07T19:52:00.000-05:00

“A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we’re two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we’ve found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.”

Richard Bach

Taken on the grounds of Chenonoceau Castle

Old Age

2010-11-01T16:51:00.001-04:00

“Old age is not a disease - it is strength and survivorship, triumph over all kinds of vicissitudes and disappointments, trials and illnesses.

Maggie Kuhn

Salem Mass.This Halloween.

As I was taking pictures of the tombstones in the Charter Street Cemetery, I came across this one. It must have been amazing to live that long in that time period. I found the information below on John Nutting.

John Nutting was the son of Jonathan and Elizabeth Nutting. He was born in Cambridge, Jan. 7, 1694, and graduated at Harvard College in 1712. He came to Salem in 1718, and kept the Grammar School from 1719 to 1749. He became Ruling Elder of a new church in Salem in 1736. He was a Notary Public in 1755,and Collector of Customs at Salem and Marblehead in 1768 and at other times. He also held the office of Register of Deeds. After the death of his first wife Ruth, he married Elizabeth dau. of Benjamin and Abigail (Lindall) Pickman (b. Jan. 22, 1714, d. June 11, 1785). He died May 20, 1790,

Continual Becoming

2010-10-22T17:40:00.000-04:00

“I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming with a goal in front and not behind”

George Bernard Shaw

On the siding of my house in Freehold, NJ

Myth/Nature

2010-10-15T20:22:00.002-04:00

“A peasant dies calmly because he is not a Christian. He performs the rituals as a matter of course, but his true religion is different. His religion is nature, with which he has lived."”

Tolstoy

Bradford, PA

Ebb and Flow

2010-10-10T13:51:00.001-04:00

To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of year, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.

Rachel Carson

Mansquan Inlet, New Jersey

Poisonous love

2010-10-02T14:47:00.001-04:00

“If only one could tell true love from false love as one can tell mushrooms from toadstools”

Katherine Mansfield

Rixford, Pa

Old and Worn

2010-09-28T19:48:00.001-04:00

“I met in the street a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, his cloak was out at the elbows, the water passed through his shoes, - and the stars through his soul.”

Victor Hugo

Bradford, PA

The Nothing

2010-09-18T16:12:00.001-04:00

G'mork: If you come any closer, I will rip you to shreds.
Atreyu: Who are you?
G'mork: I am G'mork. And you, whoever you are, can have the honor of being my last victim.
Atreyu: I will not die easily. I am a warrior!
G'mork: Ha! Brave warrior, then fight the Nothing.
Atreyu: But I can't! I can't get beyond the boundaries of Fantasia!
[G'mork laughs and Atreyu gets a little angry]
Atreyu: What's so funny about that?
G'mork: Fantasia has no boundaries.
[laughs]
Atreyu: That's not true! You're lying.
G'mork: Foolish boy. Don't you know anything about Fantasia? It's the world of human fantasy. Every part, every creature of it, is a piece of the dreams and hopes of mankind. Therefore, it has no boundaries.
Atreyu: But why is Fantasia dying, then?
G'mork: Because people have begun to lose their hopes and forget their dreams. So the Nothing grows stronger.
Atreyu: What is the Nothing?
G'mork: It's the emptiness that's left. It's like a despair, destroying this world. And I have been trying to help it.
Atreyu: But why?
G'mork: Because people who have no hopes are easy to control; and whoever has the control... has the power!
Atreyu: Who are you, really?
G'mork: I am the servant of the power behind the Nothing. I was sent to kill the only one who could have stopped the Nothing. I lost him in the Swamps of Sadness. His name... was Atreyu.
[the ground shakes again and Atreyu is knocked down. He grabs a knife shaped piece of broken stone and stands up, ready to fight]
Atreyu: If we're about to die anyway, I'd rather die fighting! Come for me, G'mork! *I* am Atreyu!

Quote from the Movie the Neverending Story

Taken in my front yard last week

as a horrible blackness over took our skies

Grace

2010-09-06T11:12:00.004-04:00

“Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Keyport, NJ

Clarity

2010-08-31T16:02:00.004-04:00

“Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what he loves.”

Blaise Pascal
Keyport, NJ

Innocent Beauty

2010-08-09T20:35:00.004-04:00

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

Lord Byron
Deep Cut Gardens

Drink Deep

2010-07-27T20:59:00.002-04:00

“Love is a deep well from which you may drink often, but into which you may fall but once”
Ellye Howell Glover
Deep Cut Gardens, Middletown, NJ

Black Moon

2010-07-19T22:06:00.003-04:00

“The moon's turned black; For I love him, and He didn't love back”

Dorothy Parker
The moon from my front yard, Freehold, NJ

No Bounds

2010-07-14T10:37:00.002-04:00

“And the voices in the waves are always whispering to Florence, in their ceaseless murmuring, of love - of love, eternal and illimitable, not bounded by the confines of this world, or by the end of time, but ranging still, beyond the sea, beyond the sky, to the invisible country far away!”

Charles Dickens
Millville, NJ

Bravery

2010-07-08T16:54:00.003-04:00

“Then must you strive to be worthy of her love. Be brave and pure, fearless to the strong and humble to the weak; and so, whether this love prosper or no, you will have fitted yourself to be honored by a maiden's love, which is, in sooth, the highest guerdon which a true knight can hope for.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Freehold,NJ
This little guy looks brave and Knightly

Sin

2010-06-20T20:21:00.002-04:00

“Love between sexes is a sin in theology, a forbidden intercourse in jurisprudence, a mechanical insult in medicine, and a subject philosophy has no time for.”

Karl Kraus

Dark Gods

2010-06-14T12:56:00.003-04:00

“This is what I believe: That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back. That I must have the courage to let them come and go. That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women. There is my creed.”
D.H. Lawrence

Ugly?

2010-06-04T21:44:00.004-04:00

“Don't look at your form, however ugly or beautiful. Look at love and at the aim of your quest..

Jalal ad-Din Rumi
Freehold, NJ.

Red Red Rose

2010-05-24T18:03:00.002-04:00

O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That’s sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry:

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve
And fare thee weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.

Robert Burns
Photo from my rose bush, Freehold, NJ

Twisted

2010-04-24T07:32:00.004-04:00

“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
Thomas Merton
Taken in Howell, NJ

Oneness

2010-04-20T07:19:00.003-04:00

“A person experiences life as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. Our task must be to free ourselves from this self-imposed prison, and through compassion, to find the reality of Oneness.”

Albert Eintein
Morganville, NJ

Missing You

2010-04-12T18:44:00.004-04:00

How could it be so fair, and you away?
How could the Trees be beauteous, Flowers so gay?
Could they remember but last year,
How you did Them, They you delight,
The sprouting leaves which saw you here,
And call'd their Fellows to the sight,
Would, looking round for the same sight in vain,
Creep back into their silent Barks again.

Abraham Cowley

Durand Pond, Freehold, NJ

Darkness

2010-03-22T18:54:00.002-04:00

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Martin Luther King Jr.
Turkey Swamp, Freehold, NJ

Silent River

2010-02-20T15:16:00.004-05:00

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
William Stafford
Photo taken in Englishtown,NJ

conformity

2010-02-08T07:24:00.004-05:00

“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.”

JFK
Buck's Mill Road Colts Neck, NJ

Diversity

2010-02-06T12:52:00.003-05:00

“When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.”

JFK
Inspired by the addage that no two snowflakes are the same.

Isolation

2010-01-26T07:21:00.004-05:00

“There are obstinate and unknown braves who defend themselves inch by inch in the shadows against the fatal invasion of want and turpitude. There are noble and mysterious triumphs which no eye sees. No renown rewards, and no flourish of trumpets salutes. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment, and poverty and battlefields which have their heroes.”

Victor Hugo
Lake Horicon
Lakehurst, NJ

Icons

2010-01-18T13:43:00.003-05:00

“When I was young, my ambition was to be one of the people who made a difference in this world. My hope is to leave the world a little better for having been there.”
Jim Henson
Michener Museum Doylestown, Pa

Soaring

2010-01-09T21:30:00.003-05:00

“Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be...Close your eyes let your spirit start to soar, and you'll live as you've never lived before.”
Erich Fromm
Beach in Atlantic City

Happy New Year!!!

2009-12-31T17:24:00.008-05:00

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain
The Louvre and Musee d'Orsay
Paris
Left to right in the first photo, my son Joey, nephew Sammy, Niece Laura Lee. They are being silly in the Musee d'Orsay. Everybody should get out there this year. Go to see some serious art and be silly. Have fun, go someplace new. Experience life. Happy New year!

Winter Landscape

2009-12-26T14:16:00.002-05:00

“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show.”
Andrew Wyeth
Delaware Valley College

Loves of Christmas Past

2009-12-20T12:38:00.002-05:00

“When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow, we hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago, and etched on vacant places are half-forgotten faces of friends we used to

cherish, and loves we used to know.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Find Me!

2009-12-12T15:23:00.003-05:00

“One great use of words is to hide our thoughts”
Voltaire

The End of Autumn

2009-11-30T14:09:00.002-05:00

If winter is slumber and spring is birth, and summer is life, then autumn rounds out to be reflection. It's a time of year when the leaves are down and the harvest is in and the perennials are gone. Mother Earth just closed up the drapes on another year and it's time to reflect on what's come before.
Mitchell Burgess
Durand Pond, Freehold New Jersey

Devour Me

2009-11-12T18:53:00.005-05:00

“`You must sit down,' says Love, `and taste my meat.'

So I did sit and eat.

George Herbert
Freehold, NJ

Windows

2009-11-05T20:30:00.004-05:00

"Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the
cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh
air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own."
Bertrand Russell
Henry Mercer Castle, Doylestown Pa

Fire

2009-11-01T19:13:00.005-05:00

“Love is the only bow of life's dark cloud. It is the Morning and Evening Star. It shines upon the cradle of the babe, and sheds its radiance upon the quiet tomb. It is the Mother of Art, inspirer of poet, patriot, and philosopher. It is the air and light of every heart, builder of every home, kinder of every fire on every hearth, It was the first dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody. Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings of common clay.”
Robert Green Ingersoll
Manchester,NJ

Fantasy

2009-10-15T13:26:00.003-04:00

“Dear love, for nothing less than thee / Would I have broke this happy dream, / It was a theme / For reason, much too strong for fantasy, / Therefore thou waked'st me wisely; yet / My dream thou brok'st not, but continued'st it.”

John Donne

Henry Mercer Museum,Doylestown, PA

Courage

2009-10-07T13:19:00.002-04:00

“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”

Dale Carnegie
Belmar Marina,NJ

To be a Bird

2009-10-03T14:32:00.001-04:00

“A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”

Maya Angelou
Lake Topanemus, Freehold NJ

Devouring the Sun

2009-09-27T19:54:00.004-04:00

Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.
Jorge Luis Borges
Howell, NJ

Hope

2009-09-19T13:27:00.004-04:00

Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.
Napolean Bonaparte
The Dahlia in the background is what this bud hopes to become.
Howell,NJ

Awareness

2009-09-13T13:43:00.002-04:00

The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness.
Virginia Woolf
Manasquan, New Jersey

Summer's End

2009-09-01T13:09:00.001-04:00

No spring or summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.

John Donne

Merry-go-Round

2009-08-22T13:41:00.001-04:00

“Life's just a merry-go-round. Come on up. You might get a brass ring.”

Mae West
Taken on the Seaside Heights boardwalk.

Revolution

2009-08-04T19:26:00.002-04:00

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy
taken in Doylestown, pa

Human Nature

2009-07-21T07:37:00.002-04:00

“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.”

Dale Carnegie
Picture taken on the grounds of the Chateau de Chenonceau

Freedom

2009-07-05T17:21:00.003-04:00

"As my ancestors are free from slavery, I am free from the slavery of religion"
Butterfly McQueen
Colts Neck Fireworks, NJ

Journey

2009-06-21T09:58:00.001-04:00

“A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.”

John Steinbeck
Atlantic City Boardwalk

To Be Alive

2009-06-06T16:53:00.002-04:00

“We're sitting on our blessed Mother Earth from which we get our strength and determination, love and humility - all the beautiful attributes that we've been given. So turn to one another; love one another; respect one another; respect Mother Earth; respect the waters - because that's life itself!”

Phil Lane Sr. (Yankton Sioux)

Black is Beautiful

2009-05-31T19:46:00.002-04:00

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door
Only this, and nothing more."
Edgar Allan Poe
picture taken at the Cape May Zoo

Determination and Love

2009-05-24T21:06:00.003-04:00

“Love is the greatest virtue of the heart.
Sincerity is the greatest virtue of the mind.
Determination is the greatest virtue of the will.
Courage is the greatest virtue of the spirit.”

Frank Lloyd Wright

Morning

2009-05-16T11:17:00.004-04:00

"In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”

Kahlil Gibran

Dew Drop

2009-05-09T23:25:00.003-04:00

“Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.”
Rabindranath Tagore

Call of the Sea

2009-04-06T18:54:00.002-04:00

“A woman knows the face of the man she loves like a sailor knows the open sea.”

Honore De Balzac
Point Pleasant, New Jersey

Longing

2009-04-03T07:06:00.002-04:00

“It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.”

George Eliot
From my Paris trip 08

Simplicity

2009-03-25T07:14:00.001-04:00

“We all have hometown appetites. Every other person is a bundle of longing for the simplicities of good taste once enjoyed on the farm or in the hometown [he or she] left behind.”

Clementine Paddleford
Colts Neck, New Jersey

King of the Roost

2009-03-23T22:47:00.003-04:00

“O powerful love,
that in some respects makes a beast a man,
in some other, a man a beast.”

William Shakespeare

Undiscovered

2009-03-15T12:59:00.003-04:00

“I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Issac Newton
Sandy Hook, New Jersey

Brass Ring

2009-03-09T07:07:00.008-04:00

“Life's just a merry-go-round. Come on up. You might get a brass ring.”

Mae West
These pictures were taken in Asbury Park,New Jersey.
When I was a child there was a beautiful Merry-go-round in this building. It was always a thrill to lean off the horse as much as possible to try and grab those rings. If you got the gold ring you got a free ride. Asbury has seen some bad days since then. However, things are starting to change. I urge anyone in the area to visit the boardwalk. The Paramount Theater is open and so is the Convention Hall. Everything is being restored and many new shops have opened along the boardwalk.

Searching

2009-03-01T11:39:00.003-05:00

“We can search the world over, for peace, for love, and honor. We can look from now to eternity, for all we do not own. We can search until life is ending, then when life is nearly ore. We find we had what we needed, only now, its too hard to bear.”

Donald D. Campbell
Gulls seem to be my best subject. We had such a mild winter they have be abundant in our Navesink River area.

Love

2009-02-14T10:35:00.005-05:00

"Love, unrequited, robs me of my rest: Love, hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers: Love, nightmare-like, lies heavy on my chest, And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers! "
William S. Gilbert
I took this photo in Tinton Falls not far from the recent beheading of a male swan. A reward is offered for any information. This lone swan made it's way slowly and sadly to me and broke my heart. Swans mate for life and this one to be alone is odd. I only hope the one killed wasn't this ones mate.
Not a happy Valentine's Day post I know. Sorry.

New Jersey Diners

2009-02-07T16:23:00.003-05:00

The Roadside Diner, Wall NJ

Today, America has around 3,000 diners. In New Jersey around 570 diners operate, more than any other state. About half of all the towns in New Jersey, 284, have at least one diner.

Only three major companies from the 1920s and 1930s still build diners: Kullman, Paramount Diners, and DeRaffle Manufacturing Company. DeRaffle is the only one not located in New Jersey; it's based out of Rochelle, New York.

Route 130, which runs from Carney's Point northeast to New Brunswick, has more diners on it than any other road. It has almost two-dozen diners.

Even after the commercials set in Rosie's Diner ended, New Jersey diners can still be seen on television and in movies. Scenes from the movie "Boys on the Side" were filmed in the Bendix Diner in Hasbrouck Heights. On TV, a series of Tums commercials were filmed in the Harris Diner in East Orange. Diners even turn up in music. New Jersey native Jon Bon Jovi put the Roadside Diner in Wall on the cover of one of his albums.

http://www.state.nj.us/hangout_nj/200207_diners_p4.html

Winter Sky

2009-01-18T14:14:00.001-05:00

“The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed, there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennui, vanish, - all duties even”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fishy Business

2009-01-13T20:45:00.002-05:00

When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain"
Mark Twain

KissesThat Melt

2008-12-31T15:08:00.003-05:00

“How did it happen that their lips came together? How does it happen that birds sing, that snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that the dawn whitens behind the stark shapes of trees on the quivering summit of the hill? A kiss, and all was said.”

Victor Hugo

Water

2008-12-27T13:26:00.002-05:00

"Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body."
Oliver Wendell Holmes
I got a new Macro Lens for Christmas. I will be experimenting with it. So bear with me.

Tradition

2008-12-23T21:20:00.005-05:00

“For somehow, not only at Christmas, but all the long year through, The joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you.”

John Greenleaf Whittier
This ornament has been in my family for generations. It came over from Germany with one of my ancestors.

Rapunzel's Tower?

2008-12-05T23:00:00.003-05:00

"High in her tower she sits by the hour maintaining her hair, blythe and becoming and frequently humming a light-hearted air, ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah Agony! Far more painful than yours, When you know she would go with you, if there only were doors"
Into the Woods

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T22:56:00.003-05:00

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
We spotted these lucky turkeys today on our way home from a high school football game.