NATURE'S "HALF ACRE"

Below you will see (for July 11th, 2009) what I have been able to capture with the "micro" part of my neat Canon Digital camera. There was a wonderful film made in the 50ties by the Disney corporation I think, which was called, "Nature's Half Acre". Because it showed the small bugs, insects, plants, aquatic as well as land, that are truly a wonderful part of God's creation. I don't think there is any harder thing to photograph than a small wind blown wildflower. But it's a challenge for me. The colors do not always turn out the way "I saw it or remembere it", but I hope you can appreciate them....
SOMETHING ABOUT SEIDO KARATE: This weekend of July 9-12 we have 90 members of the Seido Karate people. The founder of the movement whose name is, Tadashi Nakamura , restored the contemplative and virtuous dimensions of karate. The values of respect, cooperation, service and team work as well as the values of meditation, silence, discipline and a dignified life are so very apparent in the Master and the participants. And they had our many groves, mini forests, green lawns and meadows to both meditate, practice and enjoy this land of THE HUDSON RIVER BIRDER.

Seido Karate Weekend at The Mount

Dragonfly on Acre Pond

White Baneberry on Pell Farm--Esopus

Common Fiber Vase Fungus near River

Unidentified Acre Pond Wildflower at Esopus

Plants, Bugs and Wildflowers

I have not the photography equipment to do birds. But my little Canon Digital Camera is simply "great" for nature scenes, micro shots of butterflies, bugs and wildflower. I can't change the name of my blog. But it "could" be named from now on either: Hudson River Bugger or 2. Hudson River Wildflowerer or 3. Hudson River Tree Guy.

The fact is that I have committed myself to do two Saturday days of reflection. The first is called Christ and the Planet. I will give it here on Satuday Sept 26 from 10am till 3pm. The other is called Fall Migration and Christ. That will be on Satuday, Oct. 24th, also from 10am till 3pm. Let me give you an idea of where this came from. When I was in the Bronx my Thursday "free- day" was inevitably spent birding or just relaxing in the natural wonder that is Central Park. So when I was assigned up here at The Mount in Esopus, NY some of my friends joked, "They've sent you upstate to birdwatch!" Well yes and no! I have always loved our place at the Mount. It is, as I say above a "beautiful piece of wildlife on the Hudson River". But my joy, my "mission" as a missionary priest is to "try and show how all in the world reflects...or "should reflect" God's wonder, goodness, truth, justice and compassion. So.....with these two workshops I hope to put together...my love of nature and my mission to help make the human family precisely that..."a family". There are people who have come to or have been taught to "hate religion". Sometimes this hatred comes from the fact that people have sometimes been taught that in order to love God and be a good person one has to hate or despise themselves and either "ignore the rest of creation" or worse still, exploit it and literally "choke it to death" I DON'T BELIEVE THAT. As a young boy in Pittsburgh PA. one of my joys was finding and enjoying the many parks we had in that city. I lived in the city, but I never was a "city boy". So there is a bit of the personal history and the dream of this HUDSON RIVER BIRDER.

Bee on a Leaf at Pell Farm

Very Old Purple Beach on Pell Farm

INDIAN BURIAL MOUND

ALPHIES, A LAB THAT LOVES TO CHEW

The other day the tethered objective lense caps fell off my Pentax DCF-SP 10X43 binoculars. You see there is a center screw that keeps the two caps snug to the binoculars...But....if the screw comes loose!!! Fortunately we have Alphie a year old Black Lab that finds most things that get lost on our grounds. Well, yes she "finds things". But she also loves to "chew them". I was hoping that the former would happen without the "latter". But I had no luck. There the lens caps were in Alphie's "Lost and Chewed" section of our front lawn. I had a bit of luck. Pentax will send me new ones, including the screw....FOR FREE. Now there's a first!

Our property has a small area below where the former Robert Livingston Pell mansion used to be that contains indian artefacts. It may just have been an indian burial site. Some have noticed unusual raised sections that might have been "burial mounds". I haven't nailed down the site. When I do I will have some pictures. (The post before this which is an actual Indian Burial Mound shows me that I must "might have been walking upon the mound without seeing it". Remember when Jimmie Durante, as he is dying in the movie Mad, Mad, World tells them all to "Love under the "BIG W"???