L. L. Wall's photos

A hot cloudless day to be working on a roof. And, apparently they make a special tool for shoveling roofing tarred-paper. (So, they do make a lot of roofer shovels; IP Ronald Losure found them!)

The top of this huge maple was leaning over my cottage, and a hurricane was coming; so the time for tree-hugger procrastination was done. (Previously the large branch in the background had come down.) This face-cut looks strange/incomplete; but the tree eventually fell directly away from the camera location after the back-cut was put in, exactly where it was supposed to go, by allowing for the unbalanced weight aloft. (Note: I have cut down trees this size or bigger, but not when my error could land it on my house. So I hired a guy with an insurance certificate.)

Building a form for a large concrete pouring job, so this is probably an apprentice concrete finisher or casual laborer. That is about a 12 inch (30cm), or longer, rusty threaded bolt that he is attempting tighten a nut on. Rather than a ViseGrips pliers, some WD40 spray and a closed-end wrench (spanner) would probably be a better choice; but maybe not readily available on a concrete job. (Or, he didn't feel like climbing out of this hole to go look for one.) Also, it looks like he has given up on the task, now spinning the ViseGrips tool counter-clockwise after only gaining an inch (a couple of centimeters) of threading.

What lurks in tower's turret? ... a monstrous ghoul? ... a fair maiden? ... (Rapunzel !! Are you up there?)

Porter Library, Machias Maine; Romanesque Revival style in ashlar granite, completed 1893. Lack of funding a decade ago nearly caused it to be closed, and is still barely limping along.

This old building (history undetermined) is located directly on the banks of the Potomac River and adjacent to The C&O Canal, and in modern times houses a raw river water intake facility of the Frederick County (Maryland) Water Treatment System. Apparently this water intake system was installed around 1969 (though the building is much older), and at that time the pollution of the North Branch of the Potomac was so bad nobody would swim or fish in it, much less drink or wash in it. (The fish had all died anyway.) South Branch was OK; I did a lot of swimming and water recreation there. This pumping station is downstream from the confluence of the North Branch and South Branch, and of the Shenandoah River too. I sure hope they used a lot of filters and chlorine back then.

(Suggest: view Full Screen) ...

The open transoms on these lobster boats facilitates dumping lobster traps en masse ... all the lobster traps are tied together individually and to an anchor; the anchor is dropped and the boat keeps motoring along, pulling the traps out one-at-a-time in a long row. These boats are run by individuals (a captain and a sternman) and may be put out of business by government regulations aimed at protecting endangered Right Whales from line entanglement. But no Right Whales have died from entanglement in U.S. waters, only in Canadian waters; and the regulations favor large "factory" lobster boats ... so the local fishermen who have been doing this for generations are frustrated/angry.

(Suggest: view Full Screen) ... "Bow" in English has many meanings -- tie a ribbon in a bow ... a performer takes a bow ... shoot an arrow with a bow ... OR ---> the pointy front end of a vessel ... (oh, and can you find the sentinel seagull?) ...

Workboats: the little ones are certainly for intrepid fishermen; the weather here can be nasty any season of the year. In the background are rafts of harvested logs: a tremendous amount of logging is done on Vancouver Island.

(Suggest: Full Screen view) ... Milkweed Tussock Moth Caterpillars are poisonous, as evidenced by nature's characteristic warning colors. They become poisonous by eating milkweed leaves which contain a cardiac poison. So, nothing eats them. But the adult Tussock Moth is comparatively drab brown, and would be prey only to bats. It also is poisonous, but at night-time and without bright coloration, the adult moth has evolved an organ that warns away bats with an ultrasonic signal easily detected by bats. The signal warns the bats to avoid a noxious distasteful mouthful.

(Suggest: view full-screen.)

Reynolds Brook flows into Orange River, which is unseen along the forest edge in the background; all are part of The Orange River Conservation Area, one of 15 tracts protected by The Downeast Coastal Conservacy. The Orange River parcel includes a 6 mile (9.7 kilometer) easily navigated flat-water canoe trail. Further downstream toward where the Orange River drains into tidewater estuary are two almost 200-year-old dams which establish the water levels and really the whole ecosystem of the lower Orange River drainage. Like all dams in Maine, they are under attack by activists who want streams to be totally accessible to migrating alewives and salmon, even if it means destruction of viable existing ecosystems that have developed over the recent centuries.