Echinacea (cone flowers) with Rudbeckia (yellow spots) behind
My block is full of beautiful summer flowers: these echinacea are in the front of my neighbor’s house (two doors down), and the yellow “splotches” you see in the photo are the many rudbeckia (black-eyed susans) blooming in front of my home. I had echinacea growing in my backyard, but they were chewed up, either by deer or by our resident ground hog. Yesterday morning I yelled “get out of here” at the ground hog. I just bought a solar mole chaser. We might buy a love trap. My neighbor down the block caught 11 last year. What can I say, the ground hogs love living in Highland Park.
For more Summer Stock Sunday posts, visit Robin at Around the Island.
Liberty Bell in Independence Park, Jerusalem, Israel (photo: 2008)
I’ve been waiting a year to use that photo. Yes, that is the liberty bell, a copy of the one in Philadelphia. I believe the bell and parts of the park were donated by Americans and Canadians, the bell in particular by Americans in 1976. One year ago today we were in that park; on July 4th itself we were on a plane, flying back to New Jersey.
So, what does the United States of America mean to you? I am especially interested to hear if you do not live here.
As I have talked a bit about my mother’s parents (see, for example, Greetings from Mariampole), now I am going to mention my father’s parents. In brief, when my grandmother was a little girl in a shtetl (I always think of a shtetl house as one that had dirt for floors instead of wood or linoleum or marble or whatever – she lived somewhere in the Austro-Hungarian Empire) she had to hide under a bed to protect herself from a pogrom. Soon after that, she and her family came to the United States of America, to New York City. On my grandfather’s side, his family came from Poland (from Głogów or Glogov). He and his siblings were fortunate to come in the early part of the twentieth century; he had cousins, however, that were caught in Europe in World War II. Supposedly, they hid from the Nazis and survived by hiding in the sewers. I feel so fortunate to have escaped these experiences (a pogrom and hiding in a sewer). And to have a beautiful family and home, and to be able to express myself without fear. Well, maybe a little, the general “opening up in public” kind of fear, not the Stalinist lock you up in jail sort. My maternal grandmother once spent the night in jail in the Soviet Union, but that is a topic for another time. I don’t even know that much to tell about it.
Little Leora, Zaydie, Bubby and my brother, somewhere in New York
Perhaps this is taken in Far Rockaway? They did live there for a while when I was little. Any New Yorkers know?
Your turn.
Sky Watch Friday is a photo meme with photos of sunrises, sunsets, blue skies, gray skies, pink skies, dark skies and any other kind of sky posted by bloggers all over the planet.
We went down to the Jersey Shore on Sunday, to visit my in-laws. I took photos of sunset while my kids and their cousins played in front of the house.
I took photos of some kids down the block who were staring at me taking photos of the sky. I then took a photo of the kids, sitting on their bikes, looking at me. But I don’t want to post kids I don’t even know. Too bad, it’s a cute picture.
Because I take photos of the sky, my own children have become more aware of the sky and the changes in the sky. I think my nieces were excited to watch me take photos of the sky. But the youngest really wanted pictures of herself; she had climbed high up in a tree.
Lots of people enjoy the Jersey Shore; my in-laws live a few minutes drive from Bradley Beach, New Jersey. Seeing small planes in the sky there isn’t unusual.
Batya
This was going to be an upbeat post. I am very excited to announce that Batya will be hosting the next JPIX edition, the summer review edition. But before I say more about JPIX, I would like to add a prayer for RivkA bat Tirzel (the “bat Tirzel” means she is the daughter of Tirzel; in Jewish tradition one prays for someone’s health with the mother’s name). You can read her post about her unexpected diagnosis. She is a strong woman and has blogged a lot about her cancer diagnosis, treatment and support group.
So if you want to participate in the September 8 edition of JPIX, the blog carnival of Jewish photobloggers, please submit your post using this blogcarnival.com form. Finally, if you are not a photoblogger but you have a great photo to submit, you can open an account on Flickr or some other free web photo showcase and submit the Flickr (or whatever platform you use) link. You can submit photos on any theme, but especially welcome are any that celebrate summer.
Which ones do you like? Do any of these work better for you and why?
Logos pictured (from left to right by row) are from Brandon Township Library, Swathmore College Library, Library Initiative Logo, Free Library of Philadelphia, International School Library Day, Central Savannah River Library Association – CSRA, Oldham County Public Library in Kentucky, Saline District Library in Minnesota, Edgartown Library on Martha’s Vineyard, Goshen Public Library in New York, Miller Library at University of Washington, Highland Park Public Library in Highland Park, New Jersey, Little Falls Public Library in New Jersey, Rosenberg Library in Galveston, Texas, Brookline Public Library in Massachusetts and Princeton Public Library in Princeton, New Jersey.
The Saline District Library link and the Library Initiative Logo link both talk more about library logo design.
My daughter’s first grade teacher retired after 24 years of working at my kids’ school. To show appreciation for her, two of the mothers organized a surprise party last week at lunch time. Many of the parents chipped in toward the party, and some of us showed up for the lunch, but I was so happy that these two parents did so much organizing. One of the presents was a scrapbook with each page devoted to one child in her class. She spent ten minutes (or more) with the children looking over the scrapbook.
Only two other teachers have been at the school longer than she has. My daughter, when asked her favorite teacher from first grade, named all her teachers, including the assistants. She enjoyed them all. Not bad for a child who struggled with school and is finally learning to read.
For more photos with a little or a lot of red, visit:
