'Twas a most bittersweet Fourth of July... (Tuesday's Truths WK 187)

It was a bittersweet Fourth of July what with the coronavirus pandemic still in place, keeping everyone on their guard, but also it was a strained time because of the political unrest in the United States over how issues related to race were handled (or not handled) in bygone years.

Therefore, I was grateful to see that a neighbor who lives in the building across my courtyard (and who has participated in many #ClapBecauseWeCare sessions), did not allow any disparaging feelings about our history stand in her way of expressing appreciation, which she did by hanging up her American flag (as seen in the image atop this entry).

A Three Dog Night Moment Re-Visited

Last year I spent part of my Fourth of July with the three lovely girls seen in the image atop this entry and in a blog post (published on 7-6-2019) I mentioned that I had a "Three Dog Night" moment (as some of you know Three Dog Night is the name of a pop music group) in Central Park and that I thought of their 1972 song (Black & White) when I saw these three young children playing.

BRAVO, TO FRONT LINERS AND ESSENTIAL WORKERS, BRAVO! (Wednesday's Wisdom)

#ClapBecauseWeCare Participants

#ClapBecauseWeCare Participants

#ClapBecauseWeCare Participants

Last evening was the 6th time of the 7PM clapping/cheering session (that has been dubbed #ClapBecauseWeCare) taking place to honor first responders and healthcare workers who are keeping New Yorkers as safe as possible during the coronavirus pandemic. Many people participated but I only took four pictures as it is hard to clap and take photos at the same time. Three out of the four pictures I took are of the same couple and those images are posted atop this entry.

Parents Day is for the birds!

IMAGE CREDIT

This is the fourth Sunday for the month of July 2019 which means it is Parents Day. A number of web-sources (including National Day AKA ND) ) concur, "National Parents’ Day honors all parents on the fourth Sunday in July. No matter where our parents may be, this day serves to celebrate their important role in our lives. 

ND (and other web-pages) also claim "President Bill Clinton established National Parents’ Day in 1994 when he signed Congressional Resolution (36 U.S.C. § 135) into law. The recognized the '…uplifting, and supporting the role of parents in the rearing of children.' Republican Senator Trent Lott introduced the bill. "

I am honoring the holiday by posting a copy (atop this entry) of a Peanuts Comic Strip which was published long before (8-1-1978) Clinton created a holiday for parents. The strip paints a picture of how a relationship between a parent and child can be.

But Parents Day is also for the birds, for when it comes to the avian community, both parents play a significant role in rearing their young.

A Three Dog Night Moment

On the fourth of July I had a "Three Dog Night" moment in Central Park (which can be seen in the photograph atop this entry).

FOURTH OF JULY 2019

Today is The Fourth of July and the only fireworks that I plan to see are the ones (featured in the photo directly above) who are in in my indoor succulent garden. How about you, dear reader?

Do you plan to see any displays of them?

If so be safe and do remember this type of extravaganza can be very stressful on wildlife. I realize that I have published a number of blog entries re various displays of fireworks but this does not mean that I am not fully aware of their consequences on members our wildlife community, which is a topic I've addressed in the past.

For today, I'll leave you with photos of our avian community who happen to be red, white or blue and ask that you be mindful of them during this holiday and beyond.

OTHER CARDINALS ARE FEATURED IN MY BOOKS

BLUE JAYS ARE FEATURED IN MY BOOKS

Yet another Saturday in the Park

Two weeks ago when I was on what has become my weekly Saturday walk in Central Park with CF, a friend, we came upon some wonderful nature sightings; a mama raccoon rescuing her young'un and  a baby robin taking in his/her view from a nest, as well as a baby blue jay learning to fly and gosling triplets with their parents.

Today when I walked with my friend, she spotted a number of fish in Turtle Pond and and a few in Wagner Cove, such as the one seen in the image atop this entry. I've never seen such large fish in any spot within the park but I've often seen people fishing. Seeing today's big fish, prompted me to come home and fish around via google for information on fishing in Central Park. Here is a link that leads to info re the Catch and Release Fishing Policy in Central Park. And here are some more pictures of the fish I saw at Wagner Cove.

As I have mentioned a number of times here on Blogger any time it is a Saturday and I'm in either Riverside Park or Central Park, I find myself thinking of the hit song Saturday in the Park by the band Chicago, and today was no exception: "What a day in the park, everyday's The Fourth Of July..."

Saturday (Yesterday) In The Park

"Another day in the park... Everyday is the Fourth of July," are lyric lines from the song "Saturday in the Park," by the rock band, Chicago. I have quoted the song in prior posts here on Blogger when I've published an entry re my spending a Saturday in the Park, which is something I did yesterday.

I went to Central Park to see if turtles were coming out of hibernation on the third day after the official onset of spring in our hemisphere. There were only a couple of turtles swimming (such as the one seen in the image posted above) in Turtle Pond, which means many of them are still hibernating under the water; for usually that pond is oversubscribed with this type of creature.

The Fourth of July in the Year 2018 (ETC)

In honor of the 2018 July 4th holiday, I've posted a copy of a comic strip (that I received in my In Box) atop this entry. As any reader of this blog must surely know, I am a big Mutts fan (the name of this strip). Over the years (nearly nine) that I've been on Blogger, I've included them within my entries. Additionally, I've written about the Fourth of July holiday on many occasions. However today, I cannot offer any new musings on the subject, I can only refer you those posts from bygone years, as I must put all my efforts into finishing volume three of my book series, Words In Our Beak.

VOLUMES ONE AND TWO

The deadline for me getting materials (images and text) to my editor, Chris Deatherage (who is also the book's formatter) is approaching, and as it does, I will be blogging less frequently until my third volume is complete (I have a heads-up re this matter in a previous entry, June 3rd 2018).

In any event, however you celebrate this holiday, dear reader, I hope it's safe, relaxing and happy.

FALL 2018 ADDENDUM: 

Hardcover versions of Volume One, Two and Three can be found wherever books are sold.

MY BOOK SERIES

Please click here to go to my blog post that provides details as to where you can get these books. Additionally, I have rendered some images from these books into other formats and they are available via Fine Art America (FAA). Some of my other photographs (Black & White Collection, Kaleidoscopic Images and the famous Mandarin duck who visited NYC) can also be found on my FAA pages.

ADDENDUM SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER 2021:

When the third volume of the hard-cover version of Words In Our Beak was released, I withdrew from promoting my former versions of Words In Our Beak. 

The very first one is an iBook and went into Apple's book store in 2015.

This was followed by an ePub version...

... that is available on Amazon and was also published in 2015.

Subsequently, Words In Our Beak's digital versions were published as a soft-cover book (with slight variations) by MagCloud in 2017.

Its press release can be read by clicking here.  

Now with the release of BIRD TALES....

... I've been advised to make mention of my early versions of volume one of Words In Our Beak, they do vary ever so slightly in content from the hard-cover version of volume one.

As of this addendum, I do not intend to create digital or soft-cover versions of Words In Our Beak Volume Two or Words In Our Beak Volume Three.

"Saturday in Park ..."

I've just returned home from taking a walk in Central Park, where it is currently twelve degrees, and the real feel is less than that. However, these cold temperatures did not deter a number of folks, who like yours truly, often heed the wisdom found in the lyric lines of the song, Saturday in the Park, by the band called Chicago.

The lines I'm thinking of go like this:

"...Funny days in the park

Every day's the Fourth of July

Funny days in the park

Every day's the Fourth of July..."

For indeed it was a very funny day in the park! Even a lone squirrel was attempting to make a snow angel, as evidenced in the image below.

And a couple of other squirrels proved they were New Yorkers because they were "wearing" black as seen in the next set of pictures.

A web-page for hercampus.com has this to say as to why us folks who live in NYC wear black: "Wearing black is our way of letting the world know that we are not guests of New York making our way through the city like any other transient visitor. We are the inhabitants of the infamously uninhabitable– survivalists in the place that reveals who has what it takes. New Yorkers wear black as a symbol of pride, a badge of honor, an indication that this is the city to which we belong."

Even though I mostly wear black, I'm not sure about this observation, I think it's a little precious sounding, but one thing that I am pretty sure about is this: If today were February second, (which is Ground Hog Day), NYC dwellers would probably be looking at six more weeks of winter, for as you can see (in the middle photo above), this little creature saw his/her shadow!

Here's Tuesday's Truths WK 66: Facts re Benjamin Franklin and Turkeys

Hello and welcome to the sixth-fourth week of my Tuesday's Truths series, which is being posted on the Tuesday of  the week before Thanksgiving, a day when many Americans, unlike yours truly, who is a vegetarian (ninety-five percent of the time), will eat turkey. I happen to find it foul to eat fowl, and cannot eat turkey, but I can talk turkey about the myth that Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird of The United States instead of the bald eagle being our avian rep.

"Uncle Sam's a reminder of the great risks & personal sacrifices endured by generations of Americans in the quest for liberty." (Wednesday's Wisdom)

An exhibit at The New York Historical Society which paid homage to the history of iconic Uncle Sam ended ten days ago on September 3rd 2017. Banners announcing the exhibit, such as the one seen in the image atop this entry, are still flying from street lamps on NYC's Upper Westside.

A web-page for The New York Historical Society states that "since the 19th century, the familiar figure of “Uncle Sam,” with his beard and stovepipe hat, has represented the U.S. in recruitment posters, political cartoons, and advertisements. But long before he first appeared, artists drew upon a visual tradition stretching back centuries to depict America as an evocative woman."

Thursday's Thoughts: Trust Mary Oliver's "Rx"

Once upon a time, on the date of April the twenty-fourth, in the year of 1969, United Artists released  the movie,  If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium. The story-line chronicled the humorous adventures of a group of American tourists taking an eighteen-day guided bus tour of nine European countries.

According to Wiki, the film's title was "also used by a 1965 documentary on CBS television that filmed one such tour, was taken from a New Yorker cartoon by Leonard Dove. Published in the June 22, 1957, issue of the magazine, the cartoon depicts a young woman near a tour bus and a campanile, frustratedly exclaiming 'But if it's Tuesday, it has to be Siena,' thereby humorously illustrating the whirlwind nature of European tour schedules."

The movie's title, If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium, over the years, has subsequently been used to describe a number of situations. In fact, for a number of weeks, here on Blogger, yours truly ran a series of blog posts called If It's Tuesday, It Must Be tumblr, and, readers were invited to read what I had posted on tumblr.

However, I no longer post on tumblr regularly, my last entry there was in April of 2017. Moreover, on Tuesday, July 19th of 2016, here on Blogger, I announced a new Tuesday series, which is known as Tuesdays Truths. This past Tuesday, September 5th 2017, Tuesday, I posted my fifty-eighth entry for this series. 

Be that as it may, the If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium reference is on my mind once again today, because as I was doing some research on molting, which is what a blue jay visiting my rooftop garden (seen in the image atop this entry) is experiencing, I came across an article titled, If the Blue Jays are Bald, It Must Be August.

Here's Tuesday's Truths WK 52: How the plant known as Tricyrtis, came to be referred to as a Toad Lily

Hello, and welcome to the fifty-first week of my Tuesday's Truths series, where I will shed light on how the plant known as Tricyrtis, came to be referred to as a Toad Lily. Details of the flowers from this exquisite plant (which was recently planted in my rooftop garden by Juan V) can be seen in the images atop this blog entry.

However, before I go into detail re this awesome flower, let me digress a bit, and apologize for not posting an entry for week fifty-three of my Tuesday's Truths series! Unfortunately, the truth for that day, which was August 1st, is that I did not feel well, due to an injury I sustained to my right foot.

Therefore I was preoccupied with the logistics of getting my boot cast to fit properly and other pesky details associated with recovery from my injury! But if truth be told, and it's about to, what I had planned to point out that day was the fact that the beginning of this month of August was a good time to point out that (according to a web-news page) "there are almost 4 million newborns delivered each year in the United States. Of that amount, 9.05% (or 353,000) babies are born in August alone, making it the biggest month for births. July comes in second with 349,000 births, followed by September."

A number of years ago, I was one of those 353,000 born in August. Moreover, I was born on a Tuesday, which, according to the aforementioned source, is "the most common day of the week for little bundles of joy to be delivered is Tuesday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention find that on average there are 12,323 births on Tuesdays, with Wednesday and Thursday close behind."

Be that as it may, I admit that this news may not be particularly relevant to those of you who read urban related blogs; but, hey, you never know when the topic might come up in conversation; and you also never know when you might be selected to be on the game show Jeopardy, with details of birth months and days of births being a category worth mega bucks.

And, now that what I would've written on the fifty-third week for Tuesday's Truths is out of the way, I'll move on to my intention for the truth re this fifty-fourth week, and tell you a little bit about the back story of the Tricyrtis flowering plant being nicknamed "toad lily."

Thursdays Thoughts: Challenging the adage "bad things happen in threes" REPRISED

GOSLINGS ARE FEATURED IN VOL 2

Today I am thinking about the gosling triplets (pictured above), which I encountered in Central Park this past June, because I am also one of three (sisters), although we are not triplets.

A photograph of us with our grandfather that was taken when we were very young can be seen in the next picture.

Being one of three, has caused me to challenge the adage,"bad things happen in threes," which I did in a blog post that was published in 2011. This entry deals with the placement of flora (in threes) within my rooftop garden.

In any event, I'm thinking of the "bad things happen in threes," adage on this day of July 13th, as it is my youngest sister's birthday. She is the one in the middle in the aforementioned photo (I'm the one to her left — or seen to her right in this image).

Wednesday's Wisdom:Walk Just for Pleasure

The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir is known by New Yorkers as the Central Park Reservoir.

It is a decommissioned reservoir in Central Park. This reservoir stretches from 86th to 96th street. A partial view of it can be seen in the image atop this entry.

A number of years have passed since the last time that I walked around the reservoir, but, yesterday, which was The Fourth of July, I walked around it with a friend whose husband passed away a short time ago. I rarely take a walk for the sake of walking because I walk almost everywhere I need to go in the city, but I wanted to give the time to my friend, as it was her first Fourth of July holiday without her husband.

In my doing this, I was reminded that walking merely for the sake of walking releases endorphins; is relaxing; and, it causes one to take note of their surroundings as opposed to walking when you have to be somewhere at a certain time.

Tuesday's Truths WK 37-A: Savannah Sparrows Telltale Sign

Welcome to week thirty-seven of my Tuesday's Truths series. This post is dedicated to the bird type known as the Savannah sparrow, and the creature can be seen in the photo atop this entry. I took the picture this past Saturday when I was in Central Park. I had never seen this bird variety before, so I researched a number of sources, including The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, who states the following info re the Savannah sparrow:

"... take a closer look at this one and you’ll see an understated but distinctive sparrow with a short tail, small head, and telltale yellow spot before the eye. Savannah Sparrows are one of the most numerous songbirds in North America, and while sometimes overlooked, are likely visitors across the continent. In summer, they don’t hesitate to advertise their location, belting out a loud, insect-like song from farm fields and grasslands."

What an honor it was for me to encounter this creature on a "Saturday in the Park" (which was not The Fourth of July).

Saturday In The Park (Central Park)

Today I spent some time in Central Park with a dear friend (CF) . She and I took a walk in The Rambles. On our way back we encountered a squirrel with a limp. But his/her injury did not deter the sweet creature from frolicking about or  playing peek-a-boo with us; as evident by the photographs atop this entry. Even though this critter seemed to be in a New York State of mind, the scene had a real Chicago feel about it; after all it was a Saturday in the park!

July 4th 2016

It's a rather quiet Fourth of July for me as I'm still recuperating, but progress is being made. In bygone years I've gone to NYC's Macy's Fireworks, but this year I'm laying low. However, I do have the company of my patriotic figurine-friends. Placing them in my kitchen (photo one), where I also have my succulent garden (photo below) makes me feel a little like Laura in Tennessee William's play, The Glass Menagerie.

The activity of putting these characters in strategic places in my kitchen as well as my main living area (photo below) helps me to keep my creative juices flowing and distract me from my woes.

HAPPY 1/2 YEAR FROM UNCLE SAM & ME!

HAPPY 1/2 YEAR, DEAR READER!

Today, July 1st 2013, marks the beginning of the 1/2 year mark for this year! And in bygone years, I have honored the occasion on Blogger with posts that reference the first six months of a given year in entries which you may refer to by clicking here for my 2010 posting, as well as here, here, and here for 2011 posts; and here for my 2012 post.

This year Uncle Sam (pictured above) has come to my succulent garden to celebrate this occasion, as well as to join the cast of characters that are here to perform on Independence Day, which is this coming Thursday, July the Fourth!

And, dear reader, you may be familiar with some of the characters as I referred to them the last time I posted here on Blogger as well as on hometalk.com and on in two entries on tumblr which you can refer to by clicking here and here.

But getting back to my newest succulent garden's guest, Uncle Sam, he has asked me to clarify a matter regarding his identity as he feel misunderstood! He wants to make it clear that he is not just an icon for the ready to eat Uncle Sam Cereal, which according to WIKI is a "breakfast cereal, first introduced in 1908 by U.S. Mills of Omaha, Nebraska. The company relocated to Needham, Massachusetts sometime after the 1970s. Attune Foods out of San Francisco acquired Uncle Sam Cereal in 2009."