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.
Last week I noted two wonderful Sky Watch posts: Guy in Regina and Carletta in West Virginia. Guy wrote: “I’m sure glad I had my camera while I was driving down Lakeshore Drive…” and Carletta said: “As I look through the branches of the big old oak tree often I catch a glimpse of the sky and know a sunset I wouldn’t want to miss is about to happen. Traces of pink in this image were enough to make me grab my camera last Thursday as I was looking at Sky Watch posts and head outside.”
I wanted to share with you a bit of how I get photos. Two of my three kids take art classes across town with Jill, so I’m often driving from the North side of Highland Park (where I live) to the South side (where Jill lives). It seems that this driving is often around sunset (at least in winter). So on the particular day that I took these photos, I had a few minutes before I needed to pick up my daughter, and I headed over to the high school to see the cupola (see above) and its sky. On my way, I captured the moon (see top photo).
I enjoyed the pinks and blues on top of the high school, but I realized that I had to rush to get my daughter on time.
On my way in my car to get my daughter I need to cross Raritan Avenue. I photographed the above while waiting for the light to change. You can see by the upper right of the photo that I’m taking this through my windshield.
Once my daughter was in the car with me, we re-crossed Raritan Avenue. A quick glance down Raritan toward the river and New Brunswick displayed a powerful, colorful sunset. But I decided to head over to the back of the high school with my daughter. This is what I caught in the back.
Here’s my six-year-old daughter’s contribution to this post (she took this picture).
In contrast here’s how the high school and cupola looked this morning during a brief snowfall.
When the weather gets warm after getting cold, pretty puddles result. I took this photo in Donaldson Park on December 23.
For more watery posts, visit Watery Wednesday.
My World is a meme played by people all over the planet. For more information and to see other places and wonders, visit My World.
This is how Donaldson Park, a large county park on the edge of Highland Park, looked on December 23.
Here’s a similar view taken on December 17.
This is what I saw back on December 12.
Here we are on December 23 again. The park is empty now, except for those birds and an occasionally jogger or walker. But during the warmer months it is alive with ball players, kids in the playground, tennis players, picnickers, people admiring ducks and dogs (there is a little caged dog park). In the past year much construction has been going on in the park so only parts of it are usable. I previously photographed the edge of the park that borders on the river; in that photo, the foliage is at its peak.
On my blog
Sky Watch Sneakers
I suspect people throw them up there to annoy others. I’ve never seen anyone actually do this. They’ve been there for ages, kind of a part of our block.
Thursday Challenge: Sidewalk (a photo of a pink carnation I threw on the icy sidewalk because I crave color in winter)
Kosher Cooking Carnival: Greasy Story Edition
Parsha posts about Joseph and Hanukkah
Caption This Story (drawing by my daughter)
Ways to Stay Healthy post (I’ll try to write another one soon!)
Enjoy the snowy foliage on this post, even if the topic is that crook Madoff.
Elsewhere in the Blogsphere
A tale of an Iranian-Jewish newcomer on a Hanukkah night (Roya Hakakian gets published in Forbes: she is the sister of a Highland Park resident).
Mimi teaches us how to make origami dreidels.
Lion of Zion writes about RPRY in Highland Park/Edison (he lives in Brooklyn).
Hawthorn trees with beautiful crimson berries are all over Highland Park. This particular beauty is on Lawrence. Click on any of these to enlarge.
I couldn’t resist another post of hawthorn berry photos (see previous hawthorn berry tree).
This is as about as close as I can get to those berries without producing a blurry image (anyone want to buy me a new camera? The ones in the $3,000 range would do fine).
Same photo as above, cropped closer so it looks larger (thanks, Robin, for the idea).
This shot shows the thorns well.
It snowed two days ago, so I went around the corner to my local hawthorn tree and photographed these. Nice contrast to the bluer sky above.
I’m working on a post of Donaldson Park for My World, and I thought I’d throw in a sky above the park.
And here’s a gull, flying over the Raritan River.
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I took this photo last week of the creek that runs on the edge of Highland Park.
Above are some garden shovels that got poured upon in some recent rains.
As we’ve been getting more rain than snow (update: it snowed today a bit), please feel free to leave your favorite rain song as a comment. Or if you’re in a snow zone, snow songs are welcome, too. Drought victims choose as you like.
A tree of red berries is around the corner from my home. I first noticed it for a Sky Watch post.
One of the members of our local Shade Tree Advisory Committee identified the tree for me as a hawthorn tree. She called me from the tree and said, “Leora, did you see the thorns on this tree?” I hadn’t, but in the above photo I circled in pale yellow where the thorns are, close to the tree and not obvious.
Another way she could tell it was a hawthorn was from the bark.
I had just learned about hawthorn berries from Mimi’s post. It seems that they are edible!
For more photos of my tree, go to my Flickr account. There’s another hawthorn berry tree in Highland Park on South Fourth Avenue.
I discovered last week that Highland Park Public High School is a great spot for a Sky Watch post. I drove by a few days later and saw the cupola (is that the right term? more cupolas here) against a sky of blues and pinks. Too bad I was driving kids and had no camera with me.
In other news, my red berry tree from last week was ID’ed as a hawthorn. Here’s the post about the red berry hawthorn tree.
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There is a creek or brook a block away from my home, so I went down there to take some photos for Watery Wednesday.
The creek wiggles its way through the edge of Highland Park and Edison, in between private houses. I do hope people aren’t putting too much pesticides on their lawns that will leach down into the brook, but I’m sure I hope in vain.
For more watery photos, visit Watery Wednesday.
I would prefer just to be writing about the sunset my daughter and I saw on Raritan Avenue in Highland Park earlier this week. When we got into the car and I took my camera, she made me promise not to photograph any flowers on our trip. But she didn’t say anything about sunsets.
Unfortunately, there is too much urban drama going on in the home city of photo blogger magiceye. As I type this post, I am wondering about the safety of the Chabad rabbi and his wife, trapped by terrorists in the Nariman house in Mumbai. (Update: Chabad Rabbi and his wife in Nariman house reported killedtortured and then murdered, and more than 125 too many reported dead in Mumbai). Thank you to Dina in Jerusalem for posting about this. To use Twitter for updates, go to http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23mumbai or click http://hashtags.org/tag/mumbai/. For updates on Chabad, http://search.twitter.com/search?q=nariman (Nariman is the name of the Chabad house in Mumbai).
An upsetting post about the Taj by an eyewitness
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’ll say I’m thankful that there is an America.
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