Sunday bird blogging

A California towhee enjoying the sun earlier this summer.

Saturday reflections

I took this picture as we were trying to navigate our way out of the car rental lot at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport in June. I liked the abstract weirdness of that grid and the reflections on the car.

Black and white Black Hills

 

More Black Hills woods and water

The Black Hills

Since I was looking at South Dakota anyway...

The Black Hills are a national forest rather than a national park. I was expecting some interesting geology, because I never knew that the “black” in the name refers to how the hills are so covered with trees that they appear black. (Well, if you say so.)

But it is quite beautiful, and very different from the eastern half of the state.

Long ago and far away

That's how it feels, anyway. But this was less than two months ago, in South Dakota.

This is Spearfish Canyon, in the Black Hills. The waterfall was a short hike through some beautiful forest.

Saturday reflections

Here's something more recent and local for a change: cars waiting for a light on Walker Street in Lower Manhattan on Thursday.

I had just had my annual eye exam, and with my eyes dilated the patterns on these windshields looked practically psychedelic.

Teddy Hall

Continuing my peeks through the porter's lodge gates at some of the lesser-known constituent colleges of Oxford, here is St Edmund Hall, rather charmingly known as Teddy Hall.

This is one of the older colleges, dating from sometime in the 13th century, and alumni include Keir Starmer and Terry Jones. That large tub of flowers in the middle of the lawn is actually a medieval well (obviously.) I believe that the newer building you can see behind the quad is student accomodations; I like that while the gable shapes on top echo those in the quad, it looks modern and practical and comfortable. Much as I love staying in Mob Quad, you can get a little tired of the 14th century.

Urban poetry

A street of colorful houses in Oxford, near the Mathematical Institute.

Still more Holywell

The last two pictures. I'm assuming the stick cross is some kind of memorial for the Irish philosopher because of the green ribbon.

To kiss and tell

That's what is carved on the stone on top of the stack in front—an odd sentiment for a cemetery, I think.

What's almost as odd are those leaning crosses. At first I assumed they had been mounted on monuments and had fallen, and someone had propped them up, but there's nowhere to mount them on those stones. So I am assuming this is deliberate, and as those stone stacks don't have any names and don't appear to be headstones or monuments, maybe the crosses have some other purpose or meaning?

I found a lot of information about this cemetery online; in the 1840's the churchyards in Oxford were full, and, like Highgate Cemetery in London, Holywell was one of several new cemeteries that were built to meet the demand. It was opened in 1848 on land donated by Merton. But I can't find any mention of these stones with the leaning crosses. I'll find someone to ask when I'm back there next summer (going back is the plan, anyway.)

More Holywell