Black and White – Page 64 – photography from the Chesapeake Bay watershed by Bill Emory

words are wind

Market Street plan — Meetings I remember. Huge category. This the meeting that laid out improvements to Market Street east of Meade Avenue. Plantings, stormwater BMPs, profile changes. I’d been canvassing residents of the street the day before (9/7/2008), encouraging their attendance at the meeting. Charles said he wasn’t coming, a waste of time: “the City will never do this for us, it’s all about the money, the river will rise up and wash us away.” I tried to persuade him, encouraging him to be more sanguine.
Hey Charles! You were right. The improvements weren’t forthcoming.

railroaded

Marchant Street closed — For 150 years, people have walked from the President’s house to Woolen Mills Road (E Market) via Marchant Street. Earlier this month the street was cut off, severing the connection between the northern and southern portions of the Woolen Mills Neighborhood, without process, without advance notice. Hey Woolen Mills Neighborhood!
It sucks to be you.

30 x1028 px box

funerary practice

Futenma — Much custom involved with how to treat the dead. I can’t read hiragana. Found out months later the sign reads:
“If you trash garbage here, you are sentenced to five years’ penal servitude or
pay a fine of ten million yen under the law.
Moushi Hanashiro Family”

Arlington Cemetery — There are no signs in Arlington dictating behavior. We were dressed down by grave police for our behavior. The self appointed monitor accused us of being disrespectful. On the contrary, this is how we honor our dead.

Jefferson Lodge #20

Masons — The Masons float, Dogwood Festival 2015. Masons in the year 2000

Masons — These gentlemen do gravitas effortlessly.

raining on the parade

japanese umbrella — Rain falling on the 66th annual Dogwood Festival parade. Rain is better with friends.

on the road to Lucinda

Mailpouch Tobacco — Snow! 233 miles north of Charlottesville, April 22, route 66, on the road to Lucinda. Clarion County is one county away from the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Snow melt here flows through New Orleans.

in praise of the dead

snag in Cook forest — Standing dead trees are an important resource for the living.

But a dead tree, contrary to popular perception, has a plus side. Called a snag, it plays host to a variety of insects, fungi, spiders, and other small native creatures of the woodland; a variety of mammals, including flying and gray squirrels, raccoons, and others; and, surprisingly, about eight-five species of birds in North America. In a forest, at least, maturity and deadwood are relative terms.–Robert Halma, “The Lehigh Valley: A Natural and Environmental History”

Excellent article on dead trees, see: “Praise the Dead: The Ecological Values of Dead Trees” by George Wuerthner

Cook Forest

white pine? — Cook Forest State Park is known for some of America’s finest virgin white pine and hemlock timber stands and was once called the “Black Forest” due to the preponderance of evergreen tree coverage.–Wikipedia

Lagerstroemia

pruned — Lagerstroemia, commonly known as crape myrtle or crepe myrtle, is a genus of around 50 species of deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs native to the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, northern Australia and parts of Oceania, cultivated in warmer climates around the world.–wikipedia

30 x1028 px box — March 18, Adrian Higgins at the Washington Post published a column “How to avoid hacking at your crape myrtle this spring“,

The crape myrtle has always brought out the inner butcher in certain people —
there is something about those smooth, sinewy branches that screams “amputate me”.–A. Higgins

Rivanna River Company

Gabe Silver — Gabe Silver talks about his business, Rivanna River Company. Gabe was one of ten to present at the TTFF Crowdfunded Pitch Night event. Recording starts as Gabe speaks about the transformation in Richmond as that City has embraced their river as a recreational resource. Rivanna River Company

RRBC — Planning for a future