new citizens

new citizens
Independence Day. Monticello’s 48th annual celebration and naturalization ceremony. New Americans from Pakistan, El Salvador, Panama, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan, Guatemala, Colombia, Jamaica, Germany, China, India, Burma, Russia, Honduras, Venezuela, Peru, South Africa, Bolivia, Belgium, Canada, Afghanistan, United Kingdom, Sierra Leone, Ukraine, Brazil, Phillipines, Korea, Vietnam, Armenia, Ghana, Netherlands and Azerbaijan recite the pledge of allegiance following their recitation of the oath of citizenship and acceptance as US citizens.

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.


Charlottesville Municipal Band
time-machine Independence Day 2005

Acer saccharinum

robin on her nest during a thunderstorm
We had a severe thunderstorm in Charlottesville last Thursday. It snapped power poles, uprooted trees.
The robin made this nest in a 120 year old silver maple. The dread silver maple.
Outlawed by municipalities around the country. Experts say it is a weak wooded, weedy, infrastructure trashing tree.
Sure enough, this tree lost limbs, is that weak wooded or smart?
Instead of hanging onto all its limbs and blowing over in one beautiful piece,
it dropped a few limbs and lived.
Sister robin protecting those youngsters. Mommas all right.

lightning bugs

fireflies in a tree at night.
10 seconds, Lampyridae display. They are hanging out in a quercus palustris.
They don't hang out in the tulip tree to the right.
This chemically-produced light from the lower abdomen may be yellow, green, or pale red — wavelengths from 510 to 670 nanometers. Most fireflies are quite distasteful and sometimes poisonous to vertebrate predators.--Wikipedia

Wikipedia

thunderstorm

sycamore leaning with the wind
We had a storm yesterday afternoon, cold air falling six miles down out of a cumulonimbus, making for a straight line Dorothy Gale experience. Busted many trees. These trees lean with the wind.
ht ferron, night
here in the hinterland we run our utilities in the air. It is the cheapest way. Akin to keeping our inventory of used motor parts in the front yard. After a wind, some trees fall on electric lines. The solution? Cut down the trees? We are cheap. If we could run the sewer lines in the air we would...

utilities

Blessed darkness. Night at night. Nary a streetlight in my part of town. Power lines down. The rise in the distance, Monticello. View from Sunrise Trailer Park.