Category: Nature

The Sands At Scarborough

On The South Bay Beach, 1952, Thurston Hopkins

At this point, WWII was in the books, and the era of photography had changed as well. More formal portraiture had made way for commonplace settings, examining the ordinary, such as these folks at the beach.

I can’t say that personally, I’ve ever seen people wearing winter clothes to a beach, much less a business suit. Even the children building sandcastles are wearing long-sleeved, button-down shirts. I guess the day was made more for being outdoors than for a brisk swim. I love these expressive matronly faces, but I also wonder if it was hard to procure sunglasses at the time. Surely, they could have used some!

In the background lies the luxury hotel called The Grand. When it opened in 1867, it was the largest hotel and the largest brick structure in all of Europe! Now, to the Americans, that’s ancient. But over there, I suppose 1867 was just a couple blinks ago–and it certainly doesn’t conjure up memories of a post-Civil War era for them.

Pinterest

Myself, I don’t care for hotels–for the midnight slamming doors, kids running up and down halls, the thin walls, the questionable cleanliness (especially the bed quilts), the half-ply toilet paper, the items I have found on carpet, including both metal tacks and bullets at a certain Hyatt. But I can appreciate the architecture. And while this hotel has faced all kinds of health issues, from cases of gastroenteritis to Norwalk virus to dangerous levels of bleach in the water, the most interesting tidbit is as follows:

In September 2006, the management installed extra netting and spikes on the exterior of the building to deter nesting seagulls. The birds, which are regarded as a nuisance in parts of the town, had been disturbing guests with mating calls. Their droppings were also responsible for a significant proportion of the hotel’s cleaning expenses. (Scarborough Evening News)

Hardy Horehound

Y’all, the horehound has not lessened up around here. In fact, the highways are flanked by even thicker and pinkier/purplier horehound than ever. It’s the horehoundiest season that Texas has ever seen, no doubt. The more I see them, the more they remind me of my Swiffer hand dusters, narrow enough to get to even the most trapped dust.

You’ll Forget The Sun In His Jealous Sky As We Walk In Fields Of Horehound

Horehound. It’s everywhere in central Texas. Field after field of purple horehounds (technically “black” horehound), presumably from our unusually ample downpours.

What I find curious is that Google has no matches for “fields of horehound,” and that vexes me. So while I understand that this post is of little interest to any readers, it behooves me to have to document that there are, in fact, fields of horehound.

Bees Love Holly Blooms

I’m not exaggerating when I say the bees have been swarming our holly bushes by the hundreds, maybe thousands. As soon as we open the front door, we can hear their deafening buzz, trying to avoid their erratic trails as they flit from blossom to blossom.

And while I do suffer from melissophobia, I know that this is good for the bees, and good for the earth. But I do count down the days till they shoo away because I HATE BEE STINGS. So I stand back and let them go at the holly bushes, ten feet wide and taller than I am.

All The Single Ladies

http://historydaily.org

This is how I imagine it feels to be on a dating site, trying to find matches. The actual explanation goes as such:

A picnic at the California Alligator Farm in the 1920s, located in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles between 1907 and 1953. The farm had 20 ponds for the trained alligators where patrons could mingle freely with them. Visitors were told not to “throw stones at the alligators, spit on, punch or molest them in any way.”