Eric Burdon And the Animals at the Paramount February 6, 2016

This is the front of the promotional post card that the paramount put out advertising the Eric Burdon & the Animals concert that was presented on Saturday, February 6, 2016.  

Thinking that photographs were discouraged, I did not bring my camera.  But my friend has his phone with him.  I've got to get used to the idea that event photos are welcomed.  There was a notice on one of the Jumbotrons stating the Paramount's  eagerness to put still photos on their web site.

 Anyway, here are the two pics that we got of the really energetic Burdon having a great time flying around the stage and singing like fifty years has not ever passed!  The Conga drums, the Bongo drums, the two drum setups were amazing, and their beat brought us all back to the days.

I have to remark that the keyboard man, was amazing.  Some of their songs that were refreshed and revived were: House of the Rising Sun, Don' Let Me Be Misunderstood, pit the Wine, Boom Boom, We Gotta Get out of this Place.  

Next month Meat Loaf will play the Paramount and  I will bring my camera to that concert.  The audiences at the Paramount really get into and behind the performers.  They sing, jump around, and generally appreciate the longevity of the careers these artists  seem to have achieved gracefully.

The reverse of the promotional card.  This one should be another main event!  Go Paramount.  So glad that you came to Huntington, Long Island!

Merry Mixup December 2015 Warm Weather's Effect on Plants

 This December on Long Island, the weather has been unusually mild.  As a result the flowering shrubs and bulbs are mixed up!  They are sending out blooms and growth several months too early.  This is a Winter Jasmine flowering plant. 

 A beautiful Sky Blue Vinca blossom.

 Peach colored Japonica flowers.

 The next year's buds for the Montauk Daisey.

A male Holly

Mint leaves coming up in the Blueberry Box.

 Grape Hyacinth leaves popping out.

 A Raspberry!

 Cat Mint flowers in a planter box.

A new shoot for a Day Lily plant.

 My favorite late blooming Chrysanthemum, but this is really late.

The new plants at the base of each stem for that Chrysanthemum.

 Snow Drops shooting up.

 A Yucca which never looked this good all summer.

 Ferns around the White Walnut tree.

 Hydrangea buds showing up too early.

 One of the Knock Out Roses trying to bloom.

 I tip over planter pots for the winter months, so that the contents and pots don't freeze.  But the plants continue to grow.

 A remarkable photo of one of my Bridal Wreath shrubs.

 A purple bloom on a perennial.   What will happen to these plants come Spring.  I guess that I will have to wait, but after the last two really snowy and cold winters this is a gift!

Garden Work Clipping off the Winter Kill on Shrubs

The winter of 2015 started out fairly quiet through January.  Then February hit and Long Island had several really awful snow storms and record breaking cold weather.  The snow just wouldn't go away.  Many of the shrubs in the Jarvis House Garden were weighted down by this heavy wet snow.  The leaves on this Rhododendron really got burned.

 So, today the weather was above freezing and the snow had  started to melt away.  Time to get outside with the clippers and cloppers and work on the shrubs!

 If the leaves on the Rhododendrons look curled up, they are in the process of dying.  Eventually they will look like this. 

So you may as well cut them out now.  They never seem to come back after looking like that.

My small clippers

 Rhododendron leaves  on the shrub,

on their way out.  Rhododendrons do not mind clipping back, rather it encourages new growth and keeps the plants compact, not leggy.

 

 This is a Spirea that had a lot of snow piled on top if it.

 With my small clippers I gave it a hair cut and trimmed it back for Spring.

 This is a messy giant fern plant.  Its stalks are done and they were mashed down by the snow.

 I clipped off all of the dead stalks t o make ready for the Spring fiddle head growth.

 Next I tackled the Knock out rose bush in the corner of the driveway garden. 

 I needed the larger cloppers to cut through the thick stems.

This side wall of the pantry needs paint this Spring,  the dryer vent will need cleaning, and the split rail needs fixing.  So cutting this shrub way back away from these things is essential.  It will encourage massive blooms later in the season too.

I have a basket hanging in my garage, dedicated to making labels for the yard waste collection bags.  Its handy, and I always know where the markers and scissors are!

These are the two yard waste bags that I filled today.  Our town picks up yard waste separately.o I label the bags.    There will be a lot more to do in future days, but this was a good start, and its never too early to do outside work if you dress properly.

Montauk, Long Island Surprises on the Beaches

 

 This is the Montauk Light House at the eastern end of Long Island. It was a fantastic clear, brisk , weekend and there were surprising things to see.

There were stone arrangements everywhere!  Who did this?  And why?  What did they mean?

The first one that I saw was on a log on the beach.

The next one that I saw was down near the jetty.  A memorial.

 So we decided to make one too.  An anchor the natural choice.

We changed it up a bit.  Would it be there the next time we traveled to Montauk?

 Later near the beach in the Light House park, we saw other stacks of rocks.

 A large frog stone carving sat in the hilltop cemetery.

 When we first got to Montauk, I saw an unusual thing, a telephone booth.

 That was just the start of unusual Montauk surprises.  A walkway coming out of the Phragmities in another perk lead to

 a strange boat house that was used for Fire rescue?

Beware.

 Then we explored Camp Hero.

 We saw the only surviving intact example of a large frequency diversity radar unit left in the U.S. and it was huge!

 At the Second House in Montauk, a preserved historic structure we found a dug out canoe.

 But the strange thing was , a face was carved in the inside end of the canoe!

 Because a hurricane blasted Bermuda that week,

 giant waves made their was to Montauk.

 Surfers came out by the dozens.

 and what was odd to me was that unlike other Long Island beaches with their smooth sandy shores, where surfers flock, this beach at Montauk was littered with large rocks, known as Glacial Erratics. 

 These rocks were left over after the glaciers formed Long Island,  and by the erosion of the cliff  over time by harsh tides.

 What drives surfers to test these waters and  dodge large boulders!  Is it the ultimate challenge, and  a demonstration of skill?

There were signs warning surfers and hikers to stay back from the unstable cliffs.

 The waves were so tempting to these daredevils, that they braved rocky trails to get to the surf on beaches, one named Ditch Plains, carrying their boards.

 Getting back to the village of Montauk, all of the lamp posts were decorated for Halloween with creepy figures.

 If you have followed this blog you know that years ago I wrote about plastic wagon wheel debris.  They were released by accident by the millions from of all places a water treatment plant in Mamaroneck, NY.

 Each time I visit a beach on Long Island's north shore, I look for these wheels.

 The first ones I saw were in Sunken Meadow, western Suffolk County.

These were found in Montauk!  That is more than a hundred miles away from the original location.  Sadly somehow they have reached the end of the Island.

As you can see the weekend was crystal clear and probably one of the last warm stretch of days to enjoy Montauk.  So, there were unusual elements to the landscape, and these gave the pre-Halloween weekend a special twist.