Early Season Leaf Peeping In Plymouth County

It's about two weeks too early, but we took to the streets to see what sort of early fall foliage we could find in Plymouth County.

Southeastern Massachusetts may be the weakest spot in New England for leaf peeping, but New England has the bar set pretty high.

One of the benefits of having a blurry camera is that, if you don't enjoy fall foliage, you can just squint at this picture and pretend that the article is about forest fires.

As you can see, we'll be working in the ROY part of the ROY G BIV color spectrum. I looked pretty hard for a purple tree without success. I may have seen a Magenta tree, I'm not sure.... never had that crayon.

Our basic route for this trip was Bourne to Wareham to Plymouth to Kingston to Plympton to Halifax to Bridgewater to Hanson to Pembroke to Duxbury back to Bourne.

I went down Route 106 after a huge yellow tree in Plympton, but it hadn't peaked yet. This tree in Halifax was up earlier.

I needed orange in my life badly enough to shoot the tree with wires in front of it.

Otherwise, a shutterbug develops  tendency to invite themselves into people's yards without permission to seek better shots. I haven't been beaten up or shot at yet, but it's only a matter of time. I have already forgiven my future assailant.

Fortunately, one of the benefits of  working with a crappy camera is that shooting out the window of a car going 50 MPH doesn't really lower the quality that much when compared to my stand-still work.

Neither of my MVP trees (the giant yellow one in Plympton and a deep red one next to the Middleboro 4H building) were at peak when I drove by.

I should really learn which types of tree are birch, cedar, maple, forsythia etc.... I only know maple leafs because they have a hockey team.

I shoot 100 pics or so, then go through them at the end of the trip. Memory issues come up, and you get captions like "I think this is Kingston."

No foliage here, but I love reflective work.

Don't let the week-old dates deter you on the pictures from Leaf Peeping. My camera calendar is  week slow.

Pine dominates our tree shots, preventing us (along with my camera) from getting those panoramic Vermont calendar shots.

Be sure to tune back in....

Because we'll be doing more of the South Shore....

And we'll also do the South Coast...

As well as Cape Cod!

I'll even drag Jessica along, as she takes better pictures than I do.

See you on the road!

Cruise Ship Hits Railroad Bridge On Cape Cod Canal

Oops!

The Viking Star, a 900 passenger cruise ship, struck the railroad bridge on the Cape Cod Canal yesterday.

No one was injured, and the bridge seems to have just lost some paint. US Army Corps Of Engineers workers heard scraping sounds as the tall cruise ship worked through the Cape's favorite man-made river.

The railroad bridge is 135 feet over the water. I have no idea how tall the Viking Star is, and I looked, too. I'm guessing 135 feet and 6 inches. it either has 9 decks or 14 decks, depending on if you believe the Cape Cod Times or Wikipedia.

I actually watched the Viking Star as she approached the Bourne Bridge, but I was too far away and behind too many trees to see much of it. There were reports on Facebook that she also hit the Bourne Bridge, but nothing is turning up on those there Internets.

We'll keep you updated. You never know if the diagnosis will be worse once they look at it with the daylight.

It was just like that, just with a larger boat and contact.

Cape Cod Canal-Only Fog

This was Saturday's fog, but there was a slight release delay as I pondered the "terrible pics of a cool phenomena" question.

I lacked the testicular fortitude to dash across the four lanes and shoot through the bars. This is what I would imagine that prison looks like in Heaven. 

The fog was the result of some temperature contrast between "cold morning" and "warm water." I was shooting from the side where the sun had been shining on the Canal longer.... or the people on the Cape side be smokin' up a few bales of that sticky-icky-icky. 

I kind of one-two'd these shots quickly, mostly to show how the fog was creeping over Buzzards Bay.

I'll get a better camera some day, honest.

South Coast Shellfishing Ban

You might want to skip the clams tonight, player,

The state’s Division of Marine Fisheries has banned the harvesting of shellfish in the west side of Buzzards Bay and in Mount Hope Bay until further notice.

The ban is due to an outbreak of toxic algae. The algae is a form of phytoplankton known as Pseudo Nitzschia. If Pseudo Nitzschia doesn't kill you, it will make you stronger.... and a nihilist.

Pseudo Nitzschia leads to the development of Domoic Acid. Domoic Acid can cause Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning, which gives the person who suffers from it vomiting, cramps, diarrhea and incapacitating headaches followed by confusion, disorientation, permanent loss of short-term memory, and in severe cases, seizures and coma. Other than that.... no probba!

Harvesting or collecting shellfish from the affected areas is now prohibited. Towns with the ban include Bourne, Dartmouth, Fairhaven, Falmouth, Gosnold, Marion, Mattapoisett, New Bedford, Swansea, Wareham and Westport.

I had Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning once, but I forget what happened.

Plymouth Yeti Gets Political

A lot of people know who they are going to vote for to be President right when that person declares, others know at some point in the primaries, others decide during the debates and some even make up their mind while staring at the ballot.

Not me.

I make up my mother-loving mind only when I know how the Lawn Yeti is voting.

Granted, you should cast your vote for who you like best. However, if the Yeti doesn't like the R or the D... it's time to go Third Party, folks. Yeti (I'm assuming that the singular is the plural here, I've never seen two together in any Bigfoot stories) have been around for an eternity, and may have been America's first residents. They have a sort of Fey wisdom that regular, non-hairy primates lose once we start building cities and losing touch with Mother Nature.

That's not a problem the Lawn Yeti has. He's as American as a bald eagle landing on Mount Rushmore. When I saw that he had gone political, I immediately pulled the Cranberry County Magazine Mobile News Car over to see WTF was up with all this.

I don't speak Yeti and he is a reticent Sasquatch, but he was able to communicate his basic platform to me.

He's very pro-Bigfoot, as you can imagine. Much of his platform included Yeti-related planks, especially relating to fur, deer poaching, urban sprawl and privacy issues (his life was Hell after the Patterson tape went public). As you can see, Fur figures heavily into his advertising.

For someone with fur, he sure spent a lot of money on that suit. I checked... Armani. He's still waiting for his hairpiece to come in. He's not wearing pants, but he's shaggy enough that your kids won't be ruined for life if he visits their school for a photo op.

His suit is in no way an endorsement of Trump, and it is no dig at Bill Clinton's wife. "They don't make pantsuits in my size, he intimated.

Yeti are frightening creatures just by their stature and appearance, and sometimes Yeti Method involves scaring off someone who wanders into his stalking-about territory. Other than that, he's not bothering you unless you bother him.

Humans have a low bone-to-meat ratio, and are too large and unwieldy for even a Sasquatch to eat in a manner that a human might eat chicken wings or baby back ribs. We also tend to be high-sodium. It's the same reason that most shark attacks are mistakes on the part of the shark.

Either way, he's happy to see you. He prefers that you just drive by and wave, as things like honking or stopping the vehicle in his yard are frowned upon... unless you're a heavy hitter media type like a Cranberry County Magazine sandwich artist.

Otherwise, it sort of screws up the peace and quiet of the neighborhood. That makes the Lawn Yeti angry, and you don't want him angry with you. He can tear off your arm and beat your momma with it. Remember that people and Bigfoots (feet?) move into deep southern Plymouth for the peace and quiet, and resent intrusive outsiders.

His extreme pro-Yeti stance means that only he can represent himself. He runs his campaign with some human help from his Long Pond Road complex. He has no First Yeti as of yet(i), but he's single and ready to mingle.

In the small print of those Wikileak articles, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was very intent on there being no Lawn Yeti presence in the debates."He'd rip off Trump's head in the first round of questioning. After that... well, he's been in the forest a while, and Hillary would be the first female he could reach..... He may be where discarded Feel The Bern people go..... He'd make a great Mr. Palin upgrade."

I'm pretty much All In as far as it goes with Team Yeti. Sure, there are flaws with electing a Missing Link to lead the Free World. However, there are advantages as well. A leader with an exclusive fur and primate platform is never going to launch an oil war, pick a fight with Indochine, insure 15 million slackers, dump a Pontiac into the Chappaquiddick River... You can do worse than electing a Lawn Yeti.

Send In The Clowns

from ABC

Massachusetts is now in the full grip of Creepy Clown hysteria.  You don't have to go on Facebook very long to see that there is most likely a clown working your area. It's only October 4th, so it's probably going to get creepier and creepier until Halloween.

Reports of clowns, some of which are hoaxes, are turning up in New Bedford, Brockton, Wareham, Rehoboth (RPD is denying it), Agawam, Weymouth, Plymouth and God knows where else. Merrimack College was actually locked down after a report (that later turned out to be false) concerning an armed clown roaming the campus. There are too many sightings, too far apart, for it to be the work of one clown.

It speaks of a Clown-spiracy.

Clowns run the gamut from friendly ones like Bozo to sad ones like Pagliacci to scary fictional ones like Pennywise to outright IRL serial killers like John Wayne Gacy. You could bump into WWE personality Doink the Clown, although I think the wrestler who played him is dead. They can even be a Juggalo, who are followers of the Insane Clown Posse. You have no way of knowing which type you're meeting, although if you meet one on a side street at 1 AM, he's probably not out looking for Mayor McCheese.

Clowns scare us in ways that other circus performers don't. I have seen not one report of, say, an acrobat or a lion tamer roaming the streets of Brockton. Maybe it's the face paint, maybe it's the capering, maybe it's the frozen deathly rictus... either way, I'm down with the clown like the guy in Repo Man felt about cops... "I ain't got nothin' against no cop.. I just like it better when they aren't around."

Folklorist/cryptozoologist Loren Coleman is largely responsible for both publicizing the 1981 cases in Massachusetts where clowns tried to lure children into cars, and for keeping the concept of RL creepy clowns in the public eye. He's been saying that the phenomena is coming back, and everyone laughed.... but the only one laughing now is Loren Coleman.

Keep in mind that many of these clown sightings are going down in the Bridgewater Triangle, which is another theory of Coleman's.

So, it's just early October, and the creepy clowns are out in full force. The clown craze is already larger than life, so it's not going away. That leaves you with the question of "Well, what can I do about it?"

Here are some tips that just may save you from a ghastly death at the gloved hands of a Killer Clown.

- Dress like a clown. I say this because I'm using Zombie Apocalypse Logic... you never see Zombies fighting each other. They have some instinct that makes one walk right past the other. Maybe clowns are like that... or maybe you and Pennywise can have a turf dispute. OK, maybe this idea sucks.

- Watch out for little cars. Clowns like to pack themselves into small cars like hybrids or VW Beetles. There's no comic value to fitting 12 clowns into a H2 or a Chevy Suburban. Sh*t, I've done that a few times. If you're on a dark side street and hear laughter or bicycle horns coming from a Toyota Yarris... well, you're probably already dead.

- If a clown chases you, try to run in areas with narrow paths. Clowns tend to wear big shoes, you see... there's no shame in surviving a clown chase only because Ronald got his foot snagged under a tree limb. You'd think that a guy with size 16 feet would have better Huge Shoes jokes, but I'm a bit under the weather this morning and have very little in the tank.

- In the Six Day War, the Israelis gained a war-winning advantage by staging a pre-emptive assault on the rival nation's air forces. Before the war was an hour old, the Sons of David owned the skies, and Syria/Egypt/Jordan/whoever suffered mightily for it. Do not be afraid of launching a pre-emptive strike against the clowns. Make-up stores, joke shops, even a circus.... you just have to know what to look for, and not be afraid to kill.

- Clown weaponry tends to lean towards the absurd. You notice that The Joker rarely kills with a gun. In fact, if a clown pulls a gun on you, it will most likely have that little BANG! flag pop out of it. At worst, it shoots out a boxing glove. Also be wary of lapel flowers that spray acid, 30000 volt electric joy buzzer handshakes, crowbars, and weapons that have "guaranteed to level Gotham City" written on the box.

- Girl clowns are always sexy, but the sex appeal is just a clown trick. Girl clowns may act like they love you, but their heart belongs to whatever clown first got them to put on the make-up. Harley Quinn always goes back to the Joker, even though Batman is worth a billion dollars and is built like a Greek God. Harley usually tries to do Batman in, rather than do Batman up.

- Every police department in town is going to issue warnings that the Clown Fear is just mass hysteria and that you shouldn't worry yourself over it. Don't believe them. Many of these warnings will actually be put out by the clowns themselves, in order to lure innocents into Fairhaven or Rehoboth or wherever the cops say "Don't Worry" the most. It's a lot like Thoreau once wrote... "The more vehemently that he spoke of his honor, the more closely that I watched the silverware."  I only half-remember the quote, but the point is what matters.

- If you do decide to kill a clown without a trial, don't forget to Double Tap them. I can't tell you how many horror movies I've seen where someone knocks over Michael Myers, thinks he's dead, and then gets an axe to the dome about one murderer sit-up later. Don't go out like a sucker.

 - In the same vein, remember that- should you take out a gun- a clown who runs is definitely an evil clown. A clown who begs for his life is a really sneaky evil clown.

- With "clown" sure to be among the top Hallowen costumes this year, it will be very easy for true Evil Clowns to mix in among the trick-or-treaters. Always know how many kids are in your trick-or-treating groups, and if you come up with one extra when you count heads, be wary. Also, if you go out with 4 little children and- at some point- the kid who was dressed as a Minion is now dressed as an evil clown... well, you're probably already dead. These odds go up if the clown-child is the newly-discovered fifth kid, and he's now six foot four.

- Legend has it that once a man kills while dressed as a clown, he can never get the make-up off. It's sort of what happened to Lady MacBeth. Killer Clowns can only look human again by taking out even more make-up. So, if you see an otherwise normal person with a touch of pure white on his skin, you should probably kill him first and wonder if he just ate a powdered sugar donut later.

- There are no Black, Asian or Latino clowns. Clownery (?) is like hockey to these people. If you see a black guy dressed as a clown, he's probably Canadian and doesn't count.

South Shore Saturday Storm Surf Shots

We had a steady East wind yesterday, so we took to the road to see how local beaches were looking. This decision was greatly influenced by me having nothing to do.

We started off in Scituate, because.. well, why not Scituate? I know people who say that you shouldn't start anywhere but Scituate. I wanted to be in Scituate before high tide, be in Marshfield for high tide, and then just move back towards Cape Cod until the wave pics started to get weak.

My girl has taken a few waves to the face, I'm sure. Having your house look like the front bow of a ship is pure New England Coastal, player. I lack the skills as a writer to tell you how cool this guy's house is.

The wind wasn't too bad, and the surf is nothing worthy of a George Clooney movie. Like I said, I had some free time.

Anyone who grew up on a beach knows that this is an incoming wave that got smacked up by a wave ahead of it that was rebounding off of the seawall. I was in Marshfield by this point, and it was high tide. I was very pleased to see that I still have the instinct where I know when a wave will throw water over the wall, and managed to get behind the car door before this wave soaked everyone who was watching it with me.

Marshfield was fun, as there was some splashover happening. It was a change, being soaked by the waves instead of the rain. I had to change clothes not once but twice getting the pics for this article, but that's how I roll, people. If you're the family who came around the corner of the Pavilion while I was changing at Duxbury Beach.... the giant nude guy says "Sorry." I also apologize to the commenter on a previous article who noted that I tend to tilt the horizon on my shots. I've been working on that, but sometimes the wind wins.

There were no lifeguards on duty at Duxbury Beach yesterday. I did hook the seagull up with some of my turkey sandwich, just in case you think that I don't compensate my models. I don't think that Green harbor was that foggy, I was having a lot of trouble getting even one shot off without the camera lens getting spotted up by the rain. I have a rotten camera, and the lifeguard chair shouldn't be looking that good when the housing behind it looks that bad.

Duxbury has to do this to the seawall boat-ramp opening because the ocean smashed through 6 inch thick hardwood planks when they used to use those. If they don't put that iron plate there, this opening births an ocean river flowing into a residential neighborhood.

I usually shoot the residential part of Duxbury Beach, but I really didn't feel like getting out of the car if I could avoid it. I was soaked. I went to the Bath House, but I ended up having to get out of the car anyhow. As you have probably guessed, I got soaked.

What happens if you assume a bad Cuban accent and yell "Hey, Pelican!!" at a heron over and over.... at least that's what happens on Duxbury 's marshes. 

Plymouth, Cedarville to be precise, was our next stop. I poached my way into the White Hills Country Club for some above-the-fray shooting. This is from around where their 18th hole is,  That rock structure is called a Groyne.

Even small waves erode the heck out of those sand cliffs. That's why they are willing to risk the goofing that comes with installing a Groyne. 

Cape Cod Canal... this is a jetty, not a groyne.

Sagamore gets maximum barrier beach protection from Cape Cod.

Sandwich looked pretty calm from where I was standing. Time to wrap it up.