Tomato farm in Fort Myers, Florida, using staked plants in raised beds. by Paul Goldfinger . Re-post. Blogfinger.net
Paul Goldfinger, MD. Editor Blogfinger.net. Ocean Grove, NJ,USA.
We have received word from Robert M. Harveson, Ph.D., Professor at the University of Nebraska, that he will publish our photograph of how tomatoes are grown in Florida.
Professor Harveson is completing a book for the American Phytopathogical Society Press that deals with historical aspects of plant pathology. Our photo will be used to compare various ways that tomatoes are grown compared to other tomato-growing regions. He asked for our permission, and of course we said yes.
We recently posted a photography article about rooftops, featuring a print by a professional New York photographer. So we offered a prize if someone would send us a photograph of Ocean Grove rooftops. But no one participated. So that left an entry by Blogfinger photographer Jean Bredin (lovely photo Jean) and one by me. We can’t win a prize, but here are our entries:
Rooftops of Tent Village in Ocean Grove. By Jean Bredin, Blogfinger.net staff.
North End rooftops in the Grove. By Paul Goldfinger, Editor.
THE NYLONS (with an a cappella version of “Up on the Roof”)
Bob Bowné captures a trawler and a surfer at the Ocean Grove beach. January, 2014 Special to Blogfinger.
BRIAN STOKES MITCHELL. From his album Simply Broadway. “The Impossible Dream” is from Don Quixote. The song is dedicated to the surfers who go out alone to challenge the ocean and dream of the impossible wave.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger Reposted from January, 2014. Ocean Grove, NJ, USA. Fast forward to Dec 16, 2023 where we had sixty degree weather today.
Frosty the Snowman is one of the heroes of the holidays. Yet you don’t see too many of them around OG. So today, two days after our snowstorm, Bruce and Eddie Holmes of Mt. Hermon Way decided to fix that situation. Eddie said that he was creating a snowman, but it’s only a matter of time before the snow feminists complain.
Eddie’s “Frosty” already had a carrot nose, but he needed to do something with their extra carrot. Bruce wanted to use it to make eyes, but charcoal is more traditional. I suggested another anatomic part for the snowperson, but Eddie solved the issue by burying the extra carrot in the snow . He wasn’t bothered by the gender ambiguity evident in his new friend.
So, for now, we have a snowman and that probably won’t bother anybody. Besides, it doesn’t matter, because it’s Eddie’s friend, so Eddie decides.
Dec. 2023. Eddie is probably a teen ager now. Maybe he has changed from snowmen to snowgirls.
Tanger Shopping Center. Fort Myers, Florida. PG photo. This post is from 2012.
By Paul Goldfinger. 2012
Last year, we at Blogfinger were accused of “stirring the pot” by a township official who didn’t like our parking meter discussion. Well, at the risk of stirring another pot, here’s a story that won’t go away and is too important to ignore. Where will visitors to the Grove go when they have to go, especially in the off season when the Camp Meeting Association does not offer preferred seating near the Great Auditorium?
In this photo, you can see how one shopping community in Fort Myers, Florida handles an inconvenient truth: they simply offer restrooms in every store. But, in Ocean Grove, no solution has been offered by the Chamber of Commerce, which ought to be at the forefront of solving this problem. Surely the people who bring us live music on the corner, cars from another era, chocolate in the winter and street festivals in the fall could come up with a solution for crazed children running around Main Avenue yelling, “I gotta go potty, I gotta go potty.”
Do we want our guests to grab a cab to the next town when they gotta go? Will stirring the pot on this issue encourage the Chamber to take action?
From Nancy and Jean on Cookman Avenue. Sent to us today. (2012) by email. It is an excellent bird portrait.
“Hi – sending you a picture of a Cooper Hawk that the wind blew into our backyard on Cookman Ave, in OG.”
Cooper’s Hawk by Nancy and Jean on Cookman Ave. Ocean Grove, NJ 2012.
Mt. Hermon Way. iPhone13 pro with tele lens. Paul Goldfinger photo. 12/3/22. By Paul Goldfinger, Editor Blogfinger.net. Ocean Grove.
We feed the birds in our back yard , and there is a giant tree next door. And we have a pond with goldfish swimming around. So our fish and little birds. (finches, sparrows, wrens, doves, wood peckers, and cardinals) attract a black and white cat with a pink collar (anyone know its name?) and a predator called a Cooper hawk.
These hawks are found from southern Canada down to Mexico. They stop in Boca Raton searching for the elusive gefilte fish and the wild caught pickled herring.
One time we were standing in our backyard when there seemed to be snow falling. But it turned out to be the hawk up in tree enjoying lunch while spitting out the white feathers.
If we look out in our backyard and see no birds, we instinctively look up in the tree for the hawk. And we look near the pond where the cat likes to sit and watch the action.
Yesterday the hawk was relaxing on our backyard fence. I got a few frames with my iPhone, and then the hawk flew off.
JESSICA MOLASKEY. The clarinet solo is by Ken Peplowski who often records with Jessica and the Pizzarellis — family purveyors of the Great American songbook.
This is where the project will end—at Founders’ Park. Desilting is a separate project from the wall restoration seen above. Blogfinger photo March, 2014.
March 19, 2014, Ocean Grove: A chilly groundbreaking ceremony was held today next to the broken-down cement retaining wall adjacent to Founders’ Park. Officials from the Wesley Lake Commission, Asbury Park, and Neptune Township came together to officially announce that the $1.5 million project to rebuild portions of the wall in Ocean Grove and to desilt the Lake are now in full swing. The event was chaired by Neptune Mayor Michael Brantley who has a long interest in trying to improve the situation at Wesley Lake. After years of frustration, he seemed almost giddy today as he organized a photo-op of officials with ceremonial shovels trying to spell “Neptune.”
Wesley Lake is one of a number of coastal lakes in this vicinity, including Fletcher Lake, which have been deteriorating over time due to a multitude of ecologic issues including storm water running off the streets containing chemicals and bacteria and then streaming into the lakes. Contamination causing degradation of natural conditions endangers the health of fish and causes promotion of weeds as well as silt buildup on the bottom. Oxygenation of the water becomes impaired and there is the accumulation of garbage on the bottom or just floating by.
The Wesley Lake Commission is composed of representatives of both towns (there is a similar cooperative group at Fletcher Lake,) but in the case of Wesley Lake, the Commission has been wrestling with these current issues for at least the last ten years, with efforts being frustrated by lack of adequate funding to reverse some of the problems.
I attended a meeting several years ago of the Friends of Wesley Lake, a now defunct group of concerned citizens that tried to motivate residents to make the Lake better, but the best that they could come up with was to sponsor a cleanup day–to pick up garbage in and around the Lake.
We heard some activists from Ocean Grove and Asbury Park speak at that meeting who expressed their frustration over a problem that seemingly was insurmountable due to financial issues and which included a worrisome situation involving oil and gasoline contamination of the soil on the Asbury side.
A few years ago, the Commission determined that it would cost about $12 million to fix Wesley Lake and its related problems such as the streetscape along the lake, the OG wall, the condition of the fish, and storm water management. Neptune Township recently commissioned a survey of the depth of sediment buildup in the entire lake. They found that silt accumulation was minimal on the Asbury side due to dredging that was evidently done when AP built their metal retaining wall about 5 years ago. But on the Ocean Grove side, the silt buildup had to become part of the current project. Desilting will also be done at Fletcher Lake to complete the dredging goals.
Then came Sandy, and that superstorm caused further deterioration in the Lake and in the crumbling cement retaining wall on the Ocean Grove side which has been declining for years.
At today’s event, the Mayor told us that $1.5 million had been raised (beginning in 2013) in the form of grants, mostly from a Federal agency, the National Resource Conservation Service (Dept. of Agriculture). Other sources brought the funds to well over $2 million. So now we are seeing reconstruction of 400 linear feet of wall which will extend from the boardwalk end to the Founders’ Park end. The remaining cement wall to the west will have to wait for more funds at another time.
The current project, being done by Precise Construction, will rebuild the wall by using temporary steel sheet pilings, front and rear, to hold back the dirt and the water, while the permanent structure is restored using reenforced concrete which, according to Neptune Engineering Chief Leanne Hoffmann, should last at least 50 years. A separate project will be done now to desilt along the Ocean Grove wall out to 30 feet. Desilting is another way to say “dredging. ” The new terminology is preferred by the DEP. 45,000 cubic yards will be removed and dumped somewhere. The project should be done by Memorial Day.
Among the speakers today were Vito Gadaleta, the Township Business Administrator and Peter Avakian, the Commission Engineer. Also present was Neptune Committeeman Randy Bishop of Ocean Grove. The mood was happy because these officials and the citizens of Ocean Grove and Asbury Park have waited so long to see meaningful progress.
The meeting concluded with participants heading over to the west end of the Lake to check out a big thermometer which will track future financing towards the $12 million needed for future continued progress which, by the way, will include restocking with fish.
When this project is over, church bells may ring in the Grove (you know what’s coming)
THE FIREBIRDS (no, not the Willows or the Diamonds)
“Hey, it’s CSI,” said the guy in the street taking pictures. The DPW truck had rolled up a short time before. The corner of Delaware and Mt. Hermon Way was the scene of the crime. There had been a drive-by garbage drop. A black plastic bag had splattered on the delicate asphalt of one of OG’s historic intersections, and SPLAT, refuse was spread around into a circular crime scene.
The two special agents from Neptune DPW circled the mess and pondered what to do. Meredith Rosenberg, a neighbor, was observing from a safe distance on the sidewalk as she suggested that they photograph the garbage.
Why, you ask? Well Meredith must watch those CSI shows. She noticed that there was mail in the muck.
“Take a picture of it,” she said. “You can trace the crime back to the criminal.”
When I arrived on the scene, the DPI special agent was bent over taking some macro photos of the mail (Apple calls it macro-mail or the i-Crime solver app.)
The DPI truck rolled away with the evidence, no doubt to get to the lab. After all, without DNA, you can’t get a conviction any more. Jurors watch TV.
On December 9, 2014, the Jersey Shore got blasted by a nor’easter which produced several inches of rain and high winds. We went down to the Ocean Grove beach and found the beach and dunes to appear a bit wasted.
Four days ago, NJTV News posted a report from Mantoloking, Bay Head, and Ortley Beach (Toms River) regarding the sand and dune losses at those beach towns. All three had less damage to their beaches than what might have occurred if they hadn’t provided post-Sandy protections, including a steel wall, a rock wall with 7 ton boulders, and a huge dune respectively.
In Ocean Grove, the Camp Meeting Association has been engineering the new beachfront to provide protections from future storms, including our own steel bulkhead, new dunes, and a new strong boardwalk design.
We contacted William Bailey, Director of Operations at the OGCMA, and this is his reply:
“Paul, the nor’easter caused minimal sand loss, and we anticipate that it will once again build back up. The “sad” dune photo you posted was of the south end dune that was established in the months following the hurricane. That dune has remained as it is now, with little change other than more sand accumulating.
“The new dune process is from the Pier towards the boardwalk pavilion or between Heck and McClintock St. Those dunes were not affected by the nor’easter; in fact the newly established dunes along with the sand fence recently installed collected sand as designed, thus you will note there was no sand blown on the boardwalk or roadway.
“The dune work will be on going over the next year as more sand fence is installed and then dune grass plantings in the fall of 2015.”
William H Bailey
Director of Operations
AL JOLSON: (we’re sending this out to Susan and Jim of OG who themselves are soon heading for the Golden State)
Above: “This Photograph is my Proof” by Duane Michaels. Click to make it a bit bigger.
By Paul Goldfinger, Photography editor @Blogfinger
Duane Michaels, an important American photographer, is 80 years old, and there will be a retrospective of his work opening in a few days at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.
Michaels has been a pioneer in photography by doing two things. The first was handwriting narrative text on his images. He says that the writing “gives information that the photograph could not convey.” Well, so much for a picture being worth a thousand words. His words usually consist of poems or brief stories as seen in the photos above and below.
The second advance was to place multiple photographs in sequence to relate a story. Duane Michaels is a storyteller.
Here is a quote from the Carnegie: “Michaels is cited as being seminally important in his willingness to bend the rules of the medium to suit his own ends. He is credited for broadening our understanding of the philosophical dimensions of photography from the 1960s to today. ”
The picture on top is called “This photograph is my proof.” I think it is enjoyable to read his brief narrative which adds an extra dimension to appreciating his images.
In general, I like my own images to be self explanatory to the point of rarely giving them titles. Just documenting the place and date is usually sufficient for me. I like to use the headline on Blogfinger to say a few cryptic words about the photo, but my goal is to stimulate interest rather than to narrow the experience for the viewer as occurs with Michael’s stories.
However, I actually am drawn to the notion of adding handwritten storytelling to a photograph. It is a fascinating and original idea. Today, most photography is shown on line, and you can’t very well write a handwritten note.
One of the beauties of creating an actual photo print, mounted on a mat board, is that you finish with a tangible work of art that you can hold in your hand. The handwritten note by the photographer adds a hand-made touch. I like to display photographs without frames—just the image on a mat board leaning against the wall or on some sort of easel.
In my blog gallery, I usually add music (“soundtrack”) to my photos to provide an added dimension. Like Michaels, I want to enhance the appreciation of the photograph, but, at least online, I do it with music, which is less specific than a written note. It’s like the soundtrack for a movie.
My idea of accompanying photographs with music is fairly original, although there are precedents. In 2011 we posted a piece about a museum show which featured the photography of Disfarmer accompanied by live music with Bill Frisell.
