Birch and Ivy

[Doug T.]

Hi All!
It was a beautiful day today, so Barb and I went for a walk at my favorite place, Chenango Valley State Park. It's ca. 5 miles from our house
Everything is still pretty drab looking, but I saw this Birch tree and couldn't resist.

This was taken with my Fine Pix, ISO 100. I didn't note the other settings, and didn't tweak it.
Please let me know what you think.

Doug

[mickeyobe]

Doug,

I like it.
I like the contrast between growth and decay.

Mickey

[daveh]

Just written a reply, caught the wrong key and lost the lot!

Fortunately it did really say much of note other than I like your photo, Doug, and that it reminds me of the photo I took a month ago:



The ivy was killing many trees in the wood near the Wellington Monument, Somerset. The woodsmen had been there fairly recently and chain-sawed the ivy.

[photax]

Doug, I also like your picture, very good image detail

Dave, Never seen an ivy killing a tree in this way. Is Mr. Wellington the inventor of the famous beef ?

MIK

[daveh]

MIK, the origin of the name Beef Wellington does seem to be in some doubt. Wellington did however have a hand in writing the song Waterloo which was made famous by ABBA!

[colray]

What not another bit of useless historical information

Mr Wellington chef and inventor of the Welligog's .. it could be said that he was the farmers best friend.. if it wasn't for this avid inventor/cook the poor 'ol farmers would be knee deep in Moo Poo

[mickeyobe]

Then Beef Wellington was not named after rubber boots (Wellies)?

I am disillusioned.

Mickey

[PeterW]

Colin,

What not another bit of useless historical information

'Fraid so. Here's another couple of bits.

Bit One:
Wellington boots were named after the first Duke of Wellington, bit of a dandy by all accounts, who got fed up with his trouser legs getting muddy on the battlefields of the Spanish Penninsular and at Waterloo in France.

He instructed his bootmaker in London to make a pair of stylish calfskin boots that reached up to just below the knee. They became popular with the gentry and inevitably were known as Wellington boots.

Sometime around 1850-1860 the North British Rubber Company used Goodyear's patent for vulcanisation to coat much looser fitting tall canvas boots with rubber as protection from water and mud. They were called Rubber Wellingtons and have remained popular with people like farmers ever since.

Beef Wellington (or Lamb Wellington or Salmon Wellington), cooking a meat wrapped in puff pastry, is said by some dictionaries to be so named because it resembles a Wellington Boot. Others dispute this and say it was invented by a chef for a reception In Wellington New Zealand.

The popular supposition is that the name derives from the efforts of poor chefs who turned out a puff pastry resembling the resilience and toughness of Wellington boots.

Bit Two (looking at the thread on street-art bicycles)
The protective iron band round the outside of a wheel was spelled tire in British English from about 1400 to the early 1800s when the spelling tyre was also used.

Then a bunch of academics steeped in Greek and Latin attempted to standardise English spellings and decreed it should be spelled tyre.

Of course, the Americans would have none of this English academic rubbish and carried on using the old spelling tire.

OK, I'll shut up about English now and go back to my camera collection. I recently picked up a little Canon Ixus FF APS, pristine and in its original box with user's manual. I'll post a picture of it when I've recharged the batteries for my digital.

PeterW