Walnut Grove, pre-Revolutionary War click on picture for larger image

I was away from keyboard today visiting, photographing, and admiring the latest real estate acquisition of a local friend in fox hunting circles.

He is adding to his portfolio of properties an interesting pre-Revolutionary landmark, Walnut Grove farm, for some two and a half centuries the home of the Briarly family. Captain R. S. Briarly stepped out of the front door of this house to lead the local militia company against the British in the War for American Independence.

A stone set in the brick informs us that the small wing with bay window to the right was added in 1784.

In residence currently are five male peacocks.

click on picture for larger image

Sonar image of the wreck

The upcoming April issue of the National Geographic will be devoted to coverage, including then and now photographs, commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, which struck an iceberg on April 15, 1912.

An Irish huntsman.

A video of Siobhan English’s photos of Irish hunting. 9:58 video. It could use a better sound track, but the photos are great.

An amazing photo slideshow from photographer Ken Graham of Maryland’s Potomac Hunt.

Getting a photo of the hunted fox is every hunt photographer’s supreme goal. Shots in which hounds are so close to the hunted fox that both appear in the same photo are rare and unusual and represent the ultimate trophy photo. This fox (who ultimately got away) happened to pick a line that took him almost on a collision course with part of the pack, producing sensational once-in-a-lifetime pictures.

(click on image for larger version)

One of my elementary schoolmates from back in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania posted this today on Facebook. I saved the image and ran a Tineye image search, and all I could find was this photo being used humorously as a user photo on a Russian chat board. I expect that this is some kind of European vole.

Swift greyhounds are closing on the jackrabbit.

(photos by: Herb Wells — click on images for larger picture)

When he reverses course and dashes back right through their legs!

Polish photographer Tomasz Gudzowaty has a photoessay of Shaolin Temple monks meditating and practicing kung fu.

Hat tip to Visual News via Vanderleun.

These photographs by Walter Arnold of the derelict Scranton Lace Company were recently linked on a North East Pennsylvania Genealogy list.

Incorporated in 1897, the Scranton Lace Company in its heyday employed 1400 people, and was the world’s largest producer of Nottingham lace. It possessed the largest looms ever built, each of which stood nearly three stories tall, was 50 feet long, and weighed over 20 tons. During World War II, the company expanded its production line to include mosquito and camouflage netting, bomb parachutes, and tarpaulins. After the war, the company returned to producing cotton yarn, vinyl shower curtains, and textile laminates for umbrellas, patio furniture, and pool liners.

Its factory complex boasted “bowling alleys in the basement, a fully staffed infirmary, a staff barber and a gymnasium, and owned its own cotton field and coal mine. Its clock tower was a city landmark. U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s father and grandfather worked there.”

The Scranton Lace Company closed abruptly in 2002 with an announcement from the company’s vice president, in the middle of the daily work shift, that the company was closing “effective immediately.”

The photo essay is a moving testament to the scale of everything that has been lost as the American economy changed in recent decades to a postindustrial era and manufacturing in most cases moved overseas.

“Close to the Rialto Bridge is a small bronze head which is often overlooked by tourists. The sculpture was once the symbol for an apothecary, Alla Tesa d’Oro (At the Golden Head) and dates from a period when most of the population would have been unable to read a written sign. The shop was one of the major producers of theriaca d’andromaco, a mysterious “cure-all” concoction that was very popular in the city.”

I normally prefer to avoid linking slideshows designed to extort large numbers of page views by playing on readers’ curiosity, but the Telegraph this time came up with a collection of photos of mostly quite interesting curiosities in Venice.

Eagle Falconry, Altai Mountains, Mongolia

This 7:28 trailer for Human Planet, a BBC Ethnographic Travelogue series scheduled to begin broadcasting in March, has some striking images. Photographer Timothy Allen did the voice-over.

The Ant Nebula (Menzel 3): Fiery Lobes Protrude From Dying, Sun-like Star. click for larger image.

I tend to try to avoid posting unsourced, unidentified photos, but consistency is the hobgoblin and all that. Click on the image for a larger version.

I once learned that rather more of these ancient colonial era fowling pieces survived in New England farmhouses than I ever would have suspected. It was probably the combination of unwieldiness and striking decorative value (once they became obsolete, they were the ideal object to hang over the mantelpiece) that caused them to be preserved.

From Nothing Via by way of Vanderleun.

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Gerard Van der Leun identifies the original source as the Jooney Woodward site, from Britain (!).