bodhi tree swaying

A contribution to Monochrome Friday.

A gravestone in Abijata-Shalla National Park, Ethiopia.

This picture is part of the Monochrome Friday meme.

A reminder of a warmer, gentler season.

Google has made available two million pictures — photographs and engravings — from Life’s image collection. Eventually they’ll be making all 10 million pictures freely available. The first thing I did was to head to the 1960s collection to look at the Apollo moon program, but then I dived back into the civil-war era shots. What an amazing find!

On Monday, the processing of Maia’s citizenship papers came through. The nice people at Homeland Security gave her an American flag.

See other Monochrome Friday participants.

This is Stookie, a Russian Tortoise we looked after for a couple of years. He now lives in Brattleboro, Vermont, with a nice guys who keeps lots of tortoises. We decided to pass him on because we thought tortoises and babies wouldn’t be a good mix. I think he’s probably also happier being able to roam and having friends to play with.

You really should check out this stunning slideshow from the BBC, highlighting photographs on the theme of “water.” Some are pure aestheticism

while others are more consciously addressing environmental and social issues such as human-induced drought in China.

And the music is very haunting.

From the article:

A major new global prize celebrating the work of both professional and amateur photographers has been awarded in Paris.

The Prix Pictet is the first competition of its type to focus on the global issue of ‘sustainability’ – and, this year in particular, on water.

The winner of 100,000 Swiss francs (£53,000) is the Canadian photographer Benoit Aquin.

Here – the head of the Prix Pictet jury, Francis Hodgson, shows off Aquin’s work and images from some of the 17 other photographers who made the shortlist.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Audio Slideshow: Photos compete for the Prix Pictet

Another shot of Maia’s great great great grandfather, Leslie Lickley. Born 1840. Died 1910.

This is my great great grandmother, Mary Lickley (née Robertson). She was married to Leslie Lickley.

I believe she was born 1841 and died 1907. Married 1859.

My Great Great Grandfather Peter Wallace (my father’s mother’s father’s father). Born 1827. This is a very primitive photograph, and much faded. This scan brings out pretty much all the retrievable information.