Pic(k) of the Week: Morning woodland

Morning woodland,

Autumn light.

Silent mien.

Legacy Park: Decatur, Georgia, USA. 29 November 2022.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Cold Moon rises

The Full Cold Moon —or the Full Long Nights Moon— is so named because, during December, the winter cold fastens its grip and nights are at their longest and darkest. It is also sometimes called the Moon before Yule.

— Farmer's Almanac.

That's an image of the 'Super' Full Cold Moon ^* in early December 2017. I'm posting it today —five years later, on Christmas Eve, 24 December 2022— because it's cold!

Even Atlanta, Georgia —deep in the American South— is not immune to the effects of the winter storm gripping much of the United States. The temperature this morning was (a 'balmy') -13 °C or, with the wind chill figured in, -22 °C. That's 8 °F and minus 8 °F, respectively, in degrees Fahrenheit. No blizzard, though, unlike other areas.

Be that as it may, here's a greeting of the season in the Lithuanian language of my forebears:

 

Linksmų Kalėdų!

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Pic(k) of the Week: Mallard whirlpool

An autumn breeding pair of mallards dabbling in a wetland pond.

South Peachtree Trail: DeKalb County, Georgia, USA. 6 December 2022.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Red no. 2 & yellow no. 5

Rain on pavement.

Red no. 2 and yellow no. 5. ^*

Look down!

Poor thing almost made it.

Colors of autumn on the East Decatur Greenway: DeKalb County, Georgia, USA. 11 September 2022.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Train approaches bridge

Ripped from the headlines: a CSX freight train, carrying coal.

Photo taken from an overpass on the pedestrian South Peachtree Creek Trail, in Mason Mill Park, DeKalb County, Georgia, USA.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Dead in fen

Even decaying and solitary, the dead tree can seem reborn when kissed by morning sun and mist.

Here, the headwaters of tiny Cecilia Creek meander into a marshy fen, that a wag once called Frog Bog. But, it's late autumn: the frogs are hibernating.

Legacy Park in Decatur, Georgia, USA. 20 November 2022.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Close encounters of the arachnid kind

A Jorō near-miss (in Legacy Park: Decatur, Georgia, USA, 12 November 2022).

It was a foggy early morning on the forest trail. I didn't see the expansive web —or its spinster— until I was about to run into it. I quickly ducked.

Backlit, the web might not have been visible in a photo and the spider, merely a silhouette. So, I popped up the in-camera flash. Not expecting this situation, I wasn't carrying a diffuser and the image might be a bit hot. Nonetheless, the arachnid appears well-limned in all her colorful glory.

As to the arachnid...

Trichonephila clavata —also known as the Jorō spider (ジョロウグモ)— is a member of the Trichonephila genus. The spider can be found throughout Japan (except Hokkaidō), Korea, Taiwan, and China. The spider is also an introduced species in North America —first spotted, in 2013, in northeast Georgia and northwest / upstate South Carolina. It is believed that the species will become naturalized over much of the eastern seaboard of the United States due to its relative imperviousness to the cold.

The adult female's body size is 2/3 to 1 inch (17–25 mm), while the male's is 1/4 to 2/5 inches (7–10 mm). The adult female individual has stripes of yellow and dark blue, with red toward the rear of the abdomen. The web of females may reach several meters in length. In sunlight, the yellow threads appear to be a rich gold color. In autumn, the smaller males may be seen in the webs for copulating. After mating, the female spins an egg sack on a tree, laying 400 to 1,500 eggs in one sack. Her lifecycle ends by late autumn or early winter with the death of the spider. The next generation emerges in spring.

Although the spider is not aggressive, it will bite to protect itself. The bite is considered painful, but not life-threatening.

— Wikipedia.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Little Red Riding Hoods

Little Red Riding Hoods.
Seeing double.

Atlanta, Georgia, USA. 16 February 2020.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Morning mist on the beach

On the beach,

It's a morning sun,

Through cloud and ocean spray,

Like a beacon limning gloom.
At peace.

St. Augustine Beach, Florida, USA.
30 October 2022 (9:19 am EDT).

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Pic(k) of the Week: Evanescence

White asters, back-lit at sunset. Evanescence.

Legacy Park: Decatur, Georgia, USA. 14 October 2022.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Moving Day

"Southern. Soulful. Spirits."

It was moving day for washbacks and tuns, in Decatur, Georgia, USA, on 1 October 2022.

Independent Distilling Company —an eight-year-old artisinal distiller of bourbon, rum, and corn whiskey— was moving into its new digs, a former car repair shop, located a couple of city-blocks west of the distillery's original small warehouse site.

The burnished copper pot still would soon join them.

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Pic(k) of the Week: ¡Cuidado!

I thought I'd sneak in a beach photo before the weather turns too cold. Here: a father and children at St. Augustine Beach, Florida, USA, on 7 September 2022.

Patience and chance choreographed this image. I noticed a man carefully introducing his newborn to the ocean. As I began snapping photos, his older son blithely ran by. It was a "decisive moment," as the French humanist photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson might have labelled it.

Of course, to paraphrase U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen, I am no Monsieur Cartier-Bresson.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Tiny-gnomial

Sitting by a red door,

Nestled in the crook of a fallen tree,

He serenades passersby,

From his tiny-gnomial garden.

Into each life, some whimsy should fall. Forgive me, if you will, the doggerel and pun.

Seen (heard?) in Decatur, Georgia, USA, on 24 April 2022.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Wood stork, perched

In Fort Mosé Historic State Park, in St. Augustine, Florida, USA, a wood stork (Mycteria americana) perches in a tree on a brackish marshland hammock. 5 September 2022.

To the north [of Fort Mosé], there is a rookery, a nesting colony of gregarious birds, such as wood storks, egrets, and herons. These birds showcase their breeding plumage from mid-March through July. One of the largest birds to nest in this area is the wood stork [a large American wading bird]. This area is ideal for nesting because the changing water level reveals higher concentrations of fish during lower tides. Females lay two to five eggs, which both parents incubate for about one month. A pair of nesting wood storks and their young need approximately 443 pounds of fish during the breeding season to survive.

In the 1930s, there were an estimated 20,000 breeding pairs of wood storks [in Florida]; today, the population is approximately 8,000. The numbers have declined drastically, mainly from loss of feeding grounds due to land development, logging, and draining.

— Fort Mosé placard

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Fort Mose

Fort Mose Historic State Park is a former Spanish fort in St. Augustine, Florida. In 1738, the governor of Spanish Florida, Manuel de Montiano, had the fort established as a free black settlement, the first to be legally sanctioned in what would become the territory of the United States.

The park is located on the edge of a salt marsh on the western side of the waterway separating the mainland from the coastal barrier islands. The original site of the 18th-century fort was uncovered in a 1986 archeological dig. The 24-acre (9.7 ha) site is now protected as a Florida State Park.It was designated a US National Historic Landmark on October 12, 1994.

— Wikipedia.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Live Oaks at night

Even (especially?) at night, southern live oaks can be dramatically magnificent.

St. Augustine Beach, Florida, USA. 9 September 2022.

Quercus virginiana —also known as the southern live oak— is an evergreen oak tree native to the southeastern United States and the lower coastal plain of the Gulf of Mexico. Though many other species are loosely called live oak, the southern live oak is particularly iconic of the Old South.

Depending on the growing conditions, live oaks vary from a shrub-size to large and spreading tree-size: typical open-grown trees reach 66 feet in height (20 m), with a limb spread of nearly 89 feet (27 m). Their lower limbs often sweep down towards the ground before curving up again. The southern live oak has a deep taproot that anchors it when young and eventually develops into an extensive and widespread root system. This, along with its low center of gravity and other factors, makes the southern live oak extremely resistant to strong sustained winds, such as those seen in hurricanes.

The bark is dark, thick, and furrowed longitudinally. The leaves are stiff and leathery, with the tops shiny dark green and the bottoms pale gray. Although live oaks retain their leaves nearly year-round, they are not true evergreens. Live oaks drop their leaves immediately before new leaves emerge in the spring.

— Wikipedia.

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Pic(k) of the Week: O'zapft is!

O'zapft is! ^*

A refreshing draught pint of Oktoberfest lager is served in the beer patio at Odd Story Brewing, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA.

Oktoberfest/Marzen lager is a beer rich in malt with a balance of clean, hop bitterness, similar to the Vienna lager. Toasted bread or biscuit-like malt aroma and flavor is to be expected. Originating in Germany, this style was traditionally brewed in the spring (“Marzen” meaning “March”) and aged, or lagered, throughout the summer. A stronger version was served at early Oktoberfest celebrations and became known as Oktoberfest. Today, the festival’s version of an Oktoberfest is quite a bit lighter than what American craft brewers consider an Oktoberfest. 5.1-6% alcohol-by-volume (abv)

Craft Beer.com

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Oktoberfest in Munich

After a dry, two-year absence, the 'official' —and original— Oktoberfest returns today to Munich, the capital of the state of Bavaria in Germany. Since 1810 —when Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig I organized the first Oktoberfest in Munich to celebrate his nuptials with Princess Teresa of the duchy of Saxe-Hildburghausen (now subsumed in the German state of Thuringia)— there only have been only twenty-six occasions on which the Oktoberfest festival has not been held. Of those, the most recent were last year and 2020, both cancellations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Twice before that, disease also aborted Oktoberfest —in 1854 and 1874— but then because of cholera epidemics.

Munich's Oktoberfest —often referred to as the word's biggest party, with in excess of six million vistors expected— usually runs for sixteen days, counting backward from the first Sunday in October. Since the 1990s, however, if the sixteenth day falls before 3 October (which is the German Unity Day national holiday), the festival continues until and including the 3rd. Thus, this year, Oktoberfest comprises seventeen days: 17 September through 3 October.

Munich's name, by the way, is derived from the Old German term "Munichen," meaning "by the monks," referring to Benedictine monks who founded a monastery in what would later become the city. Trappist monks —a stricter, offshoot of the order— became known in 20th-century Belgium (and, in the 21st-century, elsewhere as well) for their eponymous wine-like ales.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Sunday morning Adirondack

Sunday morning light.

A sense of summer's close.

Have a seat.

Decatur, Georgia, USA.28 August 2022 (8:40 am EDT).

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Pic(k) of the Week: Butterfly & zinnia

In a summer garden, an eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly pollinates a zinnia flower.

DeKalb County, Georgia, USA. 11 August 2022.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Zen'd by jazz

Jazz was her zen. 

Or was it frozen lemonade? 

Something cool for a hot afternoon.

Listening to the Joe Gransden Big Band during the Inman Park Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, on 28 April 2019.

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Something Cool

Something Cool is a gorgeous 'minor' jazz standard written mid 20th-century by composer/lyricist Billy Barnes and performed —and made famous— by the fabulous 'cool-jazz' vocalist, June Christy (1925-1990). It's an elaborate and sad fantasy concocted over the offer of a cool drink on a warm day.

The song wasn't performed that afternoon at the festival but it might have been apropos, if in title and temperature. The woman in the photo, unlike the protagonist, appeared blissfully content.

Play on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xwftoLQxnVk

Well, it's true.

It's just a memory I have.

One I almost forgot

'Cause the weather's so hot,

And I'm feeling so bad,

About a date.

Oh, wait!

I'm such a fool!

He's just a guy,

Who stopped to buy me

Something cool!

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Pic(k) of the Week: Strip mall sunset

Who knew that the simple parking lot of a strip mall could provide the backdrop for a magnificent panorama of a post-summer-storm sunset?

Tucker, Georgia, USA. 10 August 2022. (8:14 pm EDT)

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Pic(k) of the Week: Promenade on high from low at the High

Like a latter-day ziggurat, the Promenade skyscraper rises 40-stories —691 feet— above the High Museum, in midtown Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The building is clad in reflective glass, with a stepped, tapering spire and stainless steel fins that are lit at night. It is the 7th-tallest building in the city and, hence, Georgia.

Construction was completed in 1990. Twenty-nine years later, I took the photo, on 26 May 2019.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Calm at crepuscule

Two contemplating sunset, looking east over the Atlantic Ocean.

St. Augustine Beach, Florida, USA. 4 August 2018 (9:08 pm)

And, yes, they knew that the sun sets in the west. But high clouds catch and reflect its light back to the east.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Flamboyance of flamingos

A flock of flamingos = a "flamboyance." Indeed!

The American flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber) is a large species of flamingo closely related to the greater flamingo and Chilean flamingo, native to the Neotropics. It is also known as the Caribbean flamingo, although it is also present in the Galápagos Islands. It is the only flamingo that naturally inhabits North America (Florida and the Florida Keys).

— Wikipedia

Seen at Zoo Atlanta: Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Brown thrasher, foraging

With 3,000 (!) distinct songs in its repertoire, the brown thrasher (Toxostoma rufum) has a right to be loquacious: it's the official bird of the state of Georgia, USA. Here, seen ground-foraging, in DeKalb County, Georgia. 18 April 2021.

The brown thrasher is a large bird (almost a foot in length) with a long, curved bill and a very long tail. It has two prominent white wing bars, a rich brown color on its top side, and a creamy white breast heavily streaked with brown. ¶ In 1935, Eugene Talmadge, then governor of the state of Georgia, proclaimed the brown thrasher as the state bird, but it would not be until 1970 that the Georgia legislature would officially designate it as such.

— State Symbols USA.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Crocosmia in Georgia

South Africa invades the southeastern US!

Orange crocosmia, blooming wild and creek-side, on the East Decatur Greenway, in DeKalb County, Georgia, USA. 1 July 2022.

Crocosmia —also known as montbretia— is a small genus of flowering plants in the iris family, Iridaceae. It is native to the grasslands of southern and eastern Africa, ranging from South Africa to Sudan. The plants have colorful inflorescences of 4 to 20 vivid red and orange flowers on a horizontally branched stem, flowering from early summer well into fall.

— Wikipedia.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Beer bubbles, closeup

And now for something completely different...
A close-up of beer-foam bubbles in a (non-hazy) IPA.

I poured the beer in a straight-edged glass and set it outdoors (hence the green visible in the background). No beer was harmed —or wasted— during the shoot.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Pink coneflower

Echinacea purpurea —cooloquially known as the eastern purple coneflower, purple coneflower, hedgehog coneflower, or echinacea— is a North American species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is native to parts of eastern North America and present to some extent in the wild in much of the eastern, southeastern and midwestern United States as well as in the Canadian Province of Ontario. Its habitats include dry open woods, prairies and barrens. 1

The plant grows to about 3 feet tall. Its single terminal blossom has 15 to 20 purplish, drooping ray flowers and a central disk comprising orange bracts. ²

Photo taken in the Trailhead Community Park of the East Decatur Greenway, in Decatur Georgia, USA, on 1 July 2022.

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Pic(k) of the Week: The Guide at night

The Guide
galvanized steel, LED light bar
— Phil Proctor (Atlanta, Georgia, USA)

Installed in front of the Avondale MARTA * station, in Decatur, Georgia, USA. June 2022.

The Guide is a figurative work fabricated entirely from 8" I-beams. The figure stands in the classical contrapposto pose and holds an acrylic staff that illuminates his path through dark times.

The Guide is one piece in the Decatur Artway, a public arts project of the City of Decatur. Here it is seen from a different perspective, during the day.

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Pic(k) of the Week: A woman, her dog, and her beer.

Priorities! A woman, her dog, and her beer.

Held annually on the last full weekend of April, the Inman Park Festival signals the onset of Atlanta, Georgia's festival season. Inman Park is both a neighborhood and an actual park. Photo taken on 23 April 2022.

Inman Park holds the distinction of being Atlanta’s first planned suburb [1880s] as well as one of the city’s first in-town neighborhoods to undergo extensive restoration. The neighborhood typifies garden suburbs of the late nineteenth century.

— New Georgia Encyclopedia

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Pic(k) of the Week: Mother and Child

Chalk painting
— Carrie Dziabczenko
(after "Mother and Child" by Bruno di Maio)

Decatur Arts Festival, in downtown Decatur, Georgia, USA. 7 May 2022.

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Pic(k) of the Week: In the limelight

Morning sun created a flash-without-a-flash effect (with a little assist from post-production).

A limelight hydrangea blossoms in a garden, in Decatur, Georgia, USA. 29 May 2022.

Hydrangea paniculata — the panicled hydrangea or limelight hydrangea— is a species of flowering plant in the family Hydrangeaceae, native to China, Korea, Japan, and Russia. It is a deciduous shrub or small tree, 1–5 m (3.3–16.4 ft) tall by 2.5 m (8 ft) broad, growing in sparse forests or thickets in valleys or on mountain slopes. In late summer it bears large conical panicles of creamy white fertile flowers, together with pinkish white sterile florets. Florets may open pale green, grading to white with age, thus creating a pleasing 'two-tone' effect.

— Wikipedia.

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Pic(k) of the Week: White violet, close up

Tiny, early-spring flora.

In March, ruderal, white/purple-striated violets were bustin' out all over. Here, I photographed one (getting down low!), just off of a sidewalk, in Avondale Estates, Georgia, USA, on 22 March 2022.

This was a closeup. The Viola sororia (at most two centimeters in diameter) appears much larger in the image than it did in 'real' life.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Blood Moon

Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures,
now, as they fly through the air. ^*

It was a combination of full 'Flower' Moon, supermoon, 'Blood' Moon, and total lunar eclipse, all wrapped into one astronomical wow, as seen over Decatur, Georgia, USA, on 16 May 2022, at 12:43 am EDT.

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Blood Moon (aka total lunar eclipse)

A total lunar eclipse happens when the Moon travels through the Earth's umbra and blocks all direct sunlight from illuminating the Moon's surface. However, some sunlight still reaches the lunar surface indirectly, via the Earth's atmosphere, bathing the Moon in a reddish, yellow, or orange glow [thus colloquially called a 'Blood Moon'].

As the Sun's rays pass through the atmosphere, some colors in the light spectrum—those towards the violet spectrum—are filtered out by a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering. This is the same mechanism that causes colorful sunrises and sunsets. Red wavelengths are least affected by this effect, so the light reaching the Moon's surface has a reddish hue, causing the fully eclipsed Moon to take on a red color.

— Time and Date.

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Full Flower (Super) Moon

"May’s full Flower Moon name should be no surprise; flowers spring forth across North America in abundance this month. The full Moon names used by The Old Farmer’s Almanac come from a number of places, including Native American, Colonial American, and European sources. 'Flower Moon' has been attributed to Algonquin peoples.

May’s full Moon is the first supermoon of the year. A supermoon is most commonly defined as any full Moon that occurs when the Moon is at at least 90% of perigee (the point in the Moon’s orbit where it is closest to Earth). In 2022, there will be four supermoons.

— Old Farmer's Almanac.

Here was the moon, two hours earlier (at 10:32 pm EDT, on 15 May), only partially eclipsed and yet un-'bloodied.'

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Pic(k) of the Week: Sidebenchers

Juxtaposition. Side-benchers — sculpted and human.

Valentine
bronze
— George Lundeen (American, b. 1948)

Photographed in front of the DeKalb History Center in Decatur Square in the City of Decatur, Georgia, USA, on 07 May 2022.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Morning moon (and avian astronaut)

Look up!

A waning gibbous moon (and an avian astronaut), at morning, over Decatur, Georgia, USA.

22 April 2022.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Happy International Jazz Day!

Happy International Jazz Day!

Here: Keeping clave time with Orquesta MaCuba, at the Inman Park Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

I shot this image on 23 April 2022...but International Jazz Day is celebrated today and, in fact, every year on the 30th of April. Jazz lives!

International Jazz Day is an International Day declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2011 "to highlight jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting people in all corners of the globe." It is celebrated annually on April 30. The idea came from jazz pianist and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Herbie Hancock. Jazz Day is chaired by Hancock and the UNESCO Director-General [Audrey Azoulay]. The celebration is recognized on the calendars of both UNESCO and the United Nations.

— Wikipedia

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Pic(k) of the Week: Rare Sarracenia oreophila, blooming

The yellow blossom of an endangered, carnivous(!) green pitcher plant, growing in the wild, on the bank of a pond, in Legacy Park of the city of Decatur, Georgia, USA. 16 April 2022.

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The more you know...

Sarracenia oreophila, also known as the green pitcher plant, is a carnivorous plant in the genus Sarracenia [growing in wetland environments].

In early spring, the plant produces large, yellow flowers with 5-fold symmetry. The yellow petals are long and strap-like, and dangle over the umbrella-like style of the flower, which is held upside down at the end of a 20-inch long (50 cm) scape. The stigma of the flower are found at the tips of the 'spokes' of this umbrella.

In late spring, the plant devlops highly modified leaves in the form of pitchers that act as pitfall traps for prey, such as small insects. The narrow pitcher leaves are tapered tubes that rise up to 30 inches (75 cm) from the ground, with a mouth 2 to 4 inches (6-10 cm) in circumference.

— Wikipedia.

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Now, the bad news

Native to the southeast U.S., the green pitcher plant is an extremely endangered species [due to human development and forest succession] and now only can be found in a handful of counties in northeast Georgia [including Decatur], southwest North Carolina, and northeast Alabama.

— U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Blue vetch

Linksmų Velykų! *

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Pic(k) of the Week: Bird on a vine

This northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) may have posed for me; but, boy, did he give me a death stare.

He (and I) were hanging out at the Wheland Foundry Trailhead of the Tennessee Riverwalk, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA, on 20 March 2022.

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Pic(k) of the Week: West on Eastside BeltLine

A corrugated metal wall separates Wylie Avenue from the Hulsey Rail Yard, alongside the BeltLine trail, in the Reynoldstown neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

The BeltLine is a former railway corridor around the core of Atlanta, now under development as a multi-use trail to circumnavigate the city.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Ladies Who Shoot Their Lunch

"Ladies Who Shoot Their Lunch" Shiraz
— Fowles Wines (Strathbogie, Victoria, Australia)

A blast from the past. During a 'tasting' at Twisted Vines, a wine bar and shop in Arlington, Virginia, USA, winemaker Matt Fowles poured his eponymous wines for patrons. 12 February 2014.

Not in 'perfect' focus by any means, but the shot may serendipitously have captured the inviting mood of the scene. Now, it's only a memory. The wine shop closed in 2018. Fowles Winery, however, remains strong.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Tractorial innards.

A synecdoche labyrinth,
These tractorial innards.
Now, idled in the mead.

A tractor parked in a field, in Legacy Park: Decatur, Georgia, USA. 25 February 2022.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Winter white (but not snow white)

It's winter white...but it's not snow white. Lovely, but invasive, the Callery pear trees have begun to bloom.

Seminary Wood in Decatur, Georgia, USA. 25 February 2022.

The Callery pear (Pyrus calleryana)is one of the first trees to bloom in early March throughout north Georgia. The tree has been widely planted across the southeast for its white spring blossoms and red fall color. [...] Callery trees growing wild trees develop thick thorns along the branches,inches long. Many cultivars of the Callery pear can invade and destroy native ecosystems.

— North Georgia Master Gardeners.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Look out

A mural and bicyclist on the BeltLine Eastside in the Reynoldstown neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, USA. 18 February 2022.

The BeltLine is a former railway right-of-way in Atlanta, now being converted to a hiker/biker trail set to circumnavigate the city.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Watch for baseballs!

Watch for baseballs! It's a sign of spring.

Pictured:
Eight (!) youth baseball fields abut the southern entrance of the South Peachtree Trail, in Medlock Park, DeKalb County, Georgia, USA.

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But there's no sign of 'adult' baseball yet in sight.

The labor agreement between baseball owners and players expired last year and Major League Baseball's owners are 'locking out' the players. In fact, spring training games were to have begun this week ... and none were played.

In their negotiations, baseball players are looking for a new agreement to:

• enforce a commitment to winning on the part of all teams
• to pay the younger players producing an increasing share of on-field value commensurate with that production,
• to encourage more spending on players instead of discouraging it.

Team owners are either disagreeing with each demand or to the requirements for each.

If the two sides cannot reach agreement by Monday, 28 February 2022, baseball's Opening Day —originally set for 31 March— will need to be postponed (or worse).

First the virus, now this. Sigh.

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UPDATE

After the second-longest labor dispute in baseball history, the owners and players reached a deal on 10 March, clearing the way for baseball’s return. With, now, an abbreviated spring training schedule, Opening Day was set for 7 April, a week later than originally scheduled. More: below.

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Pic(k) of the Week: A welcome sign

Coming soon! "Southern. Soulful. Spirits."

In 2014, Independent Distilling Company opened in a small warehouse on the eastern edge of the city of Decatur, Georgia, USA. Now, in early 2022, work has commenced a few blocks west, to transform a former auto service garage into the artisinal distillery's new, larger, 22,000 square-foot digs.

A welcome sign, indeed.

Photos taken: 12 February 2022 (top), 16 February 2022 (bottom).

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