The caretaker's new quarters

Check out my new tags on the Honda!

I'm slowly getting settled in over here on Holly Street. Most of my stuff is packed into the garage but I have enough of my books and things to make my third-floor bedroom feel like home. I call it the tree house since I'm up here in the canopy, high above the alley looking down. I'm also at the fourth highest point in all of D.C. so everything I see out my window is below me, a little different then living down in the floodplain like I did for all those years. Another reason I call it the tree house is that the last flight of stairs is so steep it almost feels like I'm climbing a ladder.

One little bit of D.C. history, The garage where I packed all of my belongings, was once the carriage house for the Alexander R. Shepard mansion and estate. He was the first Mayor of D.C. and it makes sense that he built his house here, one of the highest points within the city.

My new urban setting isn't quit what I expected either. The neighborhood is pretty quiet and there is quite a bit of interesting wildlife to observe. I miss the wildness of the Island of course, but I'm seeing many more humming birds up here and there are gold finches and bluejays at the feeder.

The train tracks that run through Silver Spring are close by and I like hearing the trains as they whistle on through in the early morning hours. The biggest surprise of all is that over here away from the river, there is no airplane noise, none! There used to be a lot of helicopter traffic here in the old days when Walter Reed hospital was so close by, but now, nothing.

So, one day I was sitting in my room at about 6:30. the sun was arcing to the west but my windows face east and south. I was thinking about the view I used to have, of the river right outside my window. I guess I was missing it a bit when I looked up from my desk and saw a rainbow being projected onto the western wall of my room. It was the most unexpected a beautiful thing. All of the colors of the spectrum shining brilliantly on my far wall!

What kind of unexplained phenomenon was going on here? I grabbed the camera to take pictures despite my dumbfoundedness. I have been living and visiting this house since 1974 and I have never seen this happen before. It's one of those perfect arrangements that would be hard to duplicate, even if you tried. The sun was at the perfect place and at the perfect angle to strike a westward-facing pane of glass that was three doors down. The light became prizmed by something inside that window and was then reflected back into my east-facing window and onto my wall. I was so amazed, especially when I thought about how this could only happen at certain times of the day and only at certain times of the year. I took it as a good sign, that I was in the right place at the right time.