Photos - 2025

 Sunrise in the East

Sunset On the West

Credits:
1. The top two photographs are by Daniel Pullen and there are more in this article:
"Battling The Sea On The Outer Banks,' Bill McKibben, The New Yorker, Nov.12, 2025.
2. The third photo is from: "2025: The Year in Pictures - Reflections of Turbulent Times," NYT, Dec.31, 2025. The caption:

Jan. 9 Los Angeles

"A house destroyed by the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and engulfed thousands of homes. Once known for its stunning views, the Pacific Palisades area was left unrecognizable by the blaze." Kyle Grillot for The New York Times

3.The photo of the ICE posters is from: "ICE Plans to Spend $100 Million on Influencer-Driven 'Wartime' Recruitment Campaign," The Washington Post, Drew Harwell & Joyce Sohyun Lee, Dec. 31, 2025.
  "An internal ICE document shared among immigration officials details plans to use influencers and geo-targeted ads to rapidly hire thousands of deportation officers."
4.The picture of the rubble of the East Wing is from" "New Images Offer Closer Look at Demolition For the White House Ballroom," Jonathan Edwards, The Washington Post, Dec. 31, 2025. Also lost were many old trees. 

   Pictures Are Worth Thousands of Words, But These Sum It Up For 2025

"Donald Trump’s Golden Age of Awful: A damage assessment of the President’s first year back in the White House", By Susan B. Glasser, The Atlantic, Dec.31, 2025

  "No matter how low one’s expectations were for 2025, the most striking thing about the year when Donald Trump became President again is how much worse it turned out to be.

   Did we anticipate that Trump would come back to office wanting to rule as a king, consumed by revenge and retribution, and encouraged by sycophants and yes-men who would insure that he faced few of the constraints that hampered him in his first term? Yes, but now we know that bracing for the worst did not make the inevitable any less painful. In the future, historians will struggle to describe that feeling, particular to this Trump era, of being prepared for the bad, crazy, and disruptive things that he would do, and yet also totally, utterly shocked by them."

The Outer Banks

Things Are Rough in Rodanthe 
   Recently we were in the Outer Banks (OBX, for marketing purposes) and told you about the Wild Horses up near Corolla which is north of Rodanthe. If you enjoy fine beaches and the ocean, I highly recommend a visit. Go very soon, but wait until about a month after Labour Day to avoid the crowds. 
   I suggested "soon" because this long strand of sand along the east coast is disappearing. I mentioned a while back that in some areas of the U.S. it is now difficult to get home insurance; this is one of those areas.
   The picture above is from this article: "Another N.C. Beach House Just Fell Into the Ocean: Others May Follow." Brady Dennis, Washington Post, May 28, 2024. It begins this way and the section includes a rather odd metaphor in this context:

   Another home has crumbled into the sea in Rodanthe, N.C., the scenic Outer Banks community where rising seas and relentless erosion have claimed a growing number of houses and forced some property owners to take drastic measures to retreat from the oceanfront....

The demise of the five-bedroom house, which county records show had stood since 1970, makes it the sixth house to topple along that part of the national seashore over the past four years, the agency said.

   “Another one bit the dust,” David Hallac, superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, said in an interview. And it probably won’t be the last, as many homes in the area are perilously close to the surf. “This situation will continue.”

  Septic Problems in the South
   That picture is from the same article and there is a link in it to another article that indicates that the septic tank, around which those waves are crashing, is something to else to worry about. The water level is rising in areas throughout the south, compromising the septic systems which exist in very large numbers in states like Florida. For more: "A Hidden Threat: Fast-Rising Seas Could Swamp Septic Systems in Parts of the South," Brady Dennis, et al. Washington Post, May 22, 2024. Here is a bit of the bad news:

"On the worst days, when the backyard would flood and the toilet would gurgle and the smell of sewage hung thick in the air, Monica Arenas would flee to her mother-in-law’s home to use the bathroom or wash laundry.

“It was a nightmare,” Arenas, 41, recalled one evening in the modest house she shares with her husband and teenage daughter several miles north of downtown Miami....

  For all the obvious challenges facing South Florida as sea levels surge, one serious threat to public health and the environment remains largely out of sight, but everywhere:

Septic tanks.

Along those coastlines, swelling seas are driving water tables higher and creating worries in places where septic systems abound, but where officials often lack reliable data about their location or how many might already be compromised.

“These are ticking time bombs under the ground that, when they fail, will pollute,” said Andrew Wunderley, executive director of the nonprofit Charleston Waterkeeper, which monitors water quality in the Lowcountry of South Carolina...

 To work properly, septic systems need to sit above an adequate amount of dry soil that can filter contaminants from wastewater before it reaches local waterways and underground drinking water sources. But in many communities, that buffer is vanishing....

  An estimated 120,000 septic systems remain in Miami-Dade County, their subterranean concrete boxes and drain fields a relic of the area’s feverish growth generations ago. Of those, the county estimated in 2018, about half are at risk of being “periodically compromised” during severe storms or particularly wet years.

   Miami, where seas have risen six inches since 2010, offers a high-profile example of a predicament that parts of the southeast Atlantic and Gulf coasts are confronting — and one scientists say will become only more pervasive — as waters continue to rise.

Rising seas will only exacerbate the problem, he added. “As the water table gets higher, all bets are off.”

Miami-Dade County is racing to replace as many septic tanks as possible, as quickly as possible. But it is a tedious, expensive and daunting task, one that officials say will ultimately cost billions of dollars they don’t yet have.

The Bonus: 
   To take us away from the bad news, consider "Rodanthe" which is a rather odd name. The place was originally called "Chicamacomico" by the Indigenous, but the derivation of "Rodanthe" is unknown. Now you are probably wondering how to pronounce it and you should say it this way:  row-DAN-thee.

   This gets me to the real bonus and again to the subject of libraries. While I plan to bring up the topic of "Names" (particularly the problematic ones) again, I will say here that we encountered a lot of interesting ones, like "Fuquay-Varina" also in North Carolina. Click on that link to find out how the simple "Piney Woods" became "Fuquay-Varina." If you want to actually hear how these words are pronounced, visit this link provided by the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina. 
Talk Like a Tar Heel (North Carolina Place Names)

Fuquay-Varina sounds like: FEW-kway vuh-REEE-nuh. Listen here to hear it.

Wild Horses

 Ponies in the Dunes
   Recently some horses were seen running loose in London (the one in England) and yesterday others were racing in the Kentucky Derby. Here I will provide some information about horses found in the wild outside of the confines of Churchill Downs and well away from city streets. 
 I am doing so for two reasons. One is that ponies are better subjects these days than politics and politicians, although one cannot completely avoid politics even when writing about ponies. Some think the horses found in the wild are problematic and bad for the environment, while others disagree.
  It is also the case that we were recently in Duck, North Carolina in what is called the "Outer Banks." I learned, while there, that herds of wild horses were found near Corolla, just to the north, where they roamed on the beaches bordering the Currituck Sound. 
  I would probably have not paid much attention to this equine news, but I grew up in an area to the north and east of the Outer Banks, where wild ponies also ran wild and could be seen grazing in the dunes on what is called the "Delmarva Peninsula", because it is consists of those three states - Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. The wild ponies were often discussed and I once went to a "pony penning" in Chincoteague. During such an event, the ponies are rounded up by "Saltwater Cowboys" and herded across the channel where some are auctioned off for the benefit of the Volunteer Fire Department. It is going to happen again when the tide is low on Wed. July 24th, so you have time to attend if you wish. 
  Although I don't think often about ponies and horses, they are better subjects than politics and politicians and that they still exist out there in the wild beyond the highways littered with dollar stores and fast food chains is worth noting. I remembered that there were also herds in Eastern Canada and have learned there are some in Western Canada as well. So I rounded up some sources for you and could surely have found more if I had included the Western U.S.  Enjoy reading about the horses and ponies that still run wild on this continent and simply skip over the political parts. 
[Click on the links to learn more. I have chosen ones that are not behind a paywall and are sure to be virus free.]

Corolla, North Carolina

Corrolla Wild Horse Fund

 This group works to protect the “Bankers”, the wild horses on the northern part of the Outer Banks. Apart from the information provided there is also related merchandise, including the book, Corolla’s Wild Horses A History.  A short account is found under,  “Spanish Mustang History” where one learns that the herd dates from the 1500s and that in the 1920s there were between 5,000 and 6,000 wild horses before the developers arrived.
   See also, "Wild Horses of the Outer Banks: Everything You Need to Know." 

Chincoteague & Assateague ( Virginia & Maryland)
   For information, start with the National Park Service's “Assateague’s Wild Horses” which also includes over 50 photos of the horses. See also: “How to See the Chincoteague Ponies” which includes a link to the “Chincoteague Travel Blog” and the “Official Chincoteague Island Pony Swim Guide" which indicates that the 99th pony swim this year will be on Wed. July 24, 2024.
  There are at least three Wikipedia entries related to the horses in this area:

"Chincoteague Pony"

"Pony Penning" - which even includes a chart showing how much the "Saltwater Cowboys" made for the Volunteer Fire Department from the pony auctions.

Misty of Chincoteague, the children's book also has an entry. The London Public Library has a copy. 

Ponies in the Virginia Mountains

   Start with this interesting piece which indicates that these ponies are related to the ones mentioned above: "Meet the Wild Ponies of Grayson Highlands State Park, VA: These Carefree Equines are the Descendants of 50 Assateague Ponies, Released into the Area in 1975," Catie Leary, Treehugger.

According to Virginia State Park staffer Amy Atwood, the carefree equines, which some speculate to be the descendants of Assateague and Chincoteague ponies, were released by the U.S. Forest Service into the area surrounding Mount Rogers National Recreation Area and Grayson Highlands State Park in 1975.1

Ponies With a Purpose

Why would the Forest Service release wild ponies in a state park? To control the growth of brush along the balds, which are a man-made landscape forged by extensive logging operations in the late 19th century. The balds maintained a clear-cut appearance through the first half of the 20th century due to cattle ranching, but after the area was transformed into a state park in 1965, there were no more cows to keep the brush in check. Goats have become a popular way to keep landscapes trimmed, but for the highlands, here is where the ponies came into the picture.

See also, "Ponies of the Grayson Highlands," Otto Solberg, The Appalachian Voice, Dec. 15, 2016 and the Grayson Highland State Park website. 

CANCON (For American readers, that acronym refers to "Canadian content".)
   Horses are also found running in the wild in Canada, from the Maritimes in the east to the mountains in the west. 

Sable Island
   This Parks Canada website is all you need and it contains many pictures as well. 
   Sable Island is widely known for its wild horse population. They have thick, woolly, shaggy coats, often brown, and stocky bodies. Today’s population descended from horses introduced to the island in the 1700s.The Sable Island horses are considered an iconic feature of the island, with both natural and cultural heritage value. The current population of wild horses on Sable Island is about 450 horses.
Origin: The population of wild horses on Sable Island has existed for over 250 years. The Sable Island horses are believed to be descendants of animals introduced to the island in the 1700s.

British Columbia

  Information about the horses in the Chilcotin area is found in this article: "Free-Roaming Horses Are Feral and Invasive, B.C. Says - But Biologist, First Nation Argue They Need Protection," CBC News, Dec.3, 2023. 

   A new book about them is also available: The Wild Horses of the Chilcotin: Their History and Future, by Wayne McCrory.

See also: “Protecting Wild Horses in Alberta (& Canada)” Zoo Check. Here is how it begins: "Wild horses have been a part of the Canadian west for hundreds of years. There are currently wild horses living in the Chilcotin region of British Columbia and parts of Saskatchewan, including a population of protected wild horses in the Bronson Forest. There are also approximately 900 wild horses in Alberta spread out over thousands of square kilometres of terrain in the Rocky mountain foothills. In the 1990s, a population of approximately 1200 wild horses also lived on Canadian Forces Base Suffield near Medicine Hat. Unfortunately, despite a concerted effort by Zoocheck, Animal Alliance of Canada, Albertan’s for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Grasslands Naturalists, the Department of National Defense (DND) removed the horses. Despite promises to the contrary, most of the horses were sent to slaughter." [This also includes a YouTube video - 15 min.]
  That protection is needed is indicated in this article: "RCMP Investigating Suspicious Deaths of 17 Wild Horses in Kamloops Area," CBC News, Mar.14, 2023.