Hylatomus pileatus

A Pileated woodpecker's wonderful strength on display. 
Its holes in an oak on the Pine Meadow trail, Harriman State Park.

(Phlaeotomus pileatus and subspp)* 

The pileated woodpecker, logcock, woodcock or cock of the woods as it is variously called, is the largest member of the family now living in the United States except the ivory billed woodpecker, which is very rare. The logcock is essentially a forest bird and is rarely found except in rather extensive tracts of timber. It is usually shy and retiring difficult to approach and better known by its work than by sight. Its large size, loud voice and habit of hammering upon dead limbs combine to make it a conspicuous inhabitant of the forest. Its strength is wonderful and it is hard to believe that a bird can so completely destroy a stump or log Strips of decayed wood 2 feet long 4 inches wide and an inch thick are often torn from a stump and thrown several yards away. Woodpeckers signal each other by hammering upon a dead and hollow limb or trunk of a tree or upon the metallic cornice of a building. The pileated is an adept at such telegraphing and its tattoo on a particularly resonant piece of timber can be heard for more than a mile.

- F.E.L. Beal, Food of the Woodpeckers of the United States, 
U.S. Department of Agriculture Biological Survey, 1911

* I have yet to ascertain where the author's name for the genus, phlaetomus (sic) comes from. It seems this was the scientific name given to the Pileated woodpecker in the scientific literature of the first quarter of the 20th century. I have seen in at least one text the name of this genus attributed to Jean Louis Cabanis, a German ornithologist of the 19th century.

Plate 111 from Audobon's Birds of America

The Problem of Biding Time and Waiting for "the Eruption"

The Waiting Place, from "Oh the Places You'll Go"
-Dr. Seuss

Das Problem der Wartenden
Es geschieht durchschnittlich nicht, und in allen Winkeln der Erde sitzen Wartende, die es kaum wissen, in wiefern sie warten, noch weniger aber, dass sie umsonst warten.

'The Problem of the Waiters'

as for a sudden waking up or eruption to action ---
"It does not happen ordinarily, and in all the corners of the Earth sit waiters, who hardly know, to what extent they are waiting, but know even less that they are waiting in vain."

Friedrich Nietzche, "Beyond Good and Evil" Aphorism 274

1826 Round Stone Barn

The Round Barn at the Hancock Shaker Village, Pittsfield, MA, September, 2014

The Round Stone Barn is the only circular barn ever built by the Shakers. Widely recognized as an architectural icon and agricultural wonder, this unique dairy barn originally stabled 52 milk cows. It’s been attracting visitors – most notably Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, who staged a footrace in the structure – since its construction.

The Round Stone Barn offers ground-level access on all three levels. Wagons entered on the upper level to deposit hay into the central haymow on the main floor below. The Brethren would drive the empty wagons around the circular barn floor and exit the same door they came in, eliminating the potentially dangerous activity of backing wagons out of a barn. The cows stabled on the main floor faced inward toward the haymow for ease of feeding. Manure shoveled through trapdoors to the cellar was stored until needed as fertilizer in the gardens. The Shakers maintained a working dairy farm at Hancock into the 1950s.

(hancockshakervillage.org)

Channeling Kierkegaard in an old, desperate Love Letter

The Vizhnitzer Rebbe Prays at the Wailing Wall

               

:אזוי מען רעדט צו גאט  
...כחברותא כלפי שמיא

ועבד שמוכיח את רבו

Sefer Torah Project 1991

Saul Friedman, 7th Grade ASHAR

My Report is on a Torah from my family. It was bought by my great-great grandfather Dovid Aryeh Friedman. The Torah was written in 1944 and dedicated in 1945. Since Dovid Aryeh was poor, he cashed in a life insurance policy to buy the Torah. The Torah was bought for around $500 and the mantel for about $15. The Torah was dedicated to a Synagogue in the Bronx where many relatives were in attendance, some of which were about to go overseas to fight in the War.  The Torah was dedicated by Dovid Aryeh in honor of his second wife, Freyd'l, for being a loving and caring wife. The shul where the Torah was dedicated was Congregation Tifereth Moshe. It was written by a Sofer named Leib Berman.

Dovid Aryeh Friedman was from Turiv in Russia. He came to the US in 1920. He was a shoemaker and it was always his dream to have a Sefer Torah written for his family.

So After Dovid Aryeh passed away, the Torah was given to a relative and stayed in his shul in Fresh Meadaows, Queens. Then the Torah was placed in Dovid Aryeh's son Morris's house in Long Beach. Morris Friedman then gave it to my grandfather Izzy and he put it in the Old Nyack Turnpike shul. Since the Torah was getting old, my grandfather decided to get it checked by a sofer in New Square. The Torah had many problems but they were corrected by the New Square sofer. My grandfather decided to give it to my uncle's shul in Livingston, NJ. The reason my grandfather gave the Torah to my uncle's shul is that whenever my grandfather goes to that shul, there are two relatives there of Dovid Aryeh Friedman. The Torah was dedicated there in 1987, and it has been there ever since. This Sefer Torah is special because it was made from the dream of a poor shoemaker and was passed from generation to generation.

On the Occasion of My Son's First Siddur Celebration כ"ח שבט תשע"ד

Avner Shalom with his great-grandmother Maralyn Friedman "תחי

.לבני היקר, אבנר שלום מאת אביך שאול משה ב"ר פייוול אהרן
 יהי רצון שיהא הסידור הזה כלי קודש וכלי זמר בידיך להרים קולך בשירות ותשבחות כי קולך ערב ושירך נאה ושתהא תפילתיך מביא לידי שלום והתאחדות ותיקון בעולם ומשיכת ברכה בחייך ובחיי כל ריעיך ושישמע את קוליך ותחינותיך כי הטה אזנו לי ובימי אקרא, אכן נצר בני מצות אביך, ואל תטש תורת אמך קשרם על לבך תמיד ענדם על גרגרתך