No, it's not London...

Though perhaps if you squint it might look like Big Ben? Well, maybe not! But our clock tower is the most striking and memorable landmark in Sharon - as in, "when you get into town, turn left at the clock tower..." It was built in 1884, and the clock works beautifully.

Today is a theme day among the Daily Photo Blogs...many of us are posting pictures that look like, refer to or remind us of somewhere else. Check them out! And visit the real London here!

Town landmark

Sharon has five churches, all within a few blocks of each other on the green. All the major Christian denominations are here. This one is next door to my house and makes a nice landmark to describe how to get there, as everyone recognizes "the white picket fence in front of the Methodist church." It's quite lovely inside, too. 

Town Hall

I realized I haven't shown any of the public buildings of Sharon, nor have I shown any people - covering both with this picture of Town Hall and a couple of children (OK, mine) who were playing on the town green in front. (There are four benches on the green, and they like to play "duck duck goose" and other games there.) 

Alien pods in my garden

I think these are probably some kind of grape hyacinth (muscari) but they look pretty strange at this stage! 

Shadows and light

This picture is completely undoctored - the wood, which is just normal grey split rail fence like we have all over this town, was backlit by the setting sun and made a great composition against the gold trees. 

Reflections

This is somebody's plain cement shed or garage - why bother putting shutters on? I don't know, but it looked interesting enough for a picture. 

Daily Photo Family Theme suggestion

Hi all,
if you like this idea, perhaps you can post it on your own DP blog as a way of passing the word!

Next Saturday, April 30, I propose a theme in which we all take shots of our own towns that look like, suggest or refer to somewhere else (a la Eric's recent Paris picture that looked like Los Angeles, or Ham's of a "Parisian" cafe in London.) If your shot looks like or suggests another city that's part of the DP family, link out to that blog - we can hop around the world in total confusion about where we actually are!

Another animal picture

My 7-year-old daughter chose this picture today - she liked it better than all my arty shots of weathered barn wood, twisted split-rail fences, or even a golden sunset. Since I've already posted cows, turkeys, vultures and our cat, it fits right in. Maybe soon I'll get a picture of some of our other local wildilfe, like black bears or bobcats. 

Textures and tones

I liked the contrast of the peeling paint, the twisting stems, and the other shapes and tones. 

Water please

I loved the shape of this old pump. Yet another barn behind, this one brown, though. Added interest: this is on the property of two very well-known American television stars! 

Big Red Barn

If all I ever put on this blog was barns, fences, gates and animals, I could keep busy for a few years. I intend to photograph some people, one of these days, but there usually aren't any around in the early morning or late evening when I'm out photographing! 

Save this one for Halloween?

I found something ghoulishly amusing about the sign, pointing downward, in the cemetary. It was a lovely sunny spring morning, but from this angle it might as well have been dusk in October!

Not a pretty picture!

No, this is not a postcard shot of the lovely landscape or fascinating local characters. This shot could be titled "yard work waiting to be done" that I won't have time to do for ... I don't know how long! Not this weekend, and not next... alas! 

Golden boughs

The forsythia in my yard is in full bloom - it couldn't be prettier! Photographing it is a fun exercise in composition and depth of field, too! 

Definitely NOT Sharon!

For various reasons I can't post a picture of Sharon today... so here's one of someplace completely different I shot recently. Any guesses as to where it is? Extra points for neighborhood or street location! (If anyone can guess it exactly I'll send you some maple syrup made here in Sharon!) I'm going away for the weekend - SharonDailyPhoto will return on Monday! 

What lies behind

I'm always fascinated by what you can see hidden behind the facades of the streetscape. The house on the left is one in a row of ordinary houses on Main Street, right across the street from my house. My back yard view is nothing much - a few trees and a house behind me. But if I lived on this side of the street, I could go out on my balcony and look at the rolling hills and farm fields, which look different in every season and in every light.

Welcome to New England

Was there ever a more typical-looking Connecticut house? The funny thing about this house is: it looks fairly small, and surely was when it was first built. But I took another picture from the side - it's been added on to so many times it's probably five times bigger than this picture appears. 

Sunset tree

It was the first sunny day in a week, and at sunset the light was so warm and clear. I went for a walk to the video store (mostly to escape the hubbub of children at bedtime for a few minutes!) and brought my camera with me.

Barnyard escape!

It was hard to pick which of the dozens of photos I got of these turkeys to post... this one shows them as they approached my car. I snapped away for a second more but then started to feel a bit alarmed as they were coming straight at me - I rolled up my window and kept on shooting. I think they were domestic, not wild, on a little outing! 

Stuck inside on a beautiful spring day

Poor Gilligan, just watching the world go by. A few days ago, a turkey walked across our front yard...this morning it was a deer. But Gilligan stays inside (partly because of all of those vultures that live next door!) She's so fat and lazy I don't think she really minds that much. 

Daffodils on the town green

Everything is bursting out now - magnolias are budding, forsythia are glowing...it's actually all happening a bit later than usual for some reason - surprising since it's been a warm end-of-winter. The snow from a few days ago melted in just hours.

Gloomy day

These turkey vultures were having their breakfast when I came upon them, but they all flew up into the tree when I got closer. There's about a dozen of them. At night they congregate around my house, flying in slow circles overhead just before dusk.

Barn

It's a grey day today, and this barn, which I pass by several times a week when I'm out for my morning constitutional, has a real presence ... ordinary, yet with a gloomy aura about it that makes me not want to come any closer. 

Typical April Day

It's because I mentioned yesterday that we could get snow. The bluebells don't mind, I'm sure. 

Rainy morning

Borrowing an idea from Sam in Montchauvet, France, I took a picture out my window. (Unlike Sam, I didn't have a bird as a focal point!) It's rainy but still unseasonably warm - we could easily have gotten a foot of snow in early April. 

Twin Oaks Field

Much beloved view from the main road in my town. Imagine the uproar, a few years ago, when the owner said he was going to build a house (or several - can't recall) on the field.