Henry Ford Estate Photography by Kozmic Dreams

My Photography of the

Henry Ford Estate

Dearborn, MI

In Dearborn, MI, right next to the U of M Dearborn campus, there is a beautiful place to walk around---the Henry Ford Estate. Anyone can just venture around the gardens, ponds, and favorite spots that Mr. Ford used to enjoy. I found out about it when I was going to school nearby at U of M Dearborn in 1993, and I have loved visiting there since. Sadly, I have noticed that over the past few years, the type of crowd that visits has changed for the worst. Now, the park closes at 6pm due to vandalism. This is unfortunate because one of the most amazing experiences I ever had was in the summer, close to sunset (probably around 9 pm) and all the toads in the pond started croaking together. I have never heard such a thing again, and unfortunately, never will be able to experience it here again due to the time restrictions now in place. I have noticed that the special garden gazebo has been written on in sharpie markers. Nice new benches are carved upon in days. The people coming through are not respectful of the wildlife and scenery---they are littering and talk loudly. This is not the first of my sacred places to be destroyed by this type of mentality---I saw it happen before at a special bird-watching place I used to enjoy. It is too bad these people can't find some other place to "recreate" instead of ruining the few nice, natural places that still exist.

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Estate Frogs, 7-14-09

The Henry Ford Estate is always a great place to find good creatures to photograph. I went there with my friends Layla and Michelle, intending to photograph insects on flowers, mostly bees, but actually ended up hanging out by a pond for about an hour, photographing the frogs. At one point, all of the frogs in the pond went into a chorus like I have never heard in my entire life. Unfortunately, I was only able to hear it for about a minute and a half before a large group of very disrespectful biology students (who were so ignorant that they questioned each other on what was making the sounds at the pond and no one knew) ruined the whole experience by being incredibly loud, as if they were at a drunken frat party. It was very upsetting and I spoke my mind to one of them as he was leaving and had the nerve to ask me what it was I was finding so interesting at the pond. After we waited about another 1/2 hour, sadly, the frogs still never started up again. I did get some great macro shots of them, which I wasn't sure was possible because some were rather far away.

Estate Painted Turtles, Chrysemys picta picta, 7-14-09

These two turtles were in the same pond as the frogs. One was just a little baby, only about an inch long.

Waterfall, 7-13-06

II especially like the waterfall, which is part of the Rouge River. I have enjoyed sitting on the rocky ledge listening to it many times. On July 13, 2006, Brian and I brought a bullfrog and garter snake to release in these lush surroundings. I decided to take a few shots of the waterfall. We were even lucky enough to see a black-crowned night heron, Nycticorax nycticorax hunting for fish on the ledge across from us.

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