Late Sunday morning, under a fine drizzle, I explored the wonders of Piney Woods Church Road. I was drawn, invariably, to droplets of water. I have chosen two for today, because they go so well together. Both would, I think, make stunning earrings. Two watery worlds cling to the tips of vine branches, against a background of flowing colors. My familiar gravel road becomes a path through a museum of water, color, and muted light.
A greenbrier thorn and tendril, somewhere along Piney Woods Church Road.
From my post-rain walk down Piney Woods Church Road earlier this afternoon, here is a pair of water droplets, awaiting the Sun’s return.
On this milestone day, I celebrate the utterly commonplace — a muscadine grape leaf framed against the summer sky, somewhere (practically anywhere) along Piney Woods Church Road. I am thankful for the miles I have traveled, and expectant and excited about the journey that still lies ahead.
On an overcast early evening with just a hint of drizzle, I set out on my daily exploration of Piney Woods Church Road. I was not inspired by the diffuse lighting, no matter how often I have read that cloudy days are supposedly beloved by macro-photographers. And for a second time in two days, I found myself photographing ripening berries of a Chinese Privet shrub (Ligustrum sinense). They add splashes of red to the landscape, I grant that. But they also carry the progeny of what is among the worst invasive plant species in the Piedmont of Georgia. Each little berry is a future privet plant, choking out native vegetation wherever it grows, from road edge to the forest’s heart. While I was able to find some beauty in the privet flowers in the springtime, berries are another matter entirely.
A short distance down the road from the privet horde, several cherry saplings were partially covered in web tents. A number of skeletonized leaves hung like white veils, their life-force converted into the ever-growing bodies of Fall Webworms (Hyphantria cunea). Inside the tents, tiny pale yellow caterpillars with black spots were gathered — in places, clustered by the dozens, and in other spots, further apart. As their name suggests, Fall Webworms actually do most of their damage later in the season, when the caterpillars are much larger. Already, though, there are several tents on each of a half-dozen trees in the immediate vicinity, including a persimmon in our backyard. Fall Webworm tents get much bigger even than those of Eastern Tent Caterpillars, with which I was already familiar. Unchecked, they can even defoliate entire trees. Oh, well. At least they aren’t actually invasive….
For today’s post, I bring both images together. If there is anything that one might classify as evil in the local landscape, it is embodied in the Chinese Privet and the Fall Webworm. I am working hard on appreciating these two. After all, they are both quite common now, and I have resolved to celebrate the commonplace in nature. I haven’t gotten there yet, but I haven’t given up, either. I suspect that both the berries and the caterpillars provide food for songbirds of some kind, and that’s a start. And at least they also offer the prospect of bad puns….
Here is another photograph I took of the old tulip poplar late this morning, this time with a small brown bird (a.k.a., little brown job) perched on the fence wire. After the thought, I considered how much more splendid this photo would be if I had only used a polarizing filter….
A friend and Piney Woods Church Road resident reminded me yesterday afternoon that I have taken very few photographs of the road itself, for all my travels upon it. This photograph does not actually remedy that situation, though a few other tulip poplar photos I took this morning do include the road edge. It does add to the small collection of landscape photographs I have taken on my journey, reminders that all wonders are not on the macro scale, hidden under leaves or among the threads of a spider’s web. This aged tulip poplar, scarred by a past lightning strike, greets me every day on my pilgrimage. This post is dedicated to Mark Hirsch, whose work with That Tree helped inspire the Piney Woods Church Road Project.
Sometimes when I am in need of new inspiration on an evening walk, I walk over to one of the several expanses of barbed wire fence along Piney Woods Church Road, and begin taking photographs. Often, I find that the sunlight illumines something on the fence in an intriguing way — perhaps a spiderweb, a leaf, or a clump of horsehair. These are two of my latest finds, both bits of horsehair backlit by golden light.
Lately I have spent many mornings and late afternoons photographing leaves illumined by sunlight. I have posted relatively few of them, by comparison. In this case, I find delight in the way the late-day sun has touched and transformed a single new leaf of a greenbrier. Beautiful.
Walking along the woods’ edge on Rico Road this morning, I glimpsed a pair of huge white flowers with purple centers, perhaps four inches across, on a vine with heart-shaped leaves. The flowers were at head height, on a vine hanging from tree branches. They looked like blooms that belonged in a tropical rainforest somewhere.
A member of the morning glory family (Convolvulaceae), the Wild Sweet Potato (Ipomoea pandurata) is native to much of the Eastern United States, despite it exotic appearance. The bulb of the vine is described by an Illinois wildflowers website as being “edible (barely) when cooked”, and was evidently eaten by Native Amerindians, according to the same source. Cooking was clearly essential; the Peterson Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants of Eastern and Central North America notes that roots have purgative properties if eaten raw.
For my own part, I think I will be satisfied with appreciating the stunning flowers.
