Day 348: Cradled

 Backyard Nature, Geometry and Nature, Native Plants, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Dec 142014
 

On my early afternoon walk down Piney Woods Church Road today, my attention was drawn to a fascinating relationship between a shrub of some kind and an adjacent muscadine.  A woody tendril of the vine cradled a single leaf from the shrub, holding it in place.  How did this happen?  Did the tendrils turn first, to wrap around some long-gone form, and then the leaf just happened to be blown into a vine’s embrace?  Or did the tendrils somehow develop around the leaf, pinning it motionless?  Equally mysterious is how I managed to walk past it for weeks, or even months, never noticing it before today.

 

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Day 347: A Holiday Tableau

 Backyard Nature, Native Plants, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Dec 132014
 

I supposed my eyes were trained to seek out patches of green and red in juxtaposition along Piney Woods Church Road, after I stopped to photograph a brilliant red ribbon and bit of artificial pine that festooned a roadside mailbox.  I actually took a number of photographs of that ribbon, covered in several places with newly-fallen brown leaves.  Still, I find this later, and much more natural, bit of red and green far more enticing:  a single dark green blade of grass stands next to a tiny sweetgum sapling with bright red leaves.  The image forms a natural holiday tableau, equally fitting for Christmas or the Winter Solstice.

 

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Day 345: The Last Leaf

 Backyard Nature, Golden Hour, Native Plants, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Dec 112014
 

On my afternoon ramble down Piney Woods Church Road today, I paused to photograph the very last leaf on a roadside pin cherry.  After taking several shots of it, I reached up and touched it gently with my fingertips.  It fell away from the branch tip, onto the waiting road edge.

 

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Day 343: High Above

 Backyard Nature, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  1 Response »
Dec 092014
 

On this gray and grim afternoon, with dark clouds filling most of the sky but no rain falling, I went out in search of new wonders along Piney Woods Church Road.  I found myself entranced by the bare branches of an aged, weather-beaten tulip poplar standing by itself in a pasture.  I took several photographs looking up into the limbs.  At one point as I stood snapping a series of photographs, a large bird, perhaps a black vulture but possibly a bald eagle, crossed my field of view.  The bird, high above the poplar, turns a photograph that would otherwise be a portrait of a weathered pasture tree into a conversation between tree and bird, high above.

 

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Day 341: Autumn’s Harvest

 Backyard Nature, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  1 Response »
Dec 072014
 

From my early afternoon walk down Piney Woods Church Road today, I offer these two images of autumn’s harvest:  a cluster of ripe Russian olives (from a shrub that is, alas, highly invasive here in Georgia), and a shriveled beech leaf illuminated by the sun.  It was another lovely day for a walk, with temperatures gently nudging 60 degrees.

 

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Day 340: Pinned

 Backyard Nature, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place  No Responses »
Dec 062014
 

Some days, I take my pilgrimage along Piney Woods Church Road slowly, savoring every bit of the roadscape as I make my way to Hutcheson Ferry Road and back to Rico Road again.  Other days, like this one, with dark gray skies and drizzle already getting underway, the experience was, I confess, much more tactical.  As I slowly walked down the road, camera in hand, I suddenly saw exactly what called me to photograph it — a single leaf that had fallen and was pinned by a bundle of loblolly pine needles to a bare branch of a shrub.  It was well above my head, and photographing it involved some guesswork since I could barely see the image on the viewscreen.  Once I had the image I sought, though, I felt a sense of contentment — I had found what I needed for the day.  Under even more leaden skies than before, I set off across a neighbor’s horse pasture for home.

 

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