At last, I found a few tiny violets blooming along the side of the ditch where Piney Woods Church Road meets Hutcheson Ferry Road. In this photograph, a violet beams at me in the afternoon sunlight against a background of pure blue sky.
Mar 272014
Mar 262014
On my Piney Woods Church Road walk this morning, I found new growth everywhere I looked. These new leaves seem to glow from within with the vitality of springtime.
Mar 262014
In the early morning, new leaves are aflame with color and light. I set out looking for frost, but I found fire instead.
Mar 252014
Over the past three months, I have taken several dozen photographs of the thick, wiry vines of greenbrier, festooned with massive thorns and draping themselves along several of the tree trunks along Piney Woods Church Road. Today, when I had no intention of trying to do so, I caught an image of them that I find striking. If a jazz riff could be photographed, perhaps it would look something like this.
Mar 252014
I ventured out this afternoon into a brisk north wind, wearing my heavy winter jacket. Where had spring gone? The high wind made it considerably more difficult to photograph new growth on the shrubs and trees along Piney Woods Church Road, including this tulip poplar seedling. When the sun emerged from behind a cloud, though, the late-day lighting was marvelous. I fear for all these tender leaves, though, with temperatures expected to reach the mid-20s overnight.
Mar 242014
As I near the Hutcheson Ferry end of Piney Woods Church Road, I glance to my left and my eyes catch a lone oak leaf from last year. It waves at me, greeting me with shades of red, orange, and yellow-green.
Mar 242014
I’m on my way again, returning home down Piney Woods Church Road. I pause to appreciate the shadow of a pasture gate on the gravel roadway surface. Only later, going back through the images to select one for today, do I notice the cow grazing in the background. There are always more things to discover, all around us.
Mar 232014
Almost everywhere I look along Piney Woods Church Road, buds are bursting open and new leaves emerging on the trees and shrubs. I feel so ignorant, because most of them I cannot actually identify yet, until the leaves unfurl completely and flowers bloom. And maybe not even then…
Mar 222014
This post is in honor of LBJs, or “Little Brown Jobs”, as birders refer to a range of fairly nondescript small brown species. I welcome a correct ID on this particular specimen, who was looking contemplative on a wire beside a fence along Piney Woods Church Road today.
Mar 222014
Along Piney Woods Church Road, the earliest to bloom of the red maples have begun producing seeds. These nascent maple keys have not yet developed their final shape, but are merely tiny, oval forms suspended where the flowers used to be.
