Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project – Page 38

Day Four: Landscape with Cow (Mostly Cow)

Agriculture and Husbandry, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project 2 Responses »

Jan 042014

I set out under leaden skies to see what I could discover along Piney Woods Church Road. The forecast promised 45 degrees, but I had to settle for 35 instead. The light was muted, the sky almost oppressive; it truly felt like rain (or even snow) was on its way. “No more cows,” I promised myself. I had joked with my wife yesterday after posting my cow photograph that it might be possible to do 365 different cow photographs across a year. I sincerely promise my readers that I won’t do that. I took quite a few macro photographs of lichens, moss and leaves, and some intriguing abstract images through tangles of greenbrier. Still, after wading through the over sixty photos I took today, the cow clearly topped the list. I suppose one could say that he won by a nose.

Day Three: A Cold Day for Cows

Agriculture and Husbandry, Golden Hour, Natural History, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project No Responses »

Jan 032014

It was a cold day by Georgia standards, with the temperature just a couple degrees above freezing, though without the harsh wind of yesterday afternoon. Ice had formed along the edges of the ditch beside Piney Church Road. The sky was deep blue, the sunset less than spectacular, but a delight to see anyway, after so many cloudy days of late. While waiting for the sunset, I hung out with some cows who were at least as curious about me as I was about them. I could see their breath in the late afternoon air.

Day Two: Wind Bird

Natural History, Piney Woods Church Road 365 Project, Sense of Place No Responses »

Jan 022014

Another cloudy day. The morning rain had passed, and with the cold front moving through the wind was picking up, the chill gusts numbing my fingertips and setting leaves and branches into motion. After several attempts to capture close-up images of mosses, lichens, and ferns, I decided to embrace the wind instead. Looking across an open pasture about two-thirds of the way from Rico Road to Hutcheson Ferry Road, I saw this turkey buzzard gliding on the wind currents. The same wind that made macro photographs well nigh impossible for me had granted this crow an opportunity to soar amid the breaking clouds.

Day One: Devouring the Forest

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

Jan 012014

A grim, overcast day greeted me for the start of a new year and my new project documenting the Piney Woods Church Road landscape. So much for plans to begin with a sunrise. Instead, I leisurely made my way to the road late in the afternoon, an hour or so of what passed for sundown. Glancing into a grove of trees between Piney Woods Church Road and Rico Road, my eye was caught by a loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) that has most likely been killed by the southern pine beetle (Dendroctonus frontalis), an insect measuring only 2 to 4 millimeters as an adult. Closer at hand, a young pin cherry (Prunus pennsylvanica) growing beside the road has been disfigured by crown gall, a woody tumor caused by the bacterium, Agrobacterium tumefaciens. All around me, tiny organisms were slowly devouring the forest.

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