• grass,  haiku,  landscape,  natural areas,  Pineridge Natural Area,  Plants,  sunrises,  writing/reading

    Something so simple

    cloudless predawn sky
    silhouetted needlegrass
    something so simple

    mws

    This image is from Pineridge Natural Area a few days ago. I went for the predawn meditation, to empty my monkey mind and allow nature to fill me with that sense of awe. It’s always a great way to start my day. I was entertained by a half dozen bats demonstrating their aerial acrobatics, silhouetted against the sky. Then I noticed this solitary needlegrass silhouetted against the orange and blue horizon dancing in the light breeze. Grabbed my camera since I had it with me. Something so simple. Have a great Friday!

  • grass,  landscape,  natural areas,  Plants,  Reservoir Ridge Natural Area,  seasons,  snow,  winter scenes

    Two Chipotle Peppers

    Light snow at Reservoir Ridge Natural Area – March of 2022

    I put on a crockpot of chicken tortilla soup early this morning. As I was putting it together I decided to put in two chipotle peppers in adobo sauce 🌶️ rather than one as it seems like that kind of day. It is lightly snowing and 5 degrees at the moment, 2 degrees colder than when I got up. It is a day to curl up in my chair, wrapped up in a blanket, a hot chai tea latte beside me, do a bit of reading and journaling then have a bowl of soup later. Planning on filing taxes later today and putting that $153 return into my savings account. Should bring my account balance up to about $156. 😂 Stay warm!! Stay dry!! And, have a super Awesome day!!

  • grass,  landscape,  Mary Oliver,  Plants,  poems,  seasons,  snow,  winter scenes,  writing/reading

    A Bit More Snow

    Now through the white orchard my little dog
    romps, breaking the new snow
    with wild feet.
    Running here running there, excited,
    hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins
    until the white snow is written upon
    in large, exuberant letters,
    a long sentence, expressing
    the pleasures of the body in this world.
    Oh, I could not have said it better

    The Storm by Mary Oliver

    Winter weather is the word for the day, receiving the 3-4 inches promised. It is loaded with moisture and making road conditions bad. It was 18 degrees at about 8:30 am and not expecting to be above 22 degrees. I call that cold and the perfect day to stay in and eat leftover vegetable soup, unless your Mary Oliver’s dog.

  • fall season,  grass,  Plants,  seasons,  Uncategorized

    Fully into Fall

    I needed to scrape frost off my car windshield in order to meet a friend for coffee yesterday. Even though it was cool the warm October sun allowed us to sit comfortably outside. When I returned home the red fescue grass along the edge of the ponds was glowing in the mid morning sunlight. Later I sat outside, watched that 2 1/2 foot tall grass dance for me in the afternoon light and journaled. Last night was our third frost warning in a row. Yes, we are fully into fall in Colorado.

  • Dewdrops,  grass,  Plants,  quotes

    After the Rain

    A good photograph will prove to the viewer how little our eyes permit us to see. Most people, really, don’t see—see only what they have always seen and what they expect to see—where a photographer, if he’s good, will see everything. And better if he sees things he doesn’t expect to see.

    Leon Levinstein

    A light rain or drizzle dominated most of yesterday. It made my 54th class reunion picnic a bit cold and damp. A good time was had but I was still chilled a couple hours afterwards. Clear skies and sunshine this morning. The red fescue grass was bowing down from the weight of glistening raindrops begging to be seen and photographed.

  • clouds,  grass,  landscape,  Plants,  quotes

    Indigenous

    Cumulus clouds in the distance

    “… becoming Indigenous to a place means living as if your children’s future mattered, to take care of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it.”

    Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

    I have places inside and outside of the city that are sacred to me. I do not have civil ownership to them but I visit them because this is where I find quiet, solitude and regeneration. I cannot think of one place I visit where the hand of man has not trashed it in some way with beer cans, whiskey bottles, old tires, mattresses, chairs, cigarette butts, etc. It is a sign of how little we know about caring for our world, and those we share this land with or ourselves. I believe the care for the land must start with me.

  • grass,  landscape,  mountains,  natural areas,  Plants,  quotes,  Reservoir Ridge Natural Area

    Happy Earth Day

    Green blades of grass in the open meadow at Reservoir Ridge Natural Area

    “I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.”

    Hermann Hesse

    This low perspective shows some of the green we are seeing in the meadows. We really do need to see some moisture and that may happen this coming weekend.

  • grass,  landscape,  Plants,  sunsets

    That’s Just What We Do

    Here is an attempt to photograph a scene where I wanted you to experience what I was experiencing. The late afternoon sunlight had the grass shimmering in gold, while the wind had the grass dancing to the music of silence. The first meadowlarks of the season were singing to me. There was that feeling of solitude, distant from the cities clamber. I took several images of the backlit grass along the fence with the awareness you probably wouldn’t experience what I was experiencing through this image. It just can’t. For you would have to be there to experience it. But, as a photographer, I will always try. That’s just what we do.