best blog post, ever.

I headed out today into the drizzle. Have I mentioned how much I love taking these photographs? If I get a positive comment, either here, or within Facebook (where most but not all of you find me), that’s a sweet added bonus, but I do this not so much to provoke a reaction from others, as much as to just really…SEE…the world around me. The more I look, the more I see. The more I feel like I’m actually seeing my fellow species, the more of a difference I think it makes to world peace. Call me crazy, but this is one of the few sane things I can think of to do most of the time:

…say hello to the world. This sapling’s buds are greener today. (This is a mystery species – I used to think it was witchhazel; eventually I came to my senses; I currently speculate it’s related to white walnut (Juglans cinerea). The leaf scar is not quite monkey-faced enough to be white walnut. I think.)

another new type of fern shows up on my radar.

I tried something new today: tried to convey more of the slightly-bigger picture, rather than mostly close-ups. Can I use this camera to convey the poignance and peace of a drizzly day?

attempt at raindrops – I

…II

…III

aha. IV.

birch.

alder I

alder II

alder III

willow I

willow II

willow III

do I feel like crossing the street to the frog pond?

naaaah. I just needed to see the apple trees.

Everything is greening up. This is the ditch by the side of the road that is currently serving as a secondary tributary to our pond. I wonder how the beavers are doing. (This part is extra-backed up because we have ~9 beavers, and by now some of them have probably been trapped (sigh…))

wet, wet, wet. This is the upstream view of the previous picture.

gratuitous apple shot with extended pond in background.

That wasn’t maidenhair fern.  (Yesterday I photographed some new fern babies coming up, and I thought they looked like maidenhair – but lo and behold, today I spotted maidenhair already up and running: and it’s much finer and smaller than the new fern babies. I . really . must . learn . my . ferns.

for what it’s worth, this is yesterday’s pseudo-maidenhair, as of today (and apologies for blurriness).

Regular visitors will know, I rarely do birds – that’s a whole world unto itself to which I say, “someday” – but maybe today was the beginning of some day. Maybe this is a gray catbird?

last but not least, one lone tiny. unidentified. my flower guide is obsessed with yellow four petaled flowers. this looks white…but maybe it’s a bluet.