Little Bang Theory

Yeah, it’s the Fourth of July, but the words are still stuck in a viscous slurry of resentment and rage.

So rather than embarrass myself with an ill-thought-out rant about what the fuck is wrong with our country on its 232nd birthday, here are a few pictures of lupines along the Bridge of Flowers.

It’s not quite nature photography, but it’s farther still from the tirade I’m sparing you from.

Just a bit of beauty to “take the edge off,” as it were.

This is my back yard:

…with the Deerfield river rising skyward behind a screen of hardwoods.

I’ve been trying to get a garden going, and in fact started a month ago, but anything resembling greens kept going missing (the tomatoes and hot peppers seemed to not be on the menu.)

The culprits appeared to be a family of woodchucks; I’d seen a big’un and my neighbor had seen two little ones, so there were at least that many to contend with. I considered just sharing, and replanted the kale and chard, but in a few days that too disappeared.

So it was off to Rolling J Farm to borrow a good sized Have-A-Heart.

A couple of days later I came home to a loud rattling of the trap, and found a chucklet:

And not a happy one, either.

We went for a little ride, across town, two rivers and a railroad track to a nice patch of woods and fields, then chucklet went off to make a new home.

The next evening his sibling joined him.

After a couple of nights of no further action, I came home to a message from my aforementioned neighbor, saying there was something big in my trap. I looked out the kitchen window to see…

…that the trap was GONE.

Well, not exactly gone, just far enough downhill from where I’d left it as to not be visible from my window.

I hustled down the steep, weedy slope to find not Mum, but Rocky:

What a sweetie, huh?

Not.

Don’t get too close, this little guy has mastered Projectile Biting™. I strongly suggest you trust me on this one; experiential education has its proponents, but they obviously never met Rocky.

Well, he got released pretty much in situ, though I’ll sheepishly admit to being standing in the back of my Subaru with the cage angled steeply down and away from me, on accounta I have tender ankles and ‘coons have a reputation for aggressiveness.

Off he sped, legs furiously pumping their stiff, green gallop…

I digress.

So days went by, and no Mommy-In-The-Box. I bought some Gopher Spurge (euphorbia lathyris) and a few more flats of the cruciferous things and planted them, hoping the combination of spurge and reduced numbers of chucks would prevail.

And just as I was about to declare Limited Success, Ka-Chuuung! [make Law And Order sound]

Yes, it was Mumchuck!

…all excited about her ride to her new home! I could tell ’cause she shit all over my car.

Anyway, with the Chuck Family Reunion firmly under way, my garden is finally in the ground, though it’s little and late.

I wonder if gardens can inherit the gardeners’ genes…?

The only thing currently of any appreciable size (I forgot my macro lense) is the mullein, all happy volunteers which I left in place when I roto-tilled and planted.

What a friggin’ hippie, huh?

But seriously, if nothing else produces this year, at least I got to see these cool units, most as tall as me and still growing, with their warm yellow flower spikes and rosettes of large, velvety leaves:

They’re beautiful both from a distance and up close, being complex and dense and shadowed and softly furred:

So the free food’s on the way, and I’ll be expecting to bore you with half-ripe tomatoes and my first-borne baby onions.

Provided some other critter doesn’t arrive with its bib on…

Last weekend wasn’t a washout.

Bummer, man.

‘Cause I went up North looking for dramatic skies and mists rising through boreal forests of firs and ferns. But rather than documenting the aftermath of a summer storm in the High Country, I got only blue skies, warm breezes and gorgeous views

Smuggler’s Notch, at the north end of Mount Mansfield, the highest of Vermont’s Green Mountains:

Dense forests harbored a cool breeze as I climbed the narrow road toward the jagged schist escarpments of The Notch:

The road was at times a single lane, winding between incisor-like boulders:

Parking was plentiful, and I joined the folks exploring the maze of paths and tunnels among the jumbled rocks. This beautiful quartz intrusion caught my eye along the trail:

But no thunderstorms, despite the Weather Liar’s prevarications.

Bummer!

I generally don’t photograph anything which doesn’t occur naturally, and only thus warrant the tag, “nature photographer.”

And I kinda like that, being a voice for the voiceless things and places and spaces which make up the better part of my world. Because knowing about the world around us engenders caring about the world around us. How can we not embrace the natural world when its detail is shown to us, its mystery presented to us as an offering, an extended hand, an invitation to know?

But sometimes the Made World intrudes, and in fact informs my images, as with photos of the Shelburne Falls potholes which include the dam and surrounding buildings.

And within spiting distance (well, ok, you’d need a vicious Easterly wind) is The Bridge Of Flowers, certainly a magnet for visitors, but more to the point, a sanctuary in the heart of a small river town, a bit of beauty which wouldn’t be there but for the vision and efforts of those who fund and maintain it:

So here are a few shots of what’s blooming there this weekend, just in case you happen to be in the area (or are nowhere near here, Thank you Interwebz!):

Here’s a great color combination, a rich yellow/orange and an intense blue, it almost doesn’t matter which blue you choose. Thank You, Malcolm Hilliard:

Here’s a dahlia of some kind, much less flamboyant than most of its family, but I liked its simplicity:

And I photographed these little guys last year, and didn’t catch their names:

They’re osteospermum, the Sunscape Daisies.

The Bridge is too pretty to not share when it’s in bloom, so please excuse my foray into “cultivated nature.”

I know, I’m stalling.  There’s so much which needs saying, and so little time to say it.  Elections come and go, Loved Ones pass away, the future becomes the present, then becomes the past.

And still, the words won’t come.  I’m sorry.  As a parent, I expect more from me.

But for now, here are a few images from Along The Road, which hopefully will convey something of what’s inside of me.

A beaver pond in Plainfield:

A fly fisherman on the Deerfield river:

At The Potholes in Shelburne Falls:

Sorry for the randomness, I guess I just had a few worth seeing which weren’t thematic (except for involving water1)

In the haying fields of West Charlemont, a fog rises as the sun goes down:

a wild rose,

simple, unassuming, beautiful.

It blooms for you.

Today, a Roadside Fieldkitteh:

She’s purdy, no?

Summer’s here, and the meadows are ablaze with color! Unassuming daisies anchor a visual field of Indian paint brush, buttercups and pinks:

Clover in a range of hues stretches for its share of sunlight in the tall grass:

The Girls of Summer wave as you walk by, elegant, leggy, swaying mesmerizingly in the afternoon light:

Appreciate them, savor  them, each and every one. It’s the Season of Love, a time for recklessness, a time to drink fully from the cup that’s offered you…

They pretend not to notice your admiring gaze.

Today, Things With Wings!

A young goldfinch chirps for Mommy in a lilac hedge:

…while a nearby Eastern Tiger Swallowtail tanks up on nectar:

We have such beautiful Brothers and Sisters!