GAWD I Love This Place! May 24, 2007
Posted by littlebangtheory in Art and Nature, macro photos.Tags: local, moss, scenic
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I live out in the hills. Two hours from anything, they say, and four hours from anything important. No television reception, no cell phone coverage, half an hour to the grocery store. And I’m “in town!” Folks up the hill from me are lucky to get pavement on their roads!
So why, you ask, do I live here?
Because I can. Because it’s friggin’ beautiful. Because it’s idyllic in the summer, awesome in the winter, magical in the spring and perfect in the fall.
This is where I live:
Pretty sweet. If you can live without Starbucks and The Mall, that is.
Actually, this post is just an excuse to try my hand at putting up photos, which I haven’t done yet because I’m a bloob. That’s a blogging noob, starting now. Because this is MY BLOG, and I said so.
Being little, I get to notice the little things. Like this moss:
As the Late, Great Kurt V. might have said, “You big sweaty Americans” would probably have missed these, as
a) they’re only 1-2 millimeters across, and
b) you’re way up there!
But don’t sweat it, folks – I got yer toes!
Little Bang Theory 
What a georgeous place you live in!! What part of the country is it? Sorry if I missed it somewhere else in you blog.
This is Western Massachusetts, “Where the Men are Men, and the Sheep…” …well, you get the idea. It’s pretty rural.
I’ve traveled around some and seen many more spectacular places, but it’s a great spot to come home to!
I just decided to undertake a photo-circuit of local waterfalls, so do check back periodically for more nice views.
…And you?
California, on the San Francisco Peninsula, near Stanford University … although I’m a Cal (UC Berkeley) gal, myself. I’m a 30 minute drive from the Pacific Ocean, and a 30 minute bike ride from georgeous Redwood forests. Unfortunately, it can also take 30 minutes to drive across town at the wrong time of day!
I’ll check back for waterfall photos!
Beautiful place, that. Had an Uncle in Oakland, so I got to visit a bit as a kid, then spent some time climbing in Yosemite, so I learned early that Cal was one of my favorite places. The extremes are amazing – from the Sierras to the Pacific, from Mount Whitney to Death Valley in a turn of the head…
Makes me hesitate to say how much I like my little corner of the world, but you know, I just really do!
I’ll try to get on that “waterfall project.” If you don’t see it here, check the tab for The Cunning Runt, he might be handlin’ it!
I’ll have to “borrow” my neighbor’s digital camera and take some pics of the Southern Appalachians around my secret lair (aka ’73 Winnebago) to post. Your home looks like my home!
You know PS, I thought of you and of The Smokeys when I posted that picture. It always reminds me of the Southern Appalachians when the mist rises like that.
Hi! My understanding is that you can only see 72dpi on a monitor, so for posting purposes, lower the resolution to 72 and the small file will load more snappy. I lost patience waiting after 5 minutes only seeing a sliver.
I’ll check back later.
btw, I live in Bellingham, wa. Paradise, to me. cultivate a sense of place, and love and appreciate where you are.
Didn’t work in Houston too well.
i waited. The moss is stunning!
cheers
Thanks, beatgrl 🙂
Being a “bloob” (blog-noob) it may take me a while to figure out how to do that, but consider it on the to do list!
And Washington’s awesome, climbed there a bit in the eighties. It has such an amazing range of terrain, kinda like California…
By the way, what is the name of that moss? I think we have it around here at the upper elevations (Mt. Mitchell and Grandfather Mountain).
I’m not entirely certain, P-dog, but it looks like “Broom Moss” (Dicranum scoparium) from photos I’m finding on the ‘net. Trouble is I haven’t found references to the flowers, so I might be looking at an admix of species. Before looking it up I thought the flowers were on what I’ve been told is generally referred to as “club moss.”
There’s certainly some other stuff in the original photo including some coral fungi, another broad generic term. It’s a fascinating field of study about which I know embarrassingly little; I just like taking photographs!
Hey! I found the moss: It’s Juniper Haircap Moss ( http://dereila.ca/woods/page1.html ) scroll about halfway down the page. And we do have it at higher elevations way down hyar in tha South.
Broom moss has yellow blooms – whence comest the Irish song “When the yellow’s on the broom!”
I do believe you’re correct, my good man! …though I wish they’d have gotten a bit closer to the flowers. It’s certainly a mixture, and the clump on the right isn’t the same. Still looks like the pictures I’m finding of Broom Moss, though there are several close relatives best differentiated with a hand lense.
Gotta find my hand lense before the honey mushrooms pop…