Sunday, May 02, 2010

"In the Merry, Merry Month of May...."


"Our barks echo'd through the glen,
With blithe and joyful ring;
We dug our holes under mossy stones,
And we dabbled in the hillside spring."

Apologies to Stephen Foster, composer of "The Merry, Merry Month of May" way back in 1862. I altered a few words in the second verse to fit the lead-off pictures today...now that the inclement batch of heavy rains and storms is upon NC today, looks like a day to stay inside and look back on the the snaps I took this weekend.

(click on pics to enlarge)

The mellow Mercy doesn't bark, except when there's a raccoon, squirrel...or when Molly pesters her enough for a round of play. The lushness continues to unfold on the mountainside, thanks to all the moisture last winter.

Molly barks a-plenty...and loves to dig under mossy stones....and loves to get all kinds of muddy and wet knocking around the hillside spring...and stealing items not nailed down at the neighbor's house. I have noticed that ticks seem to be in good supply, a bit more than I remember for a spring.

The glades of Trillium really are a sight to behold, especially with the sprinkling of other colors...

...and I do generally prefer overcast conditions for photographing, as it is difficult in the best of times to maintain shadow/highlight definitions on bright, high-contrast days.

My little ol' warhorse Canon S2 continues to delight me with its macro capability, hand-held at that...its flip-out, rotating screen allows the camera to get in just an inch or two away while I save my back and knees from getting down to the picture at hand!

Two 'new' flowers making themselves seen are the Solomon's Seal above, with it's soon-to-be-flowers hanging down below the stem...

...to the very different flower (below) of False Solomon's Seal, a kissing cousin sans hanging bells below.

From above, the stalk and leaves look quite the same, but the False Solomon's Seal flower bunch at the tip of the stalk is the immediate give-away.

Violets of yellow, purple, and white are everywhere, including this brace of Canadian Violets.

From the land of Lilliput, so it would seem, is this diminutive of flowers now abounding, Star Chickweed, the bloom only as big as my pinkie fingernail.

Plenty of beauty in the non-flowering world, as well. Fiddlehead ferns are rosining up their frond bows; fern displays in general make a woodlands scene all the more verdant, eh?

Enjoy your day! Always good to bring a little nature into the walls of work-dom...



5 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOVELY pictures - just the thing for a gloomy day. You are right about the ticks. John and I thought that the extended snow would kill off many, but it seems to have encouraged them. The cats are getting them in places they can't reach like on their muzzles - rarely see that.
Abigail

Bob Child said...

Exactly...while a 'cold and snowy' winter, it was not 'fridgid' per se, just extended 'run the heat source ad nauseum' type of cold...hence, I'm afraid the world of itty-bits didn't suffer in their aestivation, hibernation! Below that snow line, things ain't so bad if you're sitting still! UGH!

Lori said...

With the oil spill and it's destruction and this gloomy day, it sure was nice to see your very beautiful pictures.
As for the ticks, I keep a good supply of Frontline Plus so Catarina doesn't get them.

Bob Child said...

Oh, I'm there now!!!!!

Anonymous said...

That was what was so astounding, even with an appliation of Frontline Plus one week before, The Brothers Grimm both had deer ticks on them - which of course makes me even itichier! Haven't seen any on them in the past two weeks so perhaps the initial "bloom" of insects has subsided.
Abigail