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While driving across the USA for a Photography Workshop in Yosemite National Park I stopped at Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming. This photo of Devil’s Tower was taken from a rest area along the highway just outside of the park.
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This “volunteer” Foxglove plant started blooming on my back patio. The plant was growing in the cracks between the bluestones. Once it started blooming, I put a tomato cage around it so it wouldn’t blow over. Since Foxglove plants are biennial, I must have ignored the plant the previous year (2019) — not removing it as a weed. Where it came from is a mystery. Foxglove seeds are very tiny, similar to the size of Poppy seeds. I have been planting wildflower mixtures (from American Meadows) for several years as I try to convert much or most of my backyard into a wildflower meadow. So maybe the seed blew in from there. I am always questioning when plants start showing up in the spring — are they a desired wildflower that I want or are they an undesired weed that would be competing for space, water, and nutrients.
It is hard when dealing with perennial or biennial plants that don’t flower the first year. Sometimes I can look up an identification with a picture uploaded to the PlantNet app. I do recognize infestations of Mile-a-Minute vine, Mugwort, and Poison Ivy. This spring I have observed at least two Foxglove plants blooming (one purple, and one white) in the backyard wildflower meadow. I also have another dozen Foxglove plants transplanted earlier this spring from a neighbor’s raised bed garden growing in some soft pot planters. Some of them have just started to bloom.
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While working part time in Boulder, Colorado, I would often visit Rocky Mountain National Park. It was only an hour drive away, and I got to see the park during all four seasons. On this morning, a springtime storm was brewing.
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The Jack-in-the-Pulpits are true native plants growing in my backyard. I did not plant them; they were just here. Mostly hidden in the back shaded sections. The green flowers provide camouflage making them easy to miss. You don’t want to mistake the stem with three leaves which I did at one time thinking they were Poison Ivy. Before having the back frog pond expanded a couple of years ago, I successfully transplanted a number of the Jack-in-the-Pulpit plants into soft pot containers that are blooming this year in my front yard.
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Two Canada Geese parents with six gooselings swimming in the pond at the local Sourland Mountain Preserve. I used to stop by the preserve on a regular basis to see and photograph the birds, frogs, turtles, butterflies, and flowers. There are several hikes out from the pond that go into the woods, or you can follow the natural gas line right-of-way path up the “mountains”. A mountain in New Jersey isn’t that high.
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While the MV Explorer was docked in Amsterdam, we went on a Semester at Sea field trip to the Kröller-Müller Museum and Sculpture Garden at Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo, Netherlands. While walking through the outdoor Sculpture Garden, Mother posed with the ´Monsieur Jacques´ (1956) sculpture by Oswald Wenckebach. I processed the image in black and white to avoid some distracting colors in the background. These days I could have just used AI to remove the distractions.
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Mother sitting at a bench in front of a street art mural in Cozumel, Mexico. While the MV Explorer was docked in Cozumel, we attended a field program that included Josefina’s Mexican cooking class. On the way back to the ship, we passed this mural where the blue colors matched her clothes.
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Six-Years Ago Today. Backyard Springtime Nature in New Jersey.
During my afternoon backyard walkabout, I saw an American Robin with a large grub in its mouth. I think the nest is in the nearby Ceder tree. The Fuji camera does emphasize the Robin’s bright orange breast colors.
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While driving into Yosemite National Park for a photography workshop with Michael Mariant I noticed something red off in the woods. I stopped to retrieve it if it was some trash but instead found these strange red objects growing out of the ground. When I showed the images that I took to Michael, he told me that they were Snow Plant (Sarcodes sanguinea) flowers. The Snow Plants don’t have any chlorophyll and derive their nutrition from fungi living under the soil near conifer trees.
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I take the cactus in for the winter and rarely see them blossom. I was about to move them outside when I noticed one of the small barrel cacti had small flowers. I couldn’t get the level of detail I wanted with a single macro image. Instead, I made a composite of 24 focus stacked images using a Nikon Df camera and 105 mm f/2.8 VR macro lens (ISO 100, 105 mm, f/4, 1/125 sec) and SB-910 flash (EV -2). The images were processed using Helicon Focus: [Method B (depth map, R = 8, S = 4)].
Backlit Backyard Brown Booby Cactus California Capoeria Costa Rica Crystal Geyser Dogwood Fawn Florida Flowers Focus Stacked France Gibraltar Gibraltar Monkey Gone to See America 2009 Green River Guatemala Helicon Focus Landscape Little Planet Macro Maple Leaf Monochrome Morocco MV Explorer New Jersey Parc de Bercy Paris Rabbit Rain Forest Red Poppy Semester at Sea Spain Spring Spring 2010 Enrichment Voyage Spring 2011 Enrichment Voyage Spring 2013 Enrichment Voyage Spring 2014 Enrichment Voyage Springtime St. Petersburg UNE Utah Yosemite National Park
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