This is my fifth Spring since returning to live in New York. I always believed myself to be fairly observant and can remember many visual experiences even from my childhood.
Yet the day Grant and I drove north from JFK Airport, it was as if I had gained a new set of eyes. And I am still noticing different things all the time.
This Spring, I am struck by how yellow many of our trees are.
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Oddly, I find myself recently having an aversion to the colour yellow. My iPad has an art app that allows me to create abstract images. It replaces crafts I enjoyed before the fingers became so clumsy. It’s therapeutic.
The colour changes every time I lift my finger from the screen. But I will not use yellow!
Tap, tap I go, until another colour comes up!
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This unaccountable aversion, does not carry over into Nature, however.
Except that perhaps it is why I have become more aware of all these yellow trees.
With the Red Maples filling out, it almost appears that we have transitioned from Winter straight into Fall.
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Em, well no, not quite!
The above two images were taken at precisely the same time of day, 6 months ago, to the day.
Contrasts are always interesting!
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A couple of days ago, Grant decided we should go have another look at the Pussy-willows.
This time, it was a mostly overcast day.
As we passed Lake Lauderdale, we looked for the Osprey. It was not home, but two trees along on the other side, there it sat watching. We went by today and sure enough, the Osprey was in the same tree, so maybe that is its preferred look-out. Not as likely to be annoyed by pesky amateur photographers, perhaps.
Riding along in a car, I am never sure what results I will get, so I point, shoot and edit.
Often I discover a pop of colour, such as a red door, or yellow tank.
A shape, such as a chute.
Then I wonder, will anyone else care?
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Trees don’t need to be sold.
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Clouds and light and reflecting windscreens can be a big challenge, though.
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More of that insidious vine!
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At the marsh the Pussy-willows had gone a couple of stages beyond what we had expected.
Are the little black dots insects or seeds?
I tried to demonstrate the neat magnifying facility on my phone but although I can manage it perfectly at home, in the field, not on your life.
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The Marsh Marigolds were flourishing.
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We drove down an avenue of trees toward this fine specimen
Just another road-side tree.
We have such a variety of trees.
Tremendously tall.
And terribly small.
Maybe I’ll do a profile on power poles.
Much easier to include them .
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I keep wanting to call them telephone poles, but of course they aren’t anymore.
Who even knows what all these wires provide?
Electricity, internet, television.
Some people still have house phones.
So maybe they are communication poles.
They are terribly vulnerable and I am deeply respectful of the people who must go out to repair the cables in all the worst kinds of weather.
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I imagine them all partying at night and dancing around the countryside, or is that not what pole dancing is all about?
Oh yes. That would account for why they never stand straight.
All is revealed!
Thank you, Carolyn, for your musing about the poles!
Joanna
🙂
I’m amazed to see how yellow/orange/red the trees are … and this in Spring (and you’re right, it feels like it should be more of an Autumn colour). But Nature makes its own rules, doesn’t it? And why wouldn’t it! One thing is for sure – you have no shortage of trees! Great photos – it’s worth it looking at it for a second (and third) time 🌳🌳.
There is a telephone pole not far from our house, with a cable leading from it directly into our loft that provides both our landline phone, (yes, we still have one of those) and fibre-optic Internet connection. Beetley is too small to make if profitable to dig everything up and lay the cables underground. The pole is often inspected and presumably ‘serviced’ in some way, but so far we have rarely lost any phone or Internet signals.
Best wishes, Pete.
Such lovely colours!
Love your tree photos – plenty of intriguing gnarly trees in Japan.