Bird's nest

I Heard a Bird Sing

I heard a bird sing
in the dark of December
a magical thing
and sweet to remember.

'We are nearer to spring
than we were in September.'
I heard a bird sing
in the dark of December.
         Oliver Herford

Christmas memories

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

Charles Dickens

Christmas Day

"Christmas is the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart."

Washington Irving

Warm Christmas cookies

"Christmas cookies and happy hearts, this is how the holiday starts."

Anon.

Ornament

It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.

                W. T. Ellis

Dog in snow

This is the most cooperative dog I've ever seen.  As I came near with my camera he began rolling around in the new snow.  His pure joy was contagious.

"With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things."

William Wordsworth

Christmas lights

It is a fine seasoning for joy to think of those we love.

Moliere

Christmas Candle

A Christmas candle is a lovely thing;
It makes no noise at all but softly gives itself away;
While quite unselfish, it grows small.

Eva K. Logue

Church bells

There has been so much bad news recently - Such a sad time for many people.  I find I'm often remembering the words of an old Christmas Carol, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.  The poem was originally composed by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow during the American Civil war and had the title Christmas Bells.  Sadly, it is as appropriate today as it was then.  The two middle verses come to mind:

And in despair I bowed my head:

"There is no peace on earth", I said

"For hate is strong, and mocks the song

Of peace on earth good will to men."

Then peeled the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,

With peace on earth, good will to men."

The beautiful sound of church bells ringing through a European morning has to be experienced to be believed.

Winter trees

Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.

William Carlos Williams

Ornaments

"Happy happy Christmas, that can win us back the delusions of childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasure of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!"

Charles Dickens

Silverware

The cold weather has forced me inside.  I played around with my macro lens and some old silverware.

Make new friends, but keep the old;

Those are silver, these are gold.

                         Joseph Parry

Poinsettia

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.

Norman Vincent Peale

Winter abstract

I check several photography blogs for inspiration.  I came across a photography challenge, "winter abstract".  I took this photo looking up into a bare crabapple tree, and with a little editing, came up with this image.

O'er the bare upland, and away
Through the long reach of desert woods,
The embracing sunbeams chastely play,
And gladden these deep solitudes.

From Woods in Winter 

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sunrise

The pictures are there and you just take them.

Robert Capa

Winter sunrise

Freezing fingers are worth capturing an image on a frosty morning.  Today's sunrise seemed misty and ethereal even though it was fairly clear.  I tried a "soft focus" mode on the camera and it captured the mood better than a clear shot.

At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.

Norman Maclean

December

In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan.
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone.
        Christmas Carol

Twisted fun

Christmas ornament and some fun in Photoshop.

Fun is good.

     Dr. Seuss

Red jug

A jug fills drop by drop.

          Buddha

Danube sunrise

"What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?"

E. M Forster

Passau

"When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable.  It is designed to make its own people comfortable."
Clifton Fadiman

Prague alley

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware."

Martin Buber

Mud

Photography Challenge week 46:  Mud

Life is made up of marble and mud.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Late autumn day

Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonize.

George Eliot

Moss

In late autumn, it isn't easy to find colour, but it is there if one looks for it.

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe."

John Muir

River travel

On a cold, windy, dreary day like today, having an abundance of photos to sort through is a pleasant diversion.

If you dam a river it stagnates.
Running water is beautiful water.
So be a channel.
           English proverb

First snow

For me, the first snow always brings mixed feelings.  It is a glimpse of what is to come for the next several months, but on the other hand, it offers a reprieve from the brown and gray world and makes everything look clean and crisp for a few hours.

"Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.
All its allotted days
The flower ripens in its place,
Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil."

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Lotus Eaters.

Hosta leaves

November is a time when it's easy to feel like I live in a brown world; the time between vibrant fall colours and the first clean, white, snow.  I was struck today by how lovely the dead hosta leaves in my garden looked in the morning sun.  I decided that even brown can be beautiful.

The thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilerating than any wine they tell of.

Henry David Thoreau

November sunrise

There is rhythm in the woods, and in the fields,

Nature yields:

And the harvest voices crying,

Blend with Autumn zephyrs sighing;

Tone and color, frost and fire,

Wings the nocturne Nature plays upon her lyre."

William Stanley Braithwaite, Lyric of Autumn

Halloween "faces"

When I snapped this photo of a dead tree in the springtime, it made me think of a face, and Halloween - so I kept it just for today.

The seed head of a Datura plant as it pops open to spill its seeds.

Raven

Halloween is coming up shortly, and there are some images we immediately associate with this time of year. 

The Raven is one such image.  I took this photo in Budapest Hungary.  It brought to mind Edgar Allan Poe's poem, The Raven.  -- "nevermore"!  However this is the raven of Matyas Corvinus.  In the 15th century his mother sent for him with a raven with a gold ring in its mouth.  Matyas went on to become one of Hungary's greatest kings.

A day at the zoo

Photography Challenge Week 42: Animals
I used this week's theme as a nudge to take a twice-postponed trip to the zoo.  It was a beautiful morning and a sparse crowd.

Visitors are met by some very co-operative snowy owls.  There is one of these majestic birds that makes a winter home in my neighbourhood.  I see it often, but by the time I stop my car, or walk closer to it, it's gone.  I wish, just once, it was as obliging as this bird.  On the other hand, I'm glad it's not.

Fortunately, some animals are in enclosures that one can reach over to photograph them.

This mom and her baby looked so content together!

 

How the muskox has adapted to its arctic environment is fascinating.

 

Some of the most entertaining creatures were those that wander about the zoo freely.  One has to remember that they are wild animals, and respect them. 

This peahen, one of many in the zoo, seems to be looking for something - a peacock perhaps (which I did not see).  

This little squirrel sat perfectly still on his branch as I came closer.  Perhaps he was glad for some attention in this place where most people only see much bigger animals.

 

Canada Geese are everywhere!

The bison are huge animals.  When I see them I wish I could be transported back in time for just a little to see what the prairies looked like when millions of these noble creatures roamed freely. 

"Zoo animals are ambassadors for their cousins in the wild."  Jack Hanna

Beauty

Today has been a day marred with tragedy.  It is easy to become despondent and fearful, but this evening's sunset reminded me that we all share a beautiful world.

"God's dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion."

Desmond Tutu

Zinnia

This zinnia blossom was bright red a few weeks ago.  Now it is brown and crisp.  To me, it's still lovely and fragile - like old paper.












"Then summer fades and passes and October comes.  We'll smell smoke then, and feel an unexpected sharpness, a thrill of nervousness, swift elation, a sense of sadness and departure."

Thomas Wolfe

Peony

I have had such fun this summer learning how to use my macro lens.  One of my favourite subjects has been the seed heads of plants in my garden.  I have never paid any attention to what plants look like after the petals turn brown and fall off.  The seed heads that form are just as interesting, if not more so, as the colourful flowers.  They look like alien creatures to me.  Next summer I hope to plant many more varieties of flowers so I can photograph them after they bloom.  Some of my family will be wondering about me.

     A peony

For man, autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering together.  For nature, it is a time of sowing, of scattering abroad.

Edwin Way Teale

Late autumn trees

Most trees by now have lost their leaves.  There are some varieties that keep their leaves long into the fall.  Coming across these when out walking on a beautiful, unseasonably warm day is good for the spirit.

"I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house.  So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air."

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Cultivate

Photography Challenge Week 41: Cultivate
This seemed like a no-brainer at first, considering all the photographic opportunities that living in the country offers.  I tried to come up with some other interpretations of the word, and tried some different images, but when the light is perfect and one finds equipment parked in the the perfect spot - might as well go with it.

A row crop cultivator parked for the season.

Tractor and cultivator parked for the day.









"Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man.  When tillage begins, other arts will follow.  The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization."

Daniel Webster

Autumn leaves

"Each golden day was cherished to the full, for one had the feeling that each must be the last.  Tomorrow it would be winter."

Elizabeth Enright