Category Archives: Nature

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Elemental

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“Explore the classical elements of earth, air, water, and fire. How do you capture something invisible like air, or the movement of water? Or, more personally, is there a place you go to feel connected to the earth?”

Air, water and fire form a double rainbow touching Earth. 

Sitting on the ground beside a lake, the campfire behind him dancing in the air. 

Connected to the earth, from head to toe. 

Elemental

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Textures

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Nature loves to combine textures with remarkable contrast.  

Spine-prickly and petal-soft:

Cold, smooth, and rough: 

Fuzzy and rigid: 

 

Smooth, rough and bumpy:

Wet slippery, dry and grainy: 

 

Everywhere you look, Nature feels wonderful.  

Textures

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Weekly Photo Challenge: What’s Wrong With This Picture?

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Do you see something….unusual…in this photo?  

Blue ‘Shroom, I saw you standing alone….
It’s a lactarius indigo edible mushroom. The latex or milk that oozes from it turns from blue or blue/gray to green when it is cut open. I’ve only seen this one. 

And what’s wrong with this picture? 

Boys in shorts, green grass and blooming flowers, and…snow on the ground? 
Okay, I’m kidding. That’s not snow. It’s flower petals from the tree overhead. 

 

What about these? Anything ODD about this place? 

Yeah. It’s all weird. I don’t get humans. I’m sticking to Nature Photography. 😉  

Unusual

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Collage

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Here is a gallery collage of photos from my recent series, An American Adventure. In a two-week road trip, I visited eight National Parks and Monuments in Colorado, Utah, and South Dakota. If you would like to see the entire collection of 17 blog posts, click on the banner headline An American Adventure. 

Canyonlands National Park, Utah
The Green River flows through Dinosaur National Monument

Collage

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Delta

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Δ Delta

“This week, share a photograph that signifies transitions and change to you… Explore the ways in which a single photograph can express time, while only showing us a small portion of any given moment.”

Time and change symbolized in a static, 2-dimensional image — not an easy trick. However, all around us there are clues to the way that Nature has changed things over time.  How about:
1) The resting place of the bleached pelvic bone of an elk who once wandered this tall grass prairie in South Dakota

2) The abstract art of calcite deposits left in a cave long after limestone has dissolved  

 3) The fossilized bones of dinosaurs that roamed the Earth some 150 million years ago, exhibited for present day tourists to see and touch

4) These stately forms of sandstone, layered and eroded over time 

5) The moment in time when light, air, water and Earth meet in a colorful conjunction, only to disappear in the next movement of the elements

Of these five examples, which one speaks to you of the joy in change and movement? 

Delta

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An American Adventure: Part Fifteen

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Medicine Bow National Forest

Where to now?

With Memorial Day over and the commitment to be back at the office in one week, we faced a point of decision. Steve felt that we had missed the chance to go deeply into a single Place and was willing to drive straight home to Wisconsin. I wanted to see some sights along the way and avoid spending a night napping in the passenger seat or in a truck stop. We reached a compromise and decided to head toward the Black Hills for a few more days of exploring. 

Heading northeast from Vernal, Utah on Highway 191, we found ourselves traveling the Flaming Gorge Scenic Byway.  Two state parks are along this road, and then the Ashley National Forest and Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. Where the land isn’t protected, mining operations have stripped off the top of the mountains. The sight of those huge scars made me shake. Along the way, we realized we were on the “Drive Through the Ages Geological Tour”. This section of road traverses the Morrison Formation. Roadside signs name the various geological features and approximate their age. It was like having a review of the Geology 101 talk we heard at Dinosaur National Monument by going down the symmetrically opposite side of that bell curve.

The Flaming Gorge Recreational Area was created by damming up the Green River that flowed by our campsite the previous night. I have so many questions about how this man-made alteration affects the land, why it was proposed and built, who benefits and who loses. I have questions about others in the west as well: Glen Canyon dam, Hoover dam, and the rest along the Colorado River. Coming over the top of the Uinta Mountains, all I could say when I saw these structures through my cracked windshield was, “Dam!” 

We headed on to Interstate 80 going east through Wyoming and crossed the Continental Divide again…twice. At this lower elevation, it splits into two lines on the road map, and it seems there is a dry basin area in the middle. In eastern Wyoming, we camped in Medicine Bow National Forest for the night. It was quite close to the Interstate, convenient but noisy. Rain was falling as we pitched the tent. I scrambled inside, but emerged shortly because I had forgotten something in the car. I’m so glad I did not miss this sight!At the end of the day, no matter what humans have done, built or destroyed, there is still Air, Water, Sun and Earth. I am glad. And I am humbled. This is the Medicine Bow.

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An American Adventure: Part Five

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Scale and Humility

There is no way to capture the depth of the space in a canyon in a 2-dimensional photograph. If you are standing anywhere near it, though, you get a sense of your own size and scale in relation to it. After a full day of walking outdoors in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, I began to feel an existential shift. It may have been coupled with dehydration or an altitude reaction. That huge expanse of open air off the edge of the rim fascinated me. I could disappear, be swallowed whole, and evaporate like a drop of rain before hitting the ground. I stood before a terrifying beauty. I trembled. My legs were weak. I sat down on the rock shelf in Steve’s embrace and wept. 

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An American Adventure: Part Four

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Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park

I was 9 years old and seeing the mountains of Colorado for the first time the last time I was here. Frankly, the only thing I remember of it from back then is the name. It kind of scared me.

 

It is a National Park, a deep gorge, a wild river, a cross-section of geography, and a wilderness where humans are temporary visitors at best. From the Visitor Center parking lot, a glimpse of the scale of  its depth is merely a tease. 

 

After a good night’s sleep, we walked the canyon rim from the campgrounds to the Visitor Center and got a closer look. 

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado

The early morning silence, the delicate frost in the shadows, the warm fragrance of juniper and sage, the glimmer of rushing water at the canyon floor…I had stepped into a holy sanctuary that Sunday morning and wept with awe and joy…and sadness.I feel the threat to wild land as a pain deep in my gut. The river that carved this place is running high this year and being “managed” and diverted and manipulated to provide irrigation and recreation and serve a host of human needs. I don’t know how all the demands are weighed on this issue. My desire is to listen to the place itself, to let it simply Be, and to learn what I can with my brain, my heart, and my soul. 

A volunteer guided us on a wildflower walk later that afternoon and introduced us to Western species new to us. Many of the Gambel oaks had just budded when that late snowstorm hit, and their tiny, crisp, shriveled leaves looked woefully sad. They are a hardy bunch and will hopefully recover, but the acorn yield in the fall will likely be diminished. The colorful blooms along the trail seemed to be not at all harmed. 

This plant tour proved very useful. We saw a lot of Oregon grape, which is quite common and looks a lot like poison oak when it shows up as just three leaves with a reddish tinge. However, it does get additional leaves and yellow flowers which make it obviously distinct.

The campsite we found later in the Manti-La Sal National Forest was covered with it. I was glad to know I wasn’t risking a poison oak rash every time I went in the brush to pee!

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflecting on the Moods of Water

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Our planet’s surface is about 70% water. That means that water is in a lot of different places, in different climates, in different habitats, making an impact in a lot of different ways, catching the light in different ways, and creating a lot of different scenes. Water is a universal solution for a million different situations and can be a mirror for any expression. It seems to be found in any landscape, big or small.

And to be the perfect medium for any mood, calm and pensive…

…or vibrant...

…or enigmatically abstract.

 Reflecting shadow and light, stillness and movement, water carries the dynamic play of life.

Sturgeon River Gorge Wilderness, Michigan
California sea lions

There’s so much to appreciate about water. And maybe the time to be aware of that is every time you take a healthy sip. Then you can also reflect on how the water you drink got to you and how that process is impacting the planet. But that’s another post…

Reflecting

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Weekly Photo Challenge: EARTH!

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I plan to celebrate Earth Day 2017 by helping the conservation foundation I work for plant 5500 trees on 11 acres of land that has been farmed for a long time. White oak, pin oak, red oak and shagbark hickory seedlings will be growing up around monarch and pollinator meadows for years to come. Eventually, the area will resemble more closely the hardwood forests of the area prior to European settlement.

I think a lot about the impact of the human race on our planet. 

I am trying to have a harmonious relationship with the Earth. It’s not easy. So much was put into place before I was born. I feel locked into an abusive and foregone conclusion. I greatly admire those who break out of that and live courageously and radically “off the grid”. I do what I can, beginning with raising my own awareness and spending more time listening and observing. 

How do you get to know a planet? It’s a complex organism. So many moving parts…

And I have been deeply moved. You too?


Earth