Local Scenery

When I’m out looking for plants I’ve never seen I often take photos of the places I visit, and most of those never appear here. I don’t consider myself a very good landscape photographer, but for a change of pace I thought I’d show some of the local scenery that I see in my travels. This photo is of Mount Monadnock from Perkins Pond in Troy, New Hampshire. I went there thinking I could get a good shot of a yellow water lily and found that there were so many of them that you couldn’t hardly see the water surface in places.

 

When you live in a 4.8 million acre forest big, open spaces are rare, so I always take a few shots of those that I find. I took this photo more for the clouds than anything else. They were so low that it felt as if I might touch them if I jumped high enough.

 

This is one of many woodland trails I visit. On most days I’m more likely to be found in a place like this than anywhere else. This particular piece of forest has soil that has been undisturbed for a very long time and plants like striped wintergreen (Chimaphila maculate) and downy rattlesnake plantain orchid (Goodyera pubescens) grow here.

Anyone who has been reading this blog for any length of time knows that I also spend time on the banks of the Ashuelot River, where I find a lot of different wildflowers. Last winter this entire area was completely covered by a thick sheet of ice and it amazes me how the plants that live here can survive it.

This small pond is another spot that I visit often. It’s in a place called Robin Hood Park in Keene, which I keep telling myself I’m going to do a post about but never do. There is a path that goes around the entire pond and the huge old white pine and eastern hemlock trees keep it very shaded and moist, so many different mushrooms and slime molds grow here. When the warm muggies arrive in summer this is the first place I go to look for all of the things that grow in low light.

 

I don’t usually take many photos of man-made objects but this old hunting shack had a for sale sign so I thought I’d stop and take a look. It needs a little work but it can probably be had for a song.

This old wheel had been leaning against the wall of the shack for a while. It was a white rubber tire on a steel rim with wooden spokes. I’ve never seen one like it.

One day I came upon these stone steps out in the middle of nowhere and walked up them, thinking I’d find an old cellar hole at the top, but there was nothing there. They were just stairs that led to nothing, not even a path.

This photo is of reflections, because the water was as still as a sheet of glass.

 

One of the things I love about New Hampshire in the summertime is how quickly the road sides can become beautiful meadows. Sometimes you can drive along a road and not see any flowers and then just a day or two later they’re everywhere. It’s hard to have a pessimistic view of life while surrounded by beauty like this.

 

Looking up through the branches of a black locust tree. I’ve always liked the dappled sunlight that is found under locust trees.

Here’s a shot of the kayak that I bought at a moving sale last fall. This shot was taken just before I took it out on our maiden voyage recently. It was and is a lot of fun, but I’ve got to get used to it. I bought it because there is a pond I know of where rose pogonia orchids, pitcher plants and sundews grow but the only way to see them is in a boat. That will happen next year, after I have my sea legs under me. Right now being alone in a kayak out on a pond that is miles from nowhere doesn’t seem like such a good idea.

The kayak took me to this island in another local pond. Most of the bushes growing on its shores are high bush blueberries, but they weren’t ripe yet. This pond has people living all around it so if anyone has a boating accident help is within earshot.

 

This is a local swamp I visit sometimes to watch the sun set. Sunsets can be really spectacular here but on this evening it was too cloudy.

I thought I saw the head of a lion come roaring out of the leading edge of these clouds one evening.

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the blue sky, is by no means waste of time. ~John Lubbock

Thanks for coming by.