Tree Tuesday: A Weathered Face

A Well-Worn Face

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Letters

This week’s photo challenge topic is Letters.

I often take pictures of old trees. To me they represent strength and life, and I love them for that. The oldest of them withstand storms, diseases, and human intervention.

As humans we sense that they are more sturdy and permanent than we are, less frail. The urge to carve messages into their bark is an irresistible human desire for immortality. Even before we knew how to make paper from trees, we used them to proclaim our existence and express ourselves.

Autographed Old Tree in Graveyard

This one has an autographed branch.

Autographed Tree

 

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Tree Tuesday: Birch Bark…Ready to Make a Canoe?

Peeling Birch Bark

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Weekly Photo Challenge: On Top

This week’s photo challenge topic is On Top.

I loved this sculpture I recently saw in Hingham Square.

Hingham Square Sculpture

Here’s a close-up: there are frogs on top of turtles on top of a rock.

On Top of the Rock is a Frog on Top of a Turtle…

How about a couple of natural photos? I wanted to get closer to this tree swallow perched on top of the fence post, but I was afraid it would fly away. In fact, a couple with a dog walked up behind me right after I took this shot and the inevitable happened. Whoosh…

Tree Swallow

I found the golden lichen on top of this grave marker quite striking.

Lichen on Top of Grave Marker

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Tree Tuesday: Tall White Birch

Straight to the Sky…

I’d like to get away from Earth for awhile,

and then come back to it and begin over…

I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,

and climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, til the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

Robert Frost, “Birches”

 

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Monument

The week’s challenge topic is Monument. Here is a gallery of monument photos I have featured in the past, plus a couple of new ones.

The Boston area of the U.S. has a lot of history, though we are really a “young” nation compared with Europe. So, none of these monuments are really “old.”

Massasoit monument

Pilgrim Sculpture

George Washington in Public Garden

Statue of Mayor White

Adams Library at Peacefield

Sachem’s Rock

Mayflower II

The Library at Peacefield is from the 1800s.

So too, is the statue of Washington in the Public Gardens.

The original “Mayflower” that brought the pilgrims to America is long gone; the Mayflower II is a replica built in the 1950s.

 

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A Word a Week Photograph Challenge: Sign

This is a new challenge for me, but when I saw it, I knew I had something to post:

 

Cat Sign

Join the challenge here.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Threshold II

Wandering around an old graveyard yesterday and I couldn’t resist another take on the Weekly Photo Challenge.

Old Crypts

The marble one had a “ghostly” look.

Marble Crypt Door

Yikes…this one looks like someone tried to break in or break out!

Cracked Crypt Door

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Threshold

It’s been a long, cold winter in New England. Even though the calendar has proclaimed that the new season started weeks ago, we are just now on the threshold of spring. Opening Day at Fenway was yesterday (the Official start of spring in NE), and the crocuses are blooming.

Crocuses in bloom

The bright green sprouts of lilies are poking out of last year’s mulch.

Lilies Sprouting

The daffodils are just beginning to bud.

Daffodil’s are on Their Way!

And yet there is still that one stubborn patch of dirty snow that won’t give up the ghost…

Last Spot of Snow…

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Even Bees Love Crocuses

When I was out walking yesterday I saw these lovely crocuses, complete with my first bee! Of course it makes sense that bees would like them, they are after all a flower, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bee on a crocus…or maybe I just don’t usually see bees so early?

Spring Crocus

Of course as it is National Poetry Month, I have to include a poem.

“The Crocus”

Beneath the sunny autumn sky,
With gold leaves dropping round,
We sought, my little friend and I,
The consecrated ground,
Where, calm beneath the holy cross,
O’ershadowed by sweet skies,
Sleeps tranquilly that youthful form,
Those blue unclouded eyes.

Around the soft, green swelling mound
We scooped the earth away,
And buried deep the crocus-bulbs
Against a coming day.
“These roots are dry, and brown, and sere;
Why plant them here?” he said,
“To leave them, all the winter long,
So desolate and dead.”

“Dear child, within each sere dead form
There sleeps a living flower,
And angel-like it shall arise
In spring’s returning hour.”
Ah, deeper down–cold, dark, and chill–
We buried our heart’s flower,
But angel-like shall he arise
In spring’s immortal hour.

In blue and yellow from its grave
Springs up the crocus fair,
And God shall raise those bright blue eyes,
Those sunny waves of hair.
Not for a fading summer’s morn,
Not for a fleeting hour,
But for an endless age of bliss,
Shall rise our heart’s dear flower.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Seeing them I felt giddy with spring and this little ditty came to my head:

Little bee , little bee

are you as happy as me

these crocuses to see?

😀

 

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