Posts Tagged ‘images’
Inviting Portals
When it comes to forest bathing, we have a wide variety of enticing portals inviting one to dip a toe…
It’s enough to make a person want to dive right in to breathe the immunizing forest air.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Can you feel yourself inhaling deep at the sight?
We also have portals leading to open and airy trails along the borders of our fields.
Stepping through this last opening brings you to the entrance to our Rowcliffe Forest Garden Labyrinth, a large 11-circuit Chartes labyrinth. It lies just out of sight to the right of the opening, which I think makes this portal the most enticing of all.
Plus, the labyrinth is tucked up against the edge of our main forest, so walking the circuitous path provides an added side-benefit of breathing the health emanating from the trees.
Our paradise beckons with irresistible enticements. Sometimes, I have to pinch myself to figure out I’m not dreaming.
This morning, the trees are silent in the calm, moist summer air. Out our open windows and doors I hear the mesmerizing music of the pond waterfall, singing birds, and chirping insects. Most importantly, that is all I hear. There is no sound of traffic. No planes, trains, or automobiles.
Mornings like this are priceless.
It’s not that we are immune to the sounds of mechanization. We do experience the occasional passing of small planes. Warm weekends might offer up the roar of a passing train of motorcycles buzzing along County N toward the El Paso Bar and Grill. The neighboring fields get plowed, planted, and harvested by large farm tractors as the season dictates.
Finally, if it’s not the neighbors, it’s our own doing to be shattering the bucolic ambiance with the droning whine of small gas engines with a trimmer, chainsaw, or lawn mower.
It’s a necessary evil of creating and maintaining the inviting portals that grace our little nook in the beautiful countryside of western Wisconsin.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Enough That
That’ll be enough of that. I’ve changed the login password so the animals won’t be able to babble on here again for as long as I can avoid it. I’m grateful for their help and everything, but I think it is best delivered in small doses with long intervals between.
We had new help tending to the ranch while we were gone and they did a spectacular job of caring for animals and property. It makes our time away that much more enjoyable. Our fun was guilt-free.
Flying to Barb and Mike’s lake place worked out fabulously. In just a blink of an hour we were there. It was a wonderful weekend of palling around with treasured friends, eating out, shopping, playing games, boating, swimming, hiking, visiting, cooking/eating/cleaning, taking in a movie, sharing stories and laughter.
Happily, the weather cooperated in allowing us to fly home on schedule, without conflict.
It was a priceless weekend. Thanks, Mike and Barb!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Short Note
No time for blathering on this morning… Finished with breakfast, we are hustling down to rake and remove piles of grass from the labyrinth before rain arrives today.
While we work, you enjoy this image of berries and flowers that Cyndie captured.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Still There
I’ve made it through two days back at work, but like many years before, my mind is still back on the week of biking and camping with friends. Those days are a powerful elixir that takes a while to wear off.
The Tour of Minnesota is holding a photo contest which provides me an opportunity to revisit the trip, with an expanded view from my own, by perusing the 200-plus submissions from fellow riders.
Here are a couple of my own shots that I liked well enough to toss into the fray…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Lake Art
On a partly sunny day, between rain showers that rolled over us at regular intervals, I wandered down to the dock to soak up some sun. I thought maybe I could collect enough rays to lightly toast the inside of my arm to dry out what is now a pretty fierce poison ivy rash.
I don’t think it did anything for the rash, but I pulled out my camera and played around with the speckled pattern of puffy white clouds reflected on the surface of the water.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
For landlubbers, I’ll garnish these with an image from the forest to bring us back to solid ground…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
Other Views
There used to be two pine trees above the pond fountain, but they were outgrowing the space available and not really thriving, so Cyndie’s parents had them cut down. In a moment of inspiration that is very familiar to me, they chose to leave a few feet of the stumps as pedestals. It’s a perfect spot for a couple of flowering plants.
.
With the trees gone, I was able to capture a rare view of the “cabin” from the back side.
.
I arrived to the house from that direction because I had been walking through some of the trillium carpeted woods that surround us. This forest is one that feels so perfect for me. There are other natural landscapes over the world that are spectacular, but these trees and all that comes with them resonate the most profoundly with my soul.
I must have spent a few past lives in places just like this. I know the smells and the sounds, the colors, the critters, and the majority of growing plants somewhere deep in the cells of my body.
There are many a days when I dream of what this area was really like when the first tribes of people were able to call this home, long before the time when logging on an epic scale ravaged the growth.
I’m particularly pleased with the “Wildwood” name this property holds. It couldn’t feel more appropriate.
The stroll that brought me through these trees had started down at the beach, below the front side of the house. Camera in hand, I walked onto the footbridge that crosses our little boat lagoon and looked out at the lake and up toward the lodge.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
These are both views I don’t usually capture. As leaves open, the sight lines will become more obscured. The views are no less spectacular, but the camera doesn’t come close to what the eyes perceive.
I will never take for granted how lucky I am to be able to visit this space in person, where I can see, smell, hear, and touch a natural environment to which my soul feels so emotionally attached.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Flashingly Flooded
Tears. I could feel them through the text message I was seeing on my phone. Cyndie was getting a first look at the results of Wednesday’s heavy rains. Her flowering perennial garden had suffered a direct hit from the flood of water that poured onto our property from the farm field to our north.
In my pre-dawn departure for work, I had not noticed the extent of topsoil slop that had washed over our land. The much more obvious evidence I did see, which revealed the significance of overnight flooding, came in the form of field debris coating the roads.
I also spotted the dramatically high level of water overflowing the banks of the small creeks and waterways as I traveled the roads away from home.
Nature’s wrath has little regard for our feeble efforts to confine the actions of our environment.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Relative Something 