Liberty In Light ...

“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

   ~ from the inspiring Inaugural Address of

  President John Fitzgerald Kennedy

  ~ 1917 ~1963

  ~ 35th President of the United States of America

  ~ 1960 ~ 1963

  & U.S. Navy veteran

Liberty’s red hot rays of ravishing light burst across the summer night sky during the 2025 Fourth of July Fireworks set off from J. Birney Crum Stadium, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Happy Birthday, America! Bravo!

How wonderful it would be to have fireworks ~ and the fire of patriotism ~ in our hearts every day!

Great Spangled's Summer ...

“The beautiful is a phenomenon which is never apparent of itself, but is reflected in a thousand different works of the creator.”

     ~ Goethe

     ~ 1749 ~ 1832

 

A Great Spangled Fritillary – the first I’ve ever captured in a photo – sips the nectar of a purple coneflower on a beautiful summer afternoon in early July at Jacobsburg State Park, which spans between Wind Gap and Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

Jacobsburg State Park offers environmental education programs from the preschool environmental awareness programs to high school level environmental problem solving programs, historical programs, teacher workshops and public interpretive programs.

The park surrounds the Bushkill Creek.

The original land for the center was purchased by the Department of Forests and Waters from the City of Easton in 1959. In 1969, additional land was purchased using funds from Project 70. This brought the total land area of the center to its present size of 1,168 acres.

 

The Cuddle Up ...

 

“Happiness is the richest thing we will ever own.”

          ~ Donald Duck

 

Adorable mallard ducklings happily cuddle up ~ with their mama nearby ~ by the Coplay Creek on a beautiful early July evening along the Ironton Rail Trail, which loops more than nine miles through Whitehall Township, the Borough of Coplay and North Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania.

 

The Ironton Railroad was a shortline railroad in Lehigh County. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted to carrying Portland Cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20^th century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.

 

In 1996, Whitehall Township purchased 9.2 miles of the right-of-way from Conrail, transforming it into the Ironton Rail Trail.

The Merry Month Of May ...

“Childhood memories are like fireflies – small, fleeting, but they light up the darkest nights.”

           ~ often attributed to Rabindranath Tagore

                             ~ 1861 ~ 1941

A trio of young girls make happy childhood memories searching for tadpoles in the waters of the Jordan Creek that are about to spill over Wehr’s Dam, built in 1904, on a beautiful late May afternoon at Covered Bridge Park, Orefield, Pennsylvania.

          

To See A Mockingbird ...

“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy …”

      ~ “To Kill a Mockingbird”

        ~ Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Harper Lee

              ~ 1960

A Northern Mockingbird ~ the first I’ve ever photographed ~ keeps an eye on spring perched in the grass enjoying a late March afternoon at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

According to All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Northern Mockingbirds continue to add new sounds to their repertoires throughout their lives. A male may learn around 200 songs throughout its life.