Jewels Of Winter ...

“Snowdrops: Theirs is a fragile but hearty celebration … in the very teeth of winter.”

               ~ Louise Beebe Wilder

            ~American gardening writer & designer

      whose books are now considered classics         of their era

                              ~ 1878 ~ 1938

 

Crocuses and daffodils are beautiful and wonderful to see, but the very first sign of spring being just around the corner are snowdrops – making them the jewels of winter. I captured these snowdrops in this infrared image on a late February afternoon along the Saucon Rail Trail in Lower Saucon Township, Hellertown, Pennsylvania.

 

Snowdrops are hardy perennial, winter-flowering plants that are often heralded as the first sign of spring. They bloom as early as January or February whatever the weather ~ they will even push through frozen, snow-covered ground.

 

Snowdrops are also known as Candlemas Bells, as they were gathered at Candlemas February 2 to decorate churches before the Reformation. They were symbols of purity, which was connected to the rite of purification that Mary observed by going to the temple forty days after Christmas. The festival was formerly known in the Roman Catholic Church as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary and is now known as the Presentation of the Lord. In the Anglican Church it is called the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. During Candlemas, all of the candles to be used in the church for the coming year are blessed, and the faithful are invited to bring their own candles so that they can be blessed and used in the home for prayer throughout the year.

 

Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist, named the snowdrop the Galanthus nivalis, “milk flower of the snow,” in 1753.

 

Snow-Dipped Robin Hood Dell ...

“ … Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter …”

   “In the Bleak Midwinter”

  ~ Christina Rossetti

    ~ 1830 ~ 1894

 ~ “In the Bleak Midwinter” is a poem by English poet Christina Rossetti, commonly performed as a Christmas carol. The poem was first published under the title “A Christmas Carol” in the January 1872 issue of “Scribner’s Monthly.”

A snow-dipped Robin Hood Dell is dressed up in winter’s beauty in this infrared image as the waters of the Little Lehigh Creek flow beneath the bridge at Lehigh Parkway, Allentown, Pennsylvania on a mid-February afternoon soon after seven inches of snow blanketed the area.

 

Simply June At Jacobsburg ...

“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”

                  ~ Jack Kerouac

                   ~ 1922-1969

A man takes in the beauty late spring has wrapped around Henry’s Woods at Jacobsburg State Park in this candid, infrared image I shot on a mid-June afternoon at the park that spans between Wind Gap and Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

Henry’s Woods offers very scenic hikes and the rest of the center grounds have multi-use trails.

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, which can be seen winding through this sun dappled landscape.

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.