After The April Rain ...

“Our spring has come at last with the soft laughter of April suns and shadow of April showers.” 

                      ~ Byron Caldwell Smith

After soaring temperatures into the 80s in mid-April spurred it to bloom, my favorite pink magnolia tree still looks beautiful just after a cold spring rain at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

The Spring Melt ...

“Spring is the time of year when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade.”

                    ~ Charles Dickens

                            ~ 1812-1870

The spring melt is on at Geiger’s Covered Bridge as the late March sun melts the snow off the roof a few days after a snowstorm on the first full day of spring March 21 brought more than a foot of snow to the region.

Geiger’s Covered Bridge is an historic wooden covered bridge in North Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania. It is a 112-foot-long Burr Truss bridge, constructed in 1860. It has vertical plank siding and an entry portal of stepped square planks. It crosses the Jordan Creek and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. It can be accessed from The Covered Bridge Trail of the Trexler Nature Preserve, Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.

A Touch of Bluebells ...

“A fine and subtle spirit dwells

In every little flower,

Each one its own sweet feeling breathes

With more or less of power.

There is a silent eloquence

In every wild bluebell

That fills my softened heart with bliss

That words could never tell …

But when I looked upon the bank

My wandering glances fell

Upon a little trembling flower,

A single sweet bluebell …

O, that lone flower recalled to me

My happy childhood’s hours

When bluebells seemed like fairy gifts

A prize among the flowers,

Those sunny days of merriment

When heart and soul were free,

And when I dwelt with kindred hearts

That loved and cared for me …”

        ~ “The Bluebell”

             ~Anne Bronte

               ~ 1820-1849

This little girl touches the beguiling bluebells blooming in early April near the banks of the Swabia Creek at Lock Ridge Park and Furnace Museum, Alburtis, Pennsylvania in this candid capture.

The blooming of the multitude of Lock Ridge bluebells – also called grape hyacinth – is a clarion call of spring in the Lehigh Valley, drawing many people to photograph and glimpse their beauty in the span of the few weeks they bloom.

Lock Ridge Park is a park built around an historic iron ore blast furnace just outside Alburtis, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley. The park preserves portions of the former Lock Ridge Iron Works, which dates back to 1868. The 59-acre park was opened in August 1976.