Main Street Americana ...

 “To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”

             ~ Elliot Erwitt

           ~ French-born American photographer

                    ~ 1928 ~ 2023

A slice of Americana …

American flag bunting festoons storefronts on Main Street at Union Square in the historic town of Phillipsburg, New Jersey as a Chevy truck is stopped at the traffic light on a beautiful mid-September afternoon in the waning summer.

Signs advertise the Phillipsburg Farmers Market and 2025 Railroad Festival at the spot at the end of the historic Northampton Street Bridge, commonly called the Free Bridge, which spans the Delaware River and links Phillipsburg with Easton, Pennsylvania.

Phillipsburg, a Delaware River Town, was established March 8, 1861 and named for William Phillips, an early settler of the area.

The Autumn Crocus ...

“Child of the pensive autumn woods!

So lovely, though thou dwell obscure and lone …

Where shall I ever find

So rare a grace? In what shy solitudes? …”

            ~ “The Autumn Crocus”

              ~ Robert Laurence Binyon

             ~ English poet, dramatist & art scholar

                 ~ 1869 ~ 1943

Afternoon sunlight softly dances around an Autumn Crocus that emerges as a beacon of hope amidst the fading colors of fall on a beautiful early September day on the cusp of autumn at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Colchicum autumnale, commonly known as autumn crocus, meadow saffron, naked boys or naked ladies, is a toxic autumn-blooming flowering plant that resembles the true crocuses, but is a member of the plant family Colchicaceae, unlike the true crocuses, which belong to the Iris family. It is called “naked boys/ladies” because the flowers emerge from the ground long before the leaves appear. Despite the vernacular name of “meadow saffron,” this plant is not the source of saffron, which is obtained from the saffron crocus, Crocus savitus ~ and that plant, too, is sometimes called “autumn crocus.”

 

If Only Summer Could Stay ...

 

“It was a lovely afternoon ~ such an afternoon as only September can produce when summer has stolen back for one more day of dream and glamour.”

    ~ L.M. Montgomery

     ~ 1874 ~ 1942

Blue Aster flowers bask in the warm, waning summer sunshine of a beautiful mid-September afternoon at the Lehigh Gap Nature Center at Lehigh Gap, Slatington, Pennsylvania.

 

Blue Aster flowers have large flowerheads that bloom in different shades of blue throughout the summer and early autumn. Their beautiful blue blooms range from light blue to deeper, vibrant dark-purple like blooms. Blue Aster is a popular choice for wildflower, native plant and butterfly gardens.

 

In the shadow of the Kittatinny Ridge, also called Blue Mountain, The Lehigh Gap is a crossroads where the Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s trails connect two historic trails ~ the Appalachian Trail and the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail.)

 

The Appalachian Trail, a foot path, follows the ridge on both sides of the Lehigh Gap, running 1,245 miles south to Georgia and 930 miles north to Maine. Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

A Spoonful of Love ...

“If you want to go quickly, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.”

        ~ African Proverb

 

A beautiful white-tailed deer doe exchanges a spoonful of love nuzzling with one of her sweet white-spotted fawns during a precious moment I captured in the waning summer on an early September evening at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania … a honey of a summer sight!