Boxed Lunch ...

    ~ “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”

        ~ alternatively, “There is no such thing as a free lunch” or other variants, is a popular adage communicating the idea that it is impossible to get something for nothing. The phrase was in use by the 1930s, but its first appearance is unknown. The “free lunch” in the saying refers to the 19^th-century practice in American bars of offering a “free lunch” in order to entice drinking customers.

There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, but there was no cashier in sight as this alpaca enjoyed its “boxed lunch” on a late November afternoon at the Lehigh Valley Zoo in Trexler Nature Preserve, Schnecksville, Pennsylvania.

A boxed lunch is a lunch or light meal packed in a cardboard box or similar container.

Buttons Meets His Apple ...

“A simple act of kindness and compassion towards a single animal may not mean anything to all creatures, but will mean everything to one.”

                     ~ Paul Oxton

             ~ founder & director of 

         Wild Heart Wildlife Foundation

My favorite white-tailed deer button buck – Buttons, as I call him – meets his apple on an October day in the park as his mama doe stood close by.

I began photographing Buttons as a precious white-spotted fawn, then a sweet button buck and now a beautiful yearling, tossing him many apples, which he loves eating, along the way. It’s a true joy and blessing to me personally and as a photographer to watch this white-tailed deer grow.

Young Dreams ...

“Dream no small dreams.”

    ~ Victor Hugo

   ~ 1802-1885

A beautiful Juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk casts its eye across the landscape from a high perch on a late September afternoon kissed by the autumn sun on the Kittatinny Ridge, also called Blue Mountain, along the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail) at Lehigh Gap, Slatington, Pennsylvania.

The Lehigh Gap is a crossroads where the Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s trails connect two historic trails – the Appalachian Trail and the 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.

Background texture by Jai Johnson added for artistic effect.