“Nature can seem cruel, but she balances her books.”
~ Alison Lurie
~Pulitzer Prize winning American novelist
~ 1926 ~ 2020
I love nature, but it can be cruel, such as in seeing this red-tailed hawk and its prey – a squirrel – on a mid-November evening at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.
I was lucky enough to capture several shots of the hawk as it guarded its prey – though I felt so sorry for the squirrel!
“How lovely yellow is! It stands for the sun.”
~ Vincent van Gogh
~ 1853 ~ 1890
Van Gogh loved yellow, and the striking use of the color is seen in his paintings. Van Gogh’s paintings of sunflowers are among his most famous, painted in Arles, in the south of France, in 1888 and 1889.
The sunflower (or “soniashnyk”) is Ukraine’s national flower and has been grown on its central and eastern steppes since the middle of the 18th century. And today, in light of Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine, the sunflower is a symbol of “I Stand With Ukraine!”
A gorgeous sunflower stands tall and shines its beauty on a lovely mid-August afternoon on the grounds of Kreidersville Covered Bridge, Allen Township, on the outskirts of Northampton, Pennsylvania.
Kreidersville Covered Bridge was built in 1839 and is loved for its great history and tranquil setting by the Hokendauqua Creek. It is the only covered bridge left in Northampton County.
The pedestrian-only bridge that crosses the Hokendauqua Creek is the oldest covered bridge in the Lehigh Valley and one of the oldest in the state. The historic wooden Burr Truss Bridge has a 116-foot-long span and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
“But memory is an autumn leaf that murmurs a while in the wind and then is heard no more.”
~ Khalil Gibran
~ 1883 ~ 1931
The reflection of autumn leaves colorfully cascades across the Pequest River as it flows through the middle of town in Belvidere, New Jersey, a Delaware River Town, on a perfect Indian Summer afternoon in early November.
The Pequest ~ Native American for “open land” ~ is a tributary of the Delaware River. It tumbles down to Belvidere in a series of falls, where it meets the Delaware.
Belvidere, one of my very favorite places, is a charming, Victorian town located on the banks of the Pequest and Delaware Rivers.
