Early Spring Postcard ...

“Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn.”

  ~ Lewis Grizzard

   ~ 1946 ~ 1994

 ~ American writer & humorist, known for his Southern demeanor & commentary on the American South.

The feeling of early spring pirouettes on the waters of the Jordan Creek as they spill over Wehr’s Dam, built in 1904, to flow beneath the historic Wehr’s Covered Bridge, creating a picturesque early spring postcard at Wehr’s Covered Bridge Park, Orefield, Pennsylvania.

The wooden covered bridge in South Whitehall Township is a three-span, 117-foot long Burr Truss bridge, constructed in 1841. It has horizontal siding and a gable roof. It crosses the Jordan Creek and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

I shot this image in the late afternoon of March 24, 2024, less than a week after spring had once again awakened the land.

 

summerscape video ...

 

The beautiful, sweeping “Love Theme from Picnic” by George Duning from the wonderful 1955 film “Picnic” sets the mood for this celebration of summer – my most favorite of seasons – showcased in my original photos.

My greatest joy as a photographer is harmonizing my favorite original photos to music to create a lasting snapshot of the season … Enjoy!

Also on my YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1FsrWK1Bvo

Prints, Gifts & Décor of images available on my Fine Art America /Pixels site, http://tami-quigley.pixels.com

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.