Silver White Winters ...

“…Silver-white winters that melt into springs

These are a few of my favorite things …”

                   ~ “My Favorite Things”

                       ~from the 1959
       Rodgers & Hammerstein musical 
               “The Sound Of Music”  

The snowy creek shimmers with silvery beauty after a late winter snowfall on an early March evening at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania in this infrared image.

This beauty will eventually melt into spring, but for now the silver-white winter lingers to paint a  quiet, majestic beauty.

Of Honeysuckle Afternoons ...

“What a pity flowers can utter no sound! A singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle – oh what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be!”

        ~ Henry Ward Beecher

         ~ 1813-1877 

Coral Honeysuckle brings a shot of colorful beauty to a beautiful late May afternoon at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Coral Honeysuckle – also known as trumpet honeysuckle or scarlet honeysuckle – is a species of honeysuckle native to the eastern United States.

It can grow in many areas due to its hardiness, and is most often grown as a plant for wildlife. Ruby-throated hummingbirds use it in their natural range, as well as other birds, butterflies and bees. It is also grown as an ornamental for its attractive flowers, especially as a native alternative to the invasive Japanese Honeysuckle.

Though Coral Honeysuckle doesn’t have the heady perfume of Japanese Honeysuckle that I love, it’s still a beautiful sight on an afternoon in spring!

Mountain Sugar ...

“Winter is in my head, but spring is in my heart.”

                       ~ Victor Hugo

                           ~ 1802-1885

There’s sugar on the mountain and sugar on the trail as snow beautifies the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail) that hugs the Kittatinny Ridge at Lehigh Gap on a January afternoon in this monochrome shot.

In the shadow of the Kittatinny Ridge, also called Blue Mountain, The Lehigh Gap in Slatington, Pennsylvania, 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.