A Nuzzle For Mama ...

“There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.”

              ~ George Sand

        ~ pseudonym of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, French novelist & memoirist

                      ~ 1804 ~ 1876

My favorite white-tailed deer button buck ~ Buttons, as I call him ~ gives his mama doe a sweet nuzzle under the early evening sun on beautiful late April day at Trexler Memorial Park, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

I began photographing Buttons as a precious white-spotted fawn, then a sweet button buck and then a beautiful yearling, until he migrated away in January 2020. Along the way I tossed him many apples, which he loved eating. It’s a true joy and blessing to me personally and as a photographer to have watched this white-tailed deer grow.

 

Love Locks Over The Monocacy ...

“There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.”

 ~ George Sand

 ~ pseudonym of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, French novelist & memoirist

 ~ 1804 ~1876

The love locks left by visitors as a symbol of their love line the bridge spanning the rushing autumn waters of the Monocacy Creek on a mid-November afternoon at Monocacy Park, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

 

The Pont des Arts is the most famous for being the Lock Bridge in Paris, France. Visitors to the bridge attach personalized padlocks to its railing and throw the keys away in the Seine River.

 

A love lock or love padlock is a padlock that sweethearts lock to a bridge, fence, gate, monument or similar public fixture to symbolize their love. Typically the sweethearts’ names or initials, and perhaps the date, are inscribed on the padlock, and its key is thrown away (often into a nearby river) to symbolize unbreakable love.

 

Since the 2000s, love locks have proliferated at an increasing number of locations worldwide. They are treated by some municipal authorities as litter or vandalism, and there is some cost to their removal. However, there are other authorities who embrace them, and who use them as fundraising projects or tourist attractions.

Let Me Call You Sweetheart ...

 

… “Let me call you “sweetheart,” I’m in love with you

Let me hear you whisper that you love me too

Keep the love-light glowing in your eyes so true

Let me call you “sweetheart,” I’m in love with you …”

      ~ “Let Me Call You Sweetheart”

    ~ popular song published in 1910

  ~ music by Leo Friedman & lyrics by Beth Slater Whitson

    ~recorded by artists including Bing Crosby, The Mills Brothers, Pat Boone, Patti Page, Fats Domino & Slim Whitman

Bleeding hearts bring thoughts of love in bloom on a mid-April evening in spring along the Ironton Rail Trail, which loops more than nine miles through Whitehall Township, the Borough of Coplay and North Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania.

Bleeding hearts are shade-loving woodland plants that bloom in the cool of spring. Although they stay in bloom for several weeks, the plants often become ephemeral, disappearing for the rest of the summer if exposed to too much sun or heat. The roots are still alive, though, and the plant will regrow in the fall or the following spring. The fringed-leaf varieties of bleeding heart repeat-bloom throughout the summer.

 

The Ironton Railroad was a shortline railroad in Lehigh County. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted to carrying Portland Cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20^th century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.

 

In 1996, Whitehall Township purchased 9.2 miles of the right-of-way from Conrail, transforming it into the Ironton Rail Trail.