Liberty Lights Up ...

“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”

    ~ from “Had a Declaration,” letter from

 John Adams to Abigail Adams

       ~ July 3, 1776

       ~ John Adams

        ~ 1735 ~ 1826

  ~American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second   President of the United States of America 1797 ~ 1801

 

Liberty’s rays of ravishing light and glory light up the summer night sky during the 2021 Fourth of July Fireworks set off from J. Birney Crum Stadium, Allentown, Pennsylvania.

 

Happy 245^th Birthday America!

 

How wonderful it would be to have fireworks – and the fire of patriotism – in our hearts every day!

 

Bloomin' Baby Bison ...

“The wildlife and its habitat cannot speak, so we must and we will …”

  ~ Theodore Roosevelt

   ~ 1858-1919

  ~ Naturalist & Conservationist

  ~26^th President of the United States of America

   ~ 1901-1909

With a thistle blooming to its left, a sweet baby bison enjoys an mid-June afternoon on the spring range at Trexler Nature Preserve, Schnecksville, Pennsylvania, where I captured this portrait of an American Bison calf on a late spring day as its mother grazed close by.

This baby bison is bloomin’ ~ growing up ~ to one day be a national symbol. The American Bison was designated the first national mammal of the United States on May 9, 2016. The majestic bison joins the bald eagle as a national symbol.

Bison live as a herd on the hillsides of the 1,100-acre preserve’s Central Range. When the late General Harry C. Trexler established the preserve in the early 1900s, he did it to save the American bison, elk and white-tailed deer from extinction and assure the species’ survival.

A conservationist along the lines of Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir, General Trexler understood the importance of nature and preserving wildlife in its natural habitat.

A successful businessman who amassed a fortune in the timber and cement industries and founded the Pennsylvania Power and Light Company, General Trexler began purchasing small farms in the low hills of Lehigh County in 1906. By 1913, he had transported eight bison and 20 Virginia white-tailed deer to the preserve. The elk followed soon after.

When General Trexler died in 1933, he bequeathed the property to the residents of Lehigh County. Today, the Trexler Nature Preserve is open to the public for passive recreation and nature watching.

 

Strawberry Moon Field ...

“Let me take you down

'Cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields

Nothing is real

And nothing to get hung about

Strawberry Fields forever …”

      ~ “Strawberry Fields Forever”

          ~ released 1967

   ~written by John Lennon & credited to

              Lennon-McCartney

~ John Lennon based the song on his childhood memories of playing in the garden of Strawberry Field, a Salvation Army children’s home in Liverpool.

 

The Super Strawberry Moon “ripens” in a beautiful field in abstract, where nothing is real.

 

I created this image by blending my shot of the Super Strawberry Moon holding court in the sky over the West End of Allentown, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley at 10:33 p.m. June 24, 2021, with background texture by Jai Johnson for artistic effect.

 

This Super Strawberry Moon is the last near-Supermoon of 2021. According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the name “Strawberry Moon” originated with Algonquin tribes in eastern North America, who knew the June full moon as a signal to gather ripening fruit of wild strawberries.

 

This Super Strawberry Moon rose just before 9 p.m. in the Lehigh Valley, about a half-hour passed sunset. It is the first full moon of summer 2021.