Illick's Mill Draped In Winter ...

“Places I love come back to me as music …”

      ~ Sara Teasdale

    ~ American lyric poet & Pulitzer Prize winner

      ~ 1884-1933

       ~ “The Collected Poems”

Illick’s Mill is draped in winter as a February evening beckons while the sunset wanes at Monocacy Park, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, three days after the region was blanketed with 27.3 inches of snow.

Illick’s Mill, also known as Peters’ Mill and Monocacy Milling Co., is an historic grist mill. It was built in 1856, and is a four level, vernacular stone mill building with a heavy timber frame interior. The original building measured approximately 34 by 40 feet. The building was expanded in the 1880s with a 20-foot addition and the addition of the fourth level and a monitor roof. The mill was formerly the home of the Fox Environmental Center.

The grist mill was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. As of October 2015, the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Mid-Atlantic Conservation Office has occupied a portion of the building, under a lease agreement with the City of Bethlehem. The building is maintained and its uses managed by the City of Bethlehem’s Parks, Recreation and Public Properties Department.

 

The Ford In Winter ...

“The snow is melting into music.”

   ~ John Muir

   ~1838-1914

Winter frosts the Ford of the Jordan Creek, one of my very favorite places to be and to photograph, at Trexler Nature Preserve, Schnecksville, Pennsylvania, composing a symphony of winter beauty.

I shot this frosty scene as the light of the looming sunset waltzes on the icy waters soon after the historic January Blizzard of 2016. In a winter shorn of snow until the blizzard, the storm plonked 31 inches of snow on nearby Allentown in a 24 hour period.

 

Livin' The Dream ...

“Livin’ The Dream!”

My favorite button buck – Buttons, as I call him – seems to be “livin’ the dream” – for a white-tailed deer – as he happily enjoys eating an apple on an early February evening in the park while his mama doe and twin sister stood close by.

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.