Did you ever notice how frost forms little spicules of ice on the grass, making it look like white fur? The macro lens makes it even more obvious, especially when the warm early morning light is slanting across it, bringing out the texture.
On a cool, rainy, fall afternoon, when the rain stops, the magic begins.
Fall colors in Kentucky are just plain spectacular, even off the tree.
Spring colors lend a different feel to the woods, one of life springing forth, renewal and growth. Nothing typifies this better than the tulip poplar, with its large, showy blossoms.
Nothing tastes better than a venison loin roasted over cedar coals in a pleasant camp. When it's seasoned with that quintessential spice of the eighteenth century, nutmeg, it is savory, indeed. Add a little gunpowder tea to the meal, and what more do you need?
On cold, dry mornings around my country, magic happens at the base of dead ironweed stems. The most beautiful, delicate, fragile creation of rime ice, called frost flowers or rabbit frost, is extruded from slits in the stem of the plant, and only from that plant. They fascinate me, and I am always on the lookout for an impressive one.
Frost Flower One
Frost Flower Two
Tucked into the relative dry at the base of a cedar tree, listening to the soft rain falling and looking out at rising mist right where you want that big tom turkey to appear, who could ever forget it, whether he appears or not?
Sometimes you get a picture quite different than the one you expected, as when you press the shutter release, thinking you have the 'timer' function set, but don't.
A historic spring house, at what was once A'Sturgis Station, Louisville, Kentucky, ca 1780. It still produces a constant large volume of water, unused now, but a treasure then.
Spring House Overview
Spring House Detail
Trophy hunting has never been my game, but this one, I couldn't resist. Patagonia, Arizona, 1992.
Living with a few artifacts of the time and incorporating them into modern daily life is one of the most pleasant aspects of studying life in early America, for me. Bread just tastes better when mixed in a Kentucky poplar dough bowl.
Few animals are more impressive to me than the raptors, and I consider myself very privileged to have been able to live with a large hen redtail named Mariah for almost three years. We made a good team, and she put many a bunny in the pot.
When I was a boy, I walked four miles to school. Uphill in both directions. Barefoot. In the snow. You wouldn't think I'd still be so fond of snow.
While hunting fall turkey, I had a buck in the full agony of the rut walk within a few feet of me, drooling and sniffing, hot on the trail of a doe. I managed to sneak my camera out for a shot, but he caught me in the act before I could get that nice close picture.
At the end of a long day of turkey hunting, waiting to hear the telltale gobble of a tom on his roost, in anticipation of tomorrow's hunt, one has time to soak in what for Mother Nature is a routine finale.
Joseph Doddridge was right on the mark when he said wearing moccasins is just "a decent way of going barefoot".
They are called "flinchlocks" with good reason.
Memories just don't get better than this. A special turkey, taken with a special gun.
Mountains are inspiring, wherever you find them.
Wilderness. What a lovely word, encompassing so much meaning, so many memories, so much feeling. Nothing makes it seem more real than the presence of that very symbol of wilderness, the elk.
Wildlife is marvelous, large or small. A wild cottontail did me the honor of allowing me to approach to within three feet, sit down, talk to it, and take a series of pictures while it continued to feed.
My roots are in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. They are colorful roots.
Big South Fork
Rockcastle
Fall Reflection
Sometimes a picture is worth the effort simply for the pure technical challenge of making it show what you want.
A lot of us have wished for the freedom and adventure of the life of the old barnstormers. I was lucky enough, for 8 years, to experience some of that daydream while flying a 1941 N2S-1 Stearman biplane. Those were truly the good old days.
Nothing like a little old-time music to sooth the savage breast.
Nothing more beautiful than wood ducks, and even decoys show it.
Cooking Japanese food occupies some of my time. Wagashi, Japanese sweets, are fun to make, great to eat. Daifuku mochi are sweet red bean paste inside a rice cake, sort of a Japanese Twinkie.
The surprisingly important spark, struck by flint and steel, caught first on charcloth and then in a nest of cedar bark tinder. If properly nursed, it will provide warmth, light, hot food and drink, new lead balls and a dreaming fire. Camp is not the same without it.
After more than twenty years of waiting for the population to increase sufficiently, the day finally came... first turkey killed on my own farm. That completed my personal grand slam of all the game I normally hunt, all from Sundown Farm. I'm ready for heaven, now, but only if they have turkey season.
How red is a rose? Not this red. Backlit Japanese maple spotlighted by a winter sun.
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