Hidden

So many people move so fast, never taking time to stop and look around them, always rushing to their destination without even thinking about the trip there. We're in full blown winter, the snow is around a foot, the days are still short, the wood burning stove is always running. Before all the snow came, I took off for the afternoon and hiked into the state forest.

 

 I ran into a small frozen stream, it seemed so lifeless compared to swiftly moving, laughing water of the warmer months. From a distance, it was uninteresting, a smudge of white across the dull brown hill. Nothing more than frozen water, maybe an occasional sparkle from the pale sunlight. I followed the stream for the remainder of my hike, and this is what I found when I took the time to slow down, and look a little closer.

A single drop of water, it looked like it had frozen instantly.

The edges of the forming ice looked like feathers, each segment completely unique.

The sunlight bounced off the ice of a small pool, creating a pattern of crisscrossing lines. When I ran my finger over the ice, I could barely feel and scratches. But when I looked from ground level, it looked like the ice was full of deep rivets.

At one point the ice formed intricate patterns of lines, only visible if you where within three feet or so.

Water was still moving through a steam part of the stream, the only ice was forming off this rock, creating this interesting pattern. Take time, slow down, and who knows what you'll find.

Fog.....

Last night there was a heavy fog, I thought it would have lifted by this morning. But when I woke up this moring the fog was still clinging to trees.

The fog was only in the open fields and over the lake, but the air was clear under the trees

The lake was still, reflecting the trees in its surface.

The pines in the fields look so out of context!

All the rain provided perfect conditions for the fall mushrooms start

Almost half the leaves are laying on the ground, turning shades of brown. A few still cling to the branches, holding onto deep shades of color

I hit the road, and found phrases of the song "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day running through my head.          

"I walk alone I walk alone..."

"My shadow's the only one that walks beside me, my shallow heart's the only thing that's beating....."

Only after the rain

I've always been detail oriented, but since I started taking pictures for this blog, I find myself looking at things in a different way. Especially the way light and water are mixed and present on a given plant.

It had been raining last night, and I woke up to sunlight painting pattens on my bedroom wall. Absolutely perfect conditions to find a spider web. But I would have to go looking now, before the sun burned off the beads of water on the fine stands of silk. I grabbed a quick breakfast and headed out.

It was chilly, fall is here. The leaves muffled the sound of my footsteps, everything was hushed, the calm after a storm. The air was so clean, I love the smell of fall. I crossed our dirt road, a small stream and followed a winding trail to the Flat Brook River.

I was thinking that the fields of tall grass by the river would have a good chance of holding a spider web.

Once I reached the fields, I stopped and looked around. I smiled and shook my head. Not a spider web, hundreds.

If you were to just glace at the field, you wouldn't see anything gut wet grass and that's about it. But if you take a lil time, and actually look, you'd see the hundreds of small, intricately woven strands of silk forming small insect death traps.

It was captivating, small beads of water clung to the fine stands of silk, and when the sunlight hit the webs it was an impressive sight.

I spent oven an hour looking at and taking pictures of the work of some of natures finest architects.

But, there are some things you cant capture with a camera. If you look at the water beaded webs from the right angle in the correct sunlight, tiny rainbows can be seen shimmering between the strands of silk.

I couldn't capture this in a picture, because it wasn't possible the get close enough to the web without block casting a shadow on the web.

Fascinating, how something so beautiful can only be seen after the rain, and before the sun burns off the rain/

An evening at lake Rutherford

                                     

It was late afternoon when I decided to take a walk and take these pictures. I'd been fishing (fishing, not catching) for the past two hours or so. It was kinda chilly, in the sun it was warm though. Ever notice how the sunlight is concentrated the last thirty minutes or so before the sun sets?

I sat down in the grass, and just sat there watching ducks fly in slow circles over the water. I looked up, and found the sun making the trees look contrasting colors. I decided to lay down and stayed there just looking up at the shadows and light on the trees, painting colors on the bark.

I love white birch trees, they never get very big but have a certain grace in there smooth white bark and small leaves.

Maple leaves are one of the first to turn from dark green to reds and yellows.

I flipped onto my stomach, and up close the moss looks like little foot hills.

The sun was starting to slide down close to the hills, so I decided to get a few shots of the flowers on the edge of the lake.

Thistles have some of the most beautiful shades of purple found in NJ

I noticed white puffs being tossed around by the mild breeze, there was about 100 of these plants next to the lake.

If you like to draw pine cones are a great thing to work with, all the cavities and spikes make it a challenge!

The lake was really low, and all the rocks where exposed. It gave the lake a very different look, it seemed more.... foreign somehow

I took one last shot before turning around and heading back, as soon as the sun fully dipped behind the hill it got chilly!