Stunning Sunday Skies

Another sky shot from this past Wednesday when the cold front came in from the Midwest. I'm suprised I didn't fall over backwards trying to take these shots. I did get some looks from co-workers who probably wondered why I was shooting straight up in the air.

I'm doing this as a project with Anyes over at Far Away in The Sunshine. It makes a nice contrast with our other ongoing project of sunsets.

April Roses

Brown Velvet

Knockout

Somehow I got it into my mind that roses didn't bloom until June. I'm not sure where I picked that one up since obviously roses (at least mine) are blooming in April.

I think maybe it is because I have childhood memories of my grandmother's garden full of roses in bloom in June when school was out and I would spend practically all of my time at her house. Her half-acre lot was full of rose bushes and the only presents she ever wanted for Mother's Day were more roses.

In my small garden which has maybe 90 square feet to garden in, my roses sit in containers on the patio. The rest of the garden is given over to daylilies (although I stuck a few Oriental lilies in this spring), a crepe myrtle and the Forest Pansy redbud.

The Brown Velvet came from a nursery in Oregon that I found on line - Rogue Valley Roses. The Knockout rose (name unknown) came from the tractor supply store down the road when they were practically giving away what was left in their nursery. I have two other RVR roses, Incantation and Baby Pat Austin, that have not yet bloomed although they have buds. I went back and ordered two more rose bands from RVR to come next week.  I'd like to have the patio full of container roses while the lilies grow in the garden.

Storm Clouds

Standing in the parking lot at work Wednesday morning and looking at the clouds that were coming in ahead of another strong storm front (sorry about the flare from the sun). You would think that we were going to be hit with another strong storm like the one that came through Saturday and killed 24 people in the eastern part of the state.

But it just fizzled out and by late afternoon it was bright and sunshiny again.

I was a little disappointed as we desperately need the rain (we are in the midst of a drought again), but we certainly didn't need the tornado and wind part. But we are looking for rain on Friday, so I may stand out in the parking lot again and take more cloud pictures.

Flowering Dogwood

Yesterday when I posted the pictures of the white flowers at my house, I left out a picture of the flowering dogwood. Actually, I don’t have one at my house or in the small garden, but there are many in our common areas here in my subdivision.

There is also a legend about the dogwood flower and since this is Easter week, this would be a good time to post it.

The story is that 2000 years ago, a tall, strong species of tree grew in the Middle East. Its thick, straight trunk was sought after by the Romans - the rulers of Jerusalem - for building crosses for executions. One day an officer of the Roman Court came to the forest and ordered the woodsmen to construct an extra large cross from the best of their trees. “Make it strong,” he said. “The King of the Jews is to be put to death.” It was soon delivered.

Shortly after the crucifixion of Jesus, the chief woodsman was alarmed to see that all those great trees had begun to whither and die. In several more years, an amazing transformation had taken place. The great oak-like dogwood trees were gone and in their place were thousands of flowering bushes with short, twisted trunks. You see, the once proud forest giant was mortally anguished. The crucified Jesus in healing pity said, “Never again will you grow large enough to be used for a cross.”

Jesus continued, saying, “Henceforth, your trunk will be thin and twisted, with white blossoms having four petals in the shape of a cross. The outer edge of each petal will show nail prints stained with red, and the center will be like a crown of thorns as a reminder to all.”

White Spring

Spirea

Azalea

Star-of-Bethlehem

My spring garden is distinguished by the fact that all I have at the moment are white flowers - white azaleas, white spirea, white viburnum, and a flower that I've identified as a Star-of-Bethlehem.

The bushes (azalea, spirea and viburnum) were here when I bought the townhouse. The Star-of-Bethlehem just showed up this spring. Wikipedia says that it is native to southern and central Europe, northern Africa and southern Asia. If it is in my garden, they say, then it is an escapee from a cultivated garden.

Whose garden, I wonder? I've lived here for more than nine years and this is the first year it has shown up in the small garden. And the garden itself is surrounded by a six-foot high privacy fence, so it just didn't wander over from next door. Did it sneak in a package of those day lilies I ordered last year from a garden nursery in Indiana?

If anyone has any ideas, I'm certainly open to your suggestions. I may move it as right now it is hiding behind the storage room and not visible from the patio.

After the Storm

After the storm moved out of the area Saturday afternoon, the winds picked up behind it. They held steady at 30 mph with gusts over 50 mph at times. You could hear it coming towards the house as it sounded like the reving of an airplane engine.

The birds had all disappeared and who could blame them. It would have been hard enough just to drive in the wind; flying was probably impossible.

A mourning dove took refuge on the back fence of the small garden. You could see her closing her eyes and bracing every time the winds picked up speed.



Sunset Sunday

This was taken on this past Friday as the huge storm that started in the Midwest came towards North Carolina.  I had just arrived home after driving up from Atlanta just ahead of the storm.

Greensboro was lucky; we just got lots of rain and wind with some gusts over 50 mph on Saturday. Unfortunately to the east of us in the Raleigh and Fayetteville areas, there were multiple tornado touchdowns and reports of 14 people killed.

This spring is turning out to be as extreme as this past winter was.

You can find Sunset Sundays over at Finding Another View. I'm doing this with Anyes at Far away in the Sunshine as an ongoing project.

Little Paw Prints

You never know what you are going to find right under your feet, right there in the mud.

I was bringing in my garbage can yesterday when I looked down and noticed these little paw prints in the mud:

Closeup of Rear Paw Print

For those of you who have pets, you know that these are neither dog or cat paw prints. They are raccoon paw prints, probably lured by the garbage cans put out for collection Monday morning. I don't remember seeing any garbage strewn around when I left for work, but then I wasn't really paying any attention.

I knew we had raccoons in the area. In fact once one came up and knocked on my mother's back porch door a few years back when she lived a couple of miles away from my house. But this is the first time I've seen any indication that they were right here at my house.

Also, I am leaving this morning to go to Atlanta for training and will be unable to post for the rest of the week. I'll try to take good snapshots down there if I have any time to go look for interesting buildings or animals or clouds.

Northern Mockingbird

Although the bird feeders have been long taken down, the bird bath is a permanent fixture of the small garden. It is surrounded by a Lady Banks rose bush which has just started to put out its tiny yellow blooms. It is a rambler, but I hack at it weekly to keep it small and out of the rest of the garden area.

The little birds aren't too interested in the bird bath. I'm not sure if it is because they don't take water baths (some birds just use dust to control bird mites) or if that particular bath just doesn't appeal to them and they go the creek that runs behind the townhouses parallel to mine. I've seen sparrows among the lilies looking for bugs, so I know they still come to the small garden.

But the bigger birds - the robins, mourning doves, starlings and so forth - adore the bird bath. I keep it filled and try to keep it clean (a losing battle with the redbud's blooms falling off the tree now). And yesterday afternoon, the Northern Mockingbird who lives with his mate across the parking lot in the huge holly tree came and took a bath in it, too.

He's resting on the back fence, fluffing his feathers in the sun and drying out. Soon, he and his mate will have a nest full of babies and those of us who live near the holly tree will be dive bombed by both mockingbirds who view us as a threat.

Stunning Sunday Skies

Anyes at Far Away in the Sunshine asked last week if we could change our Sunset Sundays on the second Sunday of the month to Stunning Sunday Skies. I was delighted to do so, as so many times a day that started out with nice puffy clouds in the morning would be absolutely cloudless by the time the sun set.

Also, I would chase around town and out in the countryside trying to find the perfect location to take a snapshot of the sun going down. It could become extremely frustrating although the exercise did help me train my eye for that one good sunset photo.

Now I'm not constrained by the time of day. If I see an interesting sky shot first thing in the morning - bingo, a shot for Sunday. I can stand in the parking lot at work and shoot straight up and not worry about keeping buildings and power lines out of the pictures. I like this idea immensely.

This sky shot was taken a week ago at Ayr Mount in Hillsborough. The clouds started building up and we thought that our bright, warm, and sunny day might turn rainy. But as quickly as the clouds built up, they dissipated. In fact, the rest of the day was absolutely cloudless.

April Sunset

If I thought I could get away with it, I'd have a blog with nothing but pictures of sunsets. I am just absolutely fascinated by the cloud formations and the glow of the sun as it goes below the horizon.

I took this last night in the parking lot of a bank. Trying to find an open space in Greensboro that isn't criss-crossed by overhead power lines is nearly impossible, which is why so many of my sunset pictures are taken out in the county.

If you look towards the middle of the picture you can see the contrails of the jets that have just left the Greensboro airport. We are just a regional airport, not a large hub, so the jets that fly in are generally the smaller 50 seat Bombardiers and the like. There are also the larger propeller commuter planes that make the trip up to Washington, DC a couple of times a day.

An interesting side note about the Piedmont Triad Airport - it is used as a training airport for the pilots of Air Force One, President Obama's plane. Every couple of months, the Air Force flies down here from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland and practices landings and take offs.

Blue Jay in the Sugar Maple

While all the trees are leafing out, the sugar maple only seems to have buds. It made for a clear shot of this blue jay. Maybe he was one of the jays who used to come to the feeders in the small garden and now wanders by occasionally to see if I've given in and put them back out.

Bottle Tree

Sunday was a beautiful day and so TB and I headed over to Hillsborough to finally take the Ayr Mount tour that was aborted back in November. I'll post later about the house and grounds.

After we were finished with the tour, we headed south on Old NC 86 in search of some good snapshots. I don't think we were more than a mile out of town when we saw this:

I drove up the driveway to get a closer look at the bottle tree (figuring it was better to ask forgiveness than permission and that I would be long gone before the sheriff got there anyway. . .).

Here's a closer look at the tree which is not a real tree; it is all metal.

Click on the picture for a larger view

The only reason that the gate on the driveway was open was because the house is for sale and they were having an open house for prospective buyers. Here's a link to the listing on Realtor.com which has pictures of the inside of the house and the saltwater pool, etc.

I see that the listing is now for $1,950,000, a reduction in price from $2,500,000. While I think the house is lovely, good luck in selling in this depressed economy.

Sundrops

Off an another day trip on Sunday through the back roads of North Carolina.

And during our drive, TB and I kept commenting about all the yellow flowers that had bloomed (seemingly overnight) all over the place. You would see them in farm fields that were laying fallow, in ditches, along busy roads, just about everywhere you looked.

We discussed what we thought they were (yarrow is what I thought. TB had no idea).

I finally pulled over to the side of the road, jumped out of the car and walked into an open field to take pictures. I was bound and determined to find out and having a good snapshot was the only way to solve the mystery.

I came home and using the database at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center (one of the best online databases I've ever used), found out I wasn't even in the ballpark.

It is Narrowleaf Evening Primrose, also known here in the South as Sundrops. It certainly lives up to that sobriquet - it looks like the fields have been rained on by the sun.

Sunset Sunday

Once again, it's Sunset Sunday!

This time I drove up the road about a mile from my house to the old Lunsford Richardson farm, which is just north of Lake Brandt, one of our city reservoirs. Part of the farm has been sold to the Piedmont Land Conservancy and will become part of the Mountain to Sea Trail system. This part, however, is still a working farm although the northern edge is being nibbled away by housing subdivisions.

Lunsford Richardson, who owned the farm (it is now held by a family trust), was a member of the family who developed Vicks VapoRub. An interesting fact about Vicks is that was refined in the drugstore here in Greensboro which was owned by William Porter, the uncle of Sidney Porter who became the writer O. Henry.

You can find Sunset Sundays over at Finding Another View. I'm doing this with Anyes at Far away in the Sunshine as an ongoing project.

Spring Poem

Equinox

Black birds call early

robins late,

the blue bird

discusses the snow

while house sparrows

clatter about,

disrupting treaties

cardinals and chickadees

hammered out through the winter.

By Kathleen M. Tenpas

Old Barn

Just an interesting old barn near the interstate. I shot this in black and white as an experiment. I have no idea about it's history or even if it has a history, but I've never seen a barn built in this style. I wonder how long it will remain as the property belongs to an out-of-state commercial developer and sits right on the edge of a large industrial park.

Thalictrum thalictroides

Although we got to see the world's largest open pit granite quarry on Saturday's day trip (and I got an education on granite), that was pretty much the extent of snapshots. The day was overcast and cold and because I thought we were going to the Reynolda House Museum, I had left the big camera home and was only toting the FP8.

We did comment on the profusion of rhododendron (aka mountain laurel) bushes along NC 103 going towards Virginia, but they don't bloom until June. And Madison, once a bustling textile town, has a wonderful clock tower that was built in 1919, but the light was sucky.

We also drove by a plantation near the Dan River that was built in 1828 and semi-hidden from the road that would lend itself at another time to snapshots. I researched and found out the owner of the house and will write a letter to see if I can come back onto his property. If not, I'll have to be content with roadside pictures.

So, pictures for the future, but what about today?

Well, Friday while on the walking trail behind our office building I found this little flower:

This is Thalictrum thalictroides or Rue Anemone, a member of the buttercup family. There were also many May Apples on the forest floor, but, of course, they don't bloom until May.

Now that there are all these tiny little blooms on the walking trail, I am chomping at the bit for the weather to clear up so that I can go back and find more to photograph.

The Largest Granite Quarry on Earth

TB and I decided to scrap a visit to Reynolda House Museum Saturday for a short day trip as we hadn’t been out of Greensboro since the beginning of February. First, I got sick and then TB got sick and neither one of us wanted to travel anywhere. Instead we stayed home and moped and complained about how bad we felt.

So back on the road again for a short trip up through Mount Airy and into Virginia.

I spotted a sign for the North Carolina Granite Quarry and took a quick swing up to its observation area. I only had the little camera with me (I lost the lens cap Thursday for the big camera while I was taking my sunset photos and am waiting for a replacement one).

Mount Airy is home to the largest open face granite quarry in the world. There are larger pit quarries throughout the world but no larger open face quarries. A pit quarry is below the surface, while an open face quarry is at ground level.

Shaped like an enormous oyster shell, the quarry covers approximately 90 acres, which is currently under operation. The deposit is about 1 mile long and 1/3 mile wide. Geological mapping shows the total mass to be about 7 miles by 4 miles and 6,000 to 8,000 feet deep. Since 1889, the quarry has been in full operation, and the surface has only just been scratched according to depth tests. Geologists say the deposit can be quarried for approximately 500 more years without exhausting the supply.

Because the granite has no natural beds and cracks, it is necessary to free great sheets of granite from the mass by a process called lifting. Dynamite is never used for quarrying. The results of its use would be disastrous because its force would shatter and crack the granite, which would cause flaws. Instead, black gun powder is used.

The story goes that the world’s finest natural quarry changed hands for nothing. In 1872, a farmer named John Gilmer purchased several thousand acres of farm and woodland covering what is now part of Mount Airy and much of the Flat Rock community. One of his friends learned the tract of land contained 40 acres of bare rock. Mr. Gilmer immediately went to the seller and threatened to back out on the deal because of the worthless 40 acres. The seller agreed to deduct the 40 acres of worthless rock in calculating the dollar value of the whole tract. Therefore, the quarry exchanged hands for nothing.

About 17 years later, a firm of builders, Thomas Woodruff & Sons, was building railway stations in the area. They recognized the potential value of a granite quarry and bought John Gilmer’s “worthless” rock for $5,000. 

The quarry is so large that it can be seen by astronauts in outer space!

The quarry operates seven days a week. While we didn’t hear or see any explosions, we were almost run off the road to the observation area by one of the largest forklifts I’ve ever seen.

Sunset Sunday

With the forecast for several storms to come through Greensboro from the Midwest, starting on Friday, I knew that I had to take some sunset snapshots earlier in the week. The first couple of days were so-so to rather blah. By Thursday evening when the clouds started to build with the first front coming in, I took off for my favorite place near the airport to take pictures.

This shot is actually looking from a high vantage point towards Interstate 40 west (you can see a truck stop sign down in the right hand corner.) If you were an adventurous sort, you could jump on the highway and keep driving all the way to Barstow, California. I've driven almost all of it; once driving all the way from Flagstaff, Arizona to Greensboro - more than 2,000 miles.

You can find Sunset Sundays over at Finding Another View. I'm doing this with Anyes at Far away in the Sunshine as an ongoing project.