High Over My Head – The Birch Trees And The Sky

November afternoon sky in town (view from my balcony)

 

  

Left: Birch tree “block of apartments” for town birds! (picture taken about one month ago)

Right: Three weeks ago, the birches in a town cemetery still in their golden autumn glory.

Below: Last Sunday: Defoliated birch forest out in the countryside; and “country cottage” bird house. 

 

 

 

 

Batik art by my mother’s father back in 1973.

Going out to my parents’ old house, I got off the bus a couple of stops early,
and took a roundabout walk through the woods to get there.
Just having viewed the birch trees through my camera lens outside,
as I entered the empty house I was struck by a very similar view
hanging there on the wall to greet me.

 

I’m entering this post for Friday My Town Shoot Out (‘Over Your Head’) and Skywatch Friday.

Mirror Of Legend

‘Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?'
‘A man may do both,' said Aragorn. 'For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!’ 
~ J.R.R. Tolkien ~

For more Weekend Reflections visit Newton Area Photo

Almost November

Back to mild and wet weather again, for as long as it lasts.
The birds who haven’t already left to go south were singing today, almost as if greeting spring. I wish!

High water level in the river.

Larch Tree in the Cemetery

  

  

It’s A Big World

Spotted a little green alien struggling along up the trunk of a birch tree… He was about 5 mm, I think. The first picture is enlarged from the second. The third is the same tree – I liked the light and the shadows. The forth picture, below, is a different birch tree – included just to give you a better sense of what the little creature was up against…

Golden Light

Even on a gray day, the autumn leaves sometimes seem to be self-luminous.

Red House

For a while, during the early September rains, I was worried that perhaps the autumn colours were going to pass us by this year, just fading from wet to brown. But they did not. Nature is offering an awesome display of colour just now.

Autumn Light

These two pictures were taken in late afternoon light within one minute of each other, in more or less the same spot. I can’t quite figure out why the light is so different in the two photos. I know I didn’t make any adjustments to the camera, so I suppose the sun came out from behind a cloud. The place is a pond in a big cemetery which is like a nature park with varied landscape.

Whitebeam Flowers

 

Horse Chestnut Flowers

Most horse chestnut trees around here have white flowers, but there is also a pink variety.

Apple Blossom

In the park area surrounding the buildings where I live, there are lots of different kinds of trees.
Some of them are crab apple trees, with small apple-kind of (sour!) fruits in the autumn – and lovely white blossoms in the spring. This time of year, dressed in white and fresh green, they give a crisp, dreamy, almost breathtaking kind of beauty… And in the autumn they bring a sense of ripeness even if we don’t eat their fruit.

Non-Violence Sculpture

Anna Lindh was a Swedish Social Democratic politician who served as Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1998 until she was murdered in 2003. She died on the early morning of September 11, following a knife attack in Stockholm on the afternoon of September 10.

A small park in our town (across the river from the main park) has recently been renamed in her honour, in connection with acquiring the sculpture Non-Violence by Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd.

A similar sculpture (a revolver tied in a knot) by the same artist is placed outside the United Nations Headquarters in New York City.

A Dream In White

 

Not quite sure about what kind of tree, but probably Whitebeam  - Sorbus – Vitoxel

It is a huge tree, and this photo was taken from below looking up and zooming.

Blossoming Cherry Tree

Magnolia

Mosaic Monday: Cherry Blossoms

Japanese Flowering Cherry

See more Monday Mosaics at Mary’s Little Red House.

“I’ve lived a very long, long time…”

We thought this tree looked like it might belong in a fantasy tale…

“My name is growing all the time, and I've lived a very long, long time; so my name is like a story. Real names tell you the story of the things they belong to in my language, in the Old Entish as you might say. It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to.”

Treebeard the Ent in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings
(The Two Towers, Chapter 'Treebeard')

Roots

(The headstone below the tree marks the grave of my great-grandparents.)

"A people without the knowledge of their past history,
origin and culture is like a tree without roots."
Marcus Garvey

More Snow (Again)

We've been having another snowstorm over the past few days, with a lot more snow, and strong winds on top of all. And they say even more is coming...

The picture above is from 2½ weeks ago. I tried to go out for a while yesterday but had to turn around, it was too difficult to walk. Well, it's hard anyway to take pictures that will really show the difference. Over the past couple of weeks, many lorry-loads of snow from the town streets have been driven away to more out-of-the-way places. So any pictures taken today would probably look very similar to the ones from two weeks ago. Snowy trees, snowy streets and snowed-in cars, and snow, snow, snow...

Two Winter / Summer Comparisons

Two winter/summer collages from the Nature Reserve behind the Mill in yesterday's post.



The bush or tree that you can see between / behind the two trees in the foreground is a hawthorn. The picture to the right is the same hawthorn in September last year.



Ice formations in the river. The bottom left picture was taken at the same spot in September.