Home

Forest & River Dreams

This was the day I drove up to Skyline Drive at 3:30 to meet the sunset and hear the birds begin their birdsongs after a night of slumber.
This was hours before the brutal winter season would cascade down upon Virginia. It had been a beautiful and fragrant day on the Shenandoah River. This was about 4pm and the right after a torrential cold rain that was ushering in the front that would bring the next month and a half of brutally cold weather and snow.
This was another view of the Shenandoah River walk right after the cold winter rain that ushered in the cold front that would mark the beginning of a brutally cold winter.
This is a view from the River Walk that spans the Snohomish River through Old Town Snohomish.
Widewater State Park - Virginia
This is among the many sights within the preserve. The colors and varied shapes and sizes of the fungus and mushrooms were just amazing.
An example of the extraordinary beauty of life as it recycles and revitalizes.
This is a display on the yellow trail of the Voorhees Preserve located down historic Highway 3 near Colonial Beach Virginia. This is an exquisite preserve that leads you to the banks of the Rappahannock River. Along the way are many places where this kind of colorful and stunning fungi grow and flourish.
As you enter Voorhees, this is the first stretch of trail that leads to the branching off onto either the yellow or white trail. This is within the first few feet of the parking lot. The rains had been through the night before creating a river out of the trail. I had to walk around it because some of it was deep but the reflections from the sun and the fall colors captured my fancy. It was too beautiful to ignore.
Another view of the sunset captured on Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park.
This is one of the treasures of the Northern Virginia area - Fraser Preserve which is part of the The Nature Conservancy's network of preserves worldwide. I volunteer as a preserve steward to conduct walk-throughs to help maintain and report issues within the preserve that can be resported back to TNC.
This was the final act in my day of remembrance for my husband. He died a year ago this day. He loved Shenandoah National Park as much as I do. The sunset was spectacular and was a lovely way to remember him.
The meditation trail at St. Peter's In The Woods Episcopal Church in Fairfax Station Virginia. It is a magical 4 acres of woodland that is the home of many Virginia birds and migrants when they come through each year.
This is the winter view of the forest that is St. Peter's In The Woods Episcopal Church in Fairfax Station Virginia. I belong to their Creation Care ministry team where we are invested in greening our church and building a natural sanctuary for the birds and other wildlife that call this place home.
This is also on the same trail. I have never seen this rich and resonant color combination with deep purple reds, whites and dark greens.
This was a striking sight. It intrigues me because it is nature's artistry expressing the reincarnation of life. The old dead tree was now the nourishment for this extensive colony of fungus. They happened to wrap around the old tree remains in a most beautiful flow.
This has to be one of the enchanting trail segments in the forest. It feels like you are in a true wonderland moving towards an amazing portal of natural wonders.
This was one of the many beautiful fungus flowerings I have seen. The colors are magnificent and show the beauty of how life and death co-exist.
Another example of the nuturing ways of death giving way to an amazing dance of life. This is a dead trunk. There is a stunning array of different kinds of fungus and mosses that are thriving here. This dance of fungus was mesmerizing to contemplate.
This is another extraordinary moment when the dance of death and the nurturing of life is extraordinary. This seems to me like a forest coral reef. It was a humid day after a heavy rain but it was just a stunning moment to happen upon.
I was immediately drawn to this. If you look carefully, you will see that in this old tree are countless amazing sprouts of new life emerging from within the bark. This is a beautiful dance of more than one life form that is nurturing one another in great intricacy and beauty.
This old tree's rings expose a story line that one can only guess at. It will soon provide life to the Earth and its story will be carried on through the many life forms that will take nourishment and will make a home from it as it increasingly merges again with the Earth.
There are so many interesting bark types throughout this forest. This is one of those beautiful patterns of nature that I could not ignore. The colors and undulations caught my eye and I could not walk away.
I was hiking during the Christmas season in the dead of winter when the trees are dormant and the colors are grays and browns mostly. This was technicolor stunning. It was as if nature was saying that spring shall come in all its colorful glory.
This was another bloom of fungus in Fraser Preserve that is just as beautiful but more reflective of the winter colors around it.
I hiked past amazing old trees and striking patterns of tree bark. The reddish hues grabbed my attention.
This tree was dying - I could see the possibility of a great memoir written about its long and illustrious life experiencing and witnessing life that human beings could not see.
These particular fungus absolutely stun me with their beauty. There was such a growth in the back yard in Locust Grove Virginia. This was just unavoidably heart stopping to see. It was worth stopping to gaze upon for a few minutes.
Huntley Meadows is a famous and spectacular wetland in Alexandria Virginia (the Washington DC Metro area). I was taking an evening stroll through the wetland and one of its trails back to the visitor center where I was soon to begin my FrogWatch training in early March.
The last two weeks were warm, balmy and sunny giving full vent to the outbreak of new leaves and flowering trees at Claytor Lake State Park Virginia. This April morning, winter had other plans. It barrelled over the lake dipping the termperature from the 70s to below zero while expressing a rage of snow. At the moment this picture was taken, the storm was barreling west and had opened up sky for the sun to resume its nurturing warmth on this forest.
This fungus erupted at the crux of two trees that had grown out of the same root system. The rains had been ferocious and the ground rife with new life emerging as a result. I captured this only a day after the last rain had fallen. It remained stunningly large and poetic for about two weeks before it receded and then died.

Thank you!

Your print will be ready soon.

Continue browsing