Forest Royalty

Here stands a forest queen, evergreen, and flanked by two consorts.

Stopping in a Snowy Wood

The arched branches that frame this image make me feel like I'm in the nave of a cathedral. Indeed, a cross can be seen left of center.

Ice Textures

I am fascinated by the wondrous patterns and frosty textures expressed in this thin ice over a tiny creek I found on my walk in the hills today. Rather than try to fathom how the patterns are formed, I prefer to focus on the beauty.

Fireline

Fire lines were used to contain a range fire near Lucky Peak Reservoir not far from Boise. Here, topography forced equipment used to cut the fire lines to cross a small stream drainage. Willows and other riparian shrubs were flattened at the approach to the crossing. This area is (was?) one of my secret spots to pick elderberries and chokecherries in the early fall.

Dolly Varden, Salmon River, Idaho

Yuletide - The Winter Solstice

Today is the Winter Solstice - Yuletide - the shortest day and longest night of the year. Take the bright lights of the season into your heart and together with your own inner light go out and do some good in the world.

(Payette Lake, McCall, Idaho)

Bearing The Cold

A cold front plunged south into Florida and has turned everything chilly.  The low clouds drifting into the area are a sign of the rain that is expected over the weekend.  Gray skies this afternoon.  Typing by the light of my flatscreen monitor in the office today (I only use natural light from the window -- by choice -- not by necessity).  [bronze sculpture, McCall, Idaho]

Trip to Idaho

I spent a few wonderful days before Thanksgiving in the Salmon River country of central Idaho.  Fiddle Creek is between the whitewater and steelhead trout fishing towns of Riggins and Whitebird.  The steelhead eluded us, but we saw lots of wildlife - elk, mule deer, golden eagles, magpies, turkeys, Canada geese, and those energetic little gray dippers, the ouzels.

Payette Lake in McCall, Idaho.  Brundage Mountain Ski Resort is not far from this lovely little burg.

My father fishing on a rocky bar downstream from Riggins at the place our family calls "The Rock" - a large vertical outcrop that juts into the Salmon River at the head of a deep slow hole.  Informational signs describing the geology of the area are along the roadside here.  We cannot pass this place without "dropping a line" to see what is biting, any time of the year.

Today's Butterflies

Today scores of butterflies visited the sunny flower beds at west-facing Clog-House, Est. 1935:

Gulf Fritillary
Cloudless Sulfur
Long-tailed Skipper
another brown Skipper – 2-3 white checks on wings
Zebra Long-wing

It is truly pleasurable and amazing to this Idaho transplant that so many butterflies visit our north-central Florida flower beds this late in the season.