Dallas, Texas does not get snow frequently and it is usually in the early months of the year rather than December. So - it was cause for celebration and picture taking when it snowed yesterday! Enjoy the slide show of the dusting of the white stuff!
After spending my recent nights sleeping on a hospital rollaway - seeing this sunrise on the 22nd after sleeping in a regular bed became a milestone on my transition back to ‘normal’. Somehow being able to walk outside to take the picture rather than seeing the sunrise through a hospital window as I had earlier in the month became an inflection point in my thinking. I could relax a little and savor the day.
The last of the tomatoes have been harvested from my parents’ garden near Dallas, Texas. Some of them will make it to ripeness laying out on a paper towel in the garden room of the house….little remnants of summer in December. There is a poinsettia on the table beside them.
Today I am celebrating tomatoes as part of our Christmas decorations!
The shorter days of November and December provide an excellent chance to catch the sunrise. I captured one in Maryland back in November. The picture in this post is the sunrise from the hospital window in Texas captured yesterday. All three construction cranes were active. In the earlier darkness their motion had been visible but the people working on the building were not visible until the morning light.
I liked the effect of the layer at the ground being very blue … and then the layer of pink. It only lasted for a few minutes and then the layers washed away in the brighter daylight. It was the start of very good day.
This time of year - the seed pods of the red yuccas are splitting open in the gardens around Dallas, Texas….even while there are still colorful blooms on the stalks. I like the curves of the pods and the blackness of the seeds contrasting with the striations of the pod.
Over the past month, I’ve seen lotus plants in two separate gardens and photographed them. The pink ones were in the Dallas Arboretum (with the Chihuly glass) and the white ones were in Brookside Gardens in Montgomery County Maryland.
I like the big leaves of the lotus. They
Enjoy the lotus slideshow below!
As I made my way through Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee a few weeks ago - I decided to take lots of pictures of Southern Magnolias. They are appealing trees with shiny green leaves and creamy white flowers. Some become very large with enough warmth and moisture. I was frustrated the some did not look healthy…but there were enough that did to make a collage of pictures from bud to flowers to the beginning of the seed pod.
A few weeks ago - before and after my time in Tennessee - I was in the Dallas, Texas area visiting family. June is one of the best times for gardens in Texas - before the heat burns or dries out the more delicate vegetation. But don’t be fooled - even the arbor covered with trumpet vine was no substitute for escaping to an air conditioned house after being out for a morning walk!
How many plants can you identify in the slide slow below? Here’s a quick list of what it includes:
Continuing the post from yesterday….some other pictures are in today’s post. The blue font below indicates the pieces that are in today’s post.
The Dale Chihuly glass was placed in interesting settings within the gardens. The Blue Icicles (they look like blue yucca or aloes to me) were the first pieces we saw before we even bought our tickets. There was a tower of yellow icicles. The Blue Polyvitro Crystals were installed in a rocky creek - like chunks of blue ice. The Red and Blue Reeds stood in water or at its edges. Some were installed where mist would rise around them or in front of falling water. The Blue Marlins were in the area of rising mists. They somehow reminded me more of great blue herons than marlins. The Dallas Star was in an allee of crepe myrtle. There was glass on boats with balls of glass floating around on the water. Some clear and white glass forms were in a pool mimicking the lotus leaves growing there. There was a fanciful piece with green mirrored glass called Mirrored Hornets. There were towers of reed pieces. Ones I liked the best were the Scarlet and Yellow Asymmetrical Towers.
Enjoy the second group of pictures below.
The Dallas Arboretum is hosting an exhibit of Dale Chihuly glass through November 5th. I was there earlier this month and thoroughly enjoyed both the arboretum and the glass.
The Dallas Arboretum opened in 1984 and is on the bank of White Rock Lake. We were there when it opened at 9 AM - trying to ‘beat the heat’ of the day. We walked around and saw almost everything by about noon (even making a short tour of the DeGolyer Mansion that is included in the Arboretum).
The Dale Chihuly glass was placed in interesting settings within the gardens. The Blue Icicles (they look like blue yucca or aloes to me) were the first pieces we saw before we even bought our tickets. There was a tower of yellow icicles. The Blue Polyvitro Crystals were installed in a rocky creek - like chunks of blue ice. The Red and Blue Reeds stood in water or at its edges. Some were installed where mist would rise around them or in front of falling water. The Blue Marlins were in the area of rising mists. They somehow reminded me more of herons than marlins. The Dallas Star was in an allee of crepe myrtle. There was glass on boats with balls of glass floating around on the water. Some clear and white glass forms were in a pool mimicking the lotus leaves growing there. There was a fanciful piece with green mirrored glass called Mirrored Hornets. There were towers of reed pieces. Ones I liked the best were the Scarlet and Yellow Asymmetrical Towers.
Enjoy the first batch of pictures below….there will be more tomorrow. The blue font above indicates the pieces that are in today’s post.
I managed to capture a classic water lily picture at Cheekwood Garden and Art Museum - crisp flower and black background. It looked good on the small screen of my camera but even better once I saw it on the larger monitor of my computer. So - enjoy my June 2012 pictures of water lilies from Tennessee and Texas! If you want more - check out the post from last November - Water Lilies at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania.
The sun was low in the west. The last of its light struck gold from the shale wall and turned the subdued greens of the desert a brighter shade. Above the cliffs, the sky was a turmoil of clouds, round and fierce, their bellies sagging close to the mesa. Sunset fired their edges and cast deep purples into their ephemeral canyons. - Nevada Barr in Borderline (An Anna Pigeon Novel)
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Nevada Barr writes mysteries set in National Parks - in this case, Big Bend National Park.
This description reminds me of vacations in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona….and that it would be good to be there again. What about you?
A dozen roses wrapped in cellophane and tissue paper…or maybe in a large crinkly glass vase with a florist's bow. I like the ones that:
They are a welcome occasional gift; I’d not appreciate them as much if they were bought too frequently. As it is, I get them once or twice a year and they act as a spark to remember the event.
I like roses on their bush even more. I enjoyed a trek through the rose garden in Tyler, Texas a few years ago even though it was a very cold morning (and I did not have a coat with me). And the rose garden is one of my favorite parts of Brookside Gardens….but that will be another post and will have to wait until the roses start their 2012 blooming.
There is a hint of desert in the yellow plains, a measure of openness and the suggestions of surprises. - The Kookaburras' Song: Exploring Animal Behavior in Australia, 1st Edition
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This quote is from a book about Australia but it could just as easily be about ‘yellow plains’ anywhere in the world.
I am familiar with the yellow plains in North America. The ones that I think of first are the seemingly endless fields of ripe wheat. The wind ripples through the grain creating waves and eddies that are visible nearby but further away the eye smoothes the vision. The vastness of the wheat field is the same as the fastness of the blue sky above. Both appear infinite. And so it is that anything that breaks the monotony of the field or the sky will be a surprise - a hawk…a row of telephone poles…a combine beginning the harvest. You notice these things more when the background is just the wheat and the sky.
The other area is the high plains of the Texas Panhandle where scrubby grass grows. It is green when the rains come but turns to a straw yellow when it is dry. In this land there are miles and miles of very flat land broken only by the highway and the yucca along the fence rows. There may be some occasional cows and derelict grain elevators along railroad tracks. And then, the biggest surprise of all, Palo Duro Canyon.
Do you have images of ‘yellow plains’ in your memories…what were surprises for you?
The road trip across Texas was a long one - from Texarkana to El Paso with a side trip toward Oklahoma City from Dallas. It was easy to see the vegetation trend across the state from forest to mixed forest/grasslands to grass lands then sand dunes/desert to rocky desert. There are rivers to cross too: the Red, the Trinity, the Brazos, the Rio Grande. The terrain goes from hilly to flat to a climb up onto the Edwards Plateau to flat again then the mountains.
I wrote about the rest stop mosaics in west Texas in an earlier blog. The rest stops in Texas were all clean and well maintained; the ones in west Texas were the same temperature as outside so were very cold when I passed through. There was at least one where the construction of a new facility was already started, presumably one that will be heated and cooled.
The pictures below are from the welcome station between Texas and Oklahoma on the Red River (two on left), the wind farms that seem to be more numerous every time I come through west Texas (lower right) and then the mountain ranges that appeared on the horizon to break the monotony of the sand dune part of the state.
Celebrating the whole of life....
Thanks for visiting my blog! Enjoy the photo picks from last month:
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