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Saturday, March 5, 2011

Swamp Fever


Don’t you love it when you take a vacation (long or short) that involves sights you don’t usually see? The joy of driving over to Charleston is that we get to explore worlds that we don’t have here at home.

                                                                  Photo by Tom Baugh

Our first stop on this recent trip was the Audubon Swamp Perserve. This swamp area is part of the original Magnolia Plantation lands. That plantation’s crop was rice and the wetlands served as a perfect growing placeToday it is a preserve for all manner of wildlife. We were so very fortunate because both the egrets and the herons were breeding and the rookery was filled with these beautiful birds. They would swoop up into the air and then settle down in the trees.
                                                                    Photo by Tom Baugh

The egrets were my favorites because their beautiful, white, fluffy feathers just captured my imagination. What would it be like to crawl onto the back of one of these majestic birds and hitch a ride, nestling down into their white, fluffy feathers? I wish I could know.


There was a thick carpet of bright green duckweed coating many of the surfaces of the swamp. It was so dense and smooth that it looked like a floor of bright green linoleum that you could easily walk upon and never get wet. Of course we weren’t allowed to test that theory.

When I saw this stand of trees with lines and shadows running across the top of the duckweed, my imagination took over. Do you think one day I might translate this picture into punchneedle? I think I might try!

This log, seemingly wrapped with vines (or whatever) made me think texture and sculpture. How I would love to have this in my yard so that I could study its turns and twists and intricacies.

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous". - Aristotle

2 comments:

  1. I'm always in awe of the way your mind sees things, Penny. You see art everywhere! I tend to get distracted and am surely missing much beauty.
    Although, hmmm...a memory from yesterday was just jogged by your post. As I was driving out of our driveway, I spotted an old tree stump that had been dug up and thrown aside. I thought, at that second, that it had an interesting shape and looked a bit like a sculpture. Now I'm recalling I also thought it might be a nice backdrop for photographing some of my dolls. Then I was out of the driveway and the thought was gone, until just now! Your post resurrected it! So I guess I do have such thoughts, but must learn to pay more attention to them like you do. You wrote do we "think one day I might translate this picture into punchneedle?" No doubt about that! Can't wait for it to happen. Beautiful photos, Penny, thank you for posting them!

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  2. Poetic and inspiring. Your beautiful photographs are a reminder to open our eyes.

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