A Reflection of Light Through Trees

It was a day that November stole straight out of summer's play book. Monday was beautiful and warm and sunny, with a blue-sky afternoon. We all guessed that it might be one of the last of its kind, so we were happy in that frenzied, happy way that you are when you know that it just can't last.

I was originally supposed to be working on this day, and I did, at least for part of it. There was a grant proposal that was due by the day's end, but last week, some things came up and the grant request got cancelled, or at least postponed for a while. So much for pushing toward a 5 pm deadline, which I expected I might be doing on this day. In the end, it worked out for the best anyway.

So instead, I was working at home in the morning, and things were pretty low-key. My husband was noodling around the house, commenting about what an extraordinary day it was, and how he wanted to go to the woods to go for might be the last wade in the water.

And you know what!? At the last minute, I threw caution to the winds, declared the afternoon "vacation time," and went with him to the woods! I can be like that on occasion. When you put those four things together into a sentence - gorgeous weather, the woods, my husband, wading in a mountain stream - I'm THERE!

So we quickly packed a little cooler with sandwiches and drinks, threw our daysacks and water shoes and chairs into my husband's car, and just like that, off we went to the woods of Sproul State Forest, for what was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.

We hiked a few miles, down into a hollow with a huge bubbling spring. And that is where we set up our chairs and hung out for much of the rest of the day. We sat in our chairs, we waded in the creek, and we just generally had fun!

I would try to wax more poetic about it, but I'm just an 80s girl at heart, so I'll give you my favorite word to describe it: it was AWESOME! For a while, I got pretty caught up taking reflection photos of the blue sky through the trees, and one of those shots is featured as my main photo for this day.

Late in the afternoon, when the sun had left the hollow, we made our way back up out of the woods and to the car, where we sat and enjoyed some of the last of the late-day light. I was sitting there in my chair looking up a long hill that in winter serves as our best sledding hill, when I saw something lit up like a lantern against the light.

I had to go in for a closer look, and when I did, I discovered that the "lantern" was a collection of milkweed seeds, looking all floofed-up and pretty against the light. They were practically glowing.

And so I took some photos, most in mono, some with the macro setting, and what a good time I had. I was shooting directly into the last of the late-day light, and I got some pretty interesting results. The angel floof almost looked like a candle, or (as I've said before) maybe a lantern.

I'm not sure I've ever seen milkweed floof look exactly like that before, and I'm the one who took the pictures! So please enjoy the angel floof photo I've placed in the "extra photos" area below.

As our woods adventure was drawing to a close, I was sitting in my chair in the sun, thinking how it is my custom to follow my husband into the woods whenever possible, and how we have such fun when we do go. The impromptu, unexpected trips are sometimes the best of all. The song to accompany this posting is by U2, whom we were listening to on the iPod and speaker in the woods. This song is their most frequently performed song, and it was their very first video!  Here is U2, with I Will Follow.