What We Don't Always See

I had just a few minutes today in between talking to a contractor and pulling a wheelbarrow load of weeds to take a couple pictures with my new camera. It's a Panasonic FZ30 and if you're in the market for a digital zoom with a 35 mm equivalent of 35-420, this might be the camera. This one will hold me over until I take the plunge for a digital SLR. New cameras, like all modern technology, take a while to adjust to. This one is no different.

I took a quick tour of the lower hosta garden. Sadly the constant rains have prevented me from taking any pictures of the Japanese primroses which are in abundance this year. People tell me I have planted them correctly in the perfect light exposure and in a damp woodland floor area. I never remind anyone that much of what I do is based upon luck.

These primroses are a pretty plant with 4 or 5 tiers of flowers, the first one to flower going to seed while the last one to flower provides a circle of color. The constant rains continue to coax more and more seeds from past years to germinate so we have quite an assortment growing now.

As I walked around I spotted the beauty of the False Solomon's Seal bloom. We don't always see the beauty in flowers, partly because we plain don't look but more often because our eyes don't magnify like a lens. When I checked a picture I had just taken in the viewfinder, I noted a beauty, a delicate look of creamy white fireworks exploding from the flower scape. I saw something I never noticed before and I know I'll never overlook these living sparklers again. Later these flowers fade to golden berries and as fall approaches the leaves begin to fade and the berries turn red, an obvious contrast to autum colors.

By the end of this week in Vermont almost every doe whitetail deer, pregnant over the winter, will have delivered her fawn or fawns. This is strange but true that they almost all deliver within less than a two week period, Vernon to Canaan, Highgate to Bennington. Like the beauty of many flowers, we don't always see the newborns until they have grown and been prepared for journeys apart from the secret places their mothers leave them.

As stewards of the lands and folks who really appreciate the nature around us, try to get out this weekend and enjoy Vermont. Look around and try to "see what we don't always see". I'll bet you'll enjoy a walk and the new things you will see!

From the mountain above Peacham Pond;

Gardening greetings, weekend joy!

George Africa
http://vermontflowerfarm.com