This afternoon I took a walk in the woods behind our house. My goal was to visit (and photograph) two small woodland streams,
The nearest one (about a quarter mile from the house) was a bust. Too little flow and too much light (contrast).
The second (about another half mile along) panned out well. Just the right combination of flow and light.
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Meetinghouse Hill was the original center of Antrim. The original meetinghouse was built near the summit in 1785. The associated cemetery is still well maintained an offers nice views of Mount Mondanock after some recent logging activity on the southwestern flank.
The meetinghouse building was moved to the foot of the hill (maybe a half mile trip) in 1832 and was purchased by the Antrim Grange in 1894. It still used as the Grange Hall and they are in the midst of a campaign to restore the building. Across Meetinghouse Hill Road from the Grange is the Uplands, an old farmhouse and barn. The Uplands is the home of our friends Victor and Lynne who run a bed and breakfast there.
Last Friday, I spent some time on Meetinghouse Hill making photographs.
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Last Friday was cool and partly cloudy. Perfect weather for photographing flowing water. The snow is almost gone, but the spring runoff is still near peak.
I spent a bit of time with neutral density filers and tripod, making photographs at two different small woodland streams during the day.
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Spring has been v—e—r—y s—l—o—w in coming this year.
However, by the end of last week the majority of the winter’s accumulation of snow was gone and things were looking up. I even got to try out the grill Joan had bought me at Edmund’s Hardware Store ladies night back in December.
There was so little snow left that the treasure hunters were out. On the 11th (last Wed.) I ran into a fellow with a metal detector while I was walking the un-maintained section of Brimstone Corner Road. He had found four very old buttons by searching around one of the old cellar holes.
Then, on Sunday and Monday, we got two inches of frozen rain (i.e. ice pellets) and, for good measure, some 35 degree rain on top of that!
Spring be damned!
Today, Joan and Ben Pratt headed out on Gregg Lake to do the first water sampling of the year. The temperature was about 35 degrees and there was a stiff breeze blowing when they headed out about 9:30 this morning. The temperature was up to 45 degrees by mid-afternoon when they returned home from delivering the samples to the lab in Concord. They report that the water temperature was 4 degrees C from top to bottom!
Here are some random photos made over the past week.
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Yesterday, hoping for good light, I took my camera along on my walk. The hope was just that.
For most of the walk the sun was out full resulting in harsh, direct light.
The problem (for photography) with harsh, direct light is too much contrast; harsh, deep shadows accompanied by bright, hot highlights.
When nature hands you lemons make lemonade:
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The calendar says “spring”. The weather says otherwise.
We are still having daytime temperatures in the high 30’s and low 40’s; night time temperatures have been generally below freezing and as low as the high teens. This is perfect weather for maple sugaring and from what I hear this has been a banner year for such.
This past week brought a few inches of new snow. Fortunately, it is April and the new snow was mostly gone within a day. However, there are still pockets of the winter’s snow still hanging on here and there in the woods.
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On Sunday afternoon, scattered along about a quarter mile of our road, we noticed an invasion of snow people.
They seemed to rise phoenix-like from the slowly receding snow pack. Or maybe they stand guard like the Moai monoliths of Easter Island. Take your pick of metaphor!
We are grateful (for this bit of fun) to the suspects involved in their construction; you know who you are!
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March… that awkward in between month. Thus far, winter is still ahead.
However, the sap is running well. It looks to be a good year for sugaring.
From yesterday’s walk down the ‘civilized’ section of our road:
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This is what I noticed on my daily walk on the “civilized” section of our road this afternoon.
Why I had never seen this before? Hmmm!
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