Penning Photography Daily

Between storm systems, the sun was out and the sky was full of white clouds.

I went for a walk.

Out onto the Sangamon Valley Trail, starting at Stuart Park, which is near my home, I spent a delightful hour or so. The humidity was high, and I was dripping by the end of my trek.

Just as I started, I came up the valley between the woods behind our home and the rolling grass fields of the nearby farm. The old fence is in the foreground, built to keep the cattle that sometimes graze here from wandering off.

It was a near perfect view of the scene. There are times that I wish I would jump the fence and explore those fields further. I respect the fence, merely wondering in my mind at what lay beyond.

The view almost always has me stop and enjoy the view.

Decades ago, this plant came to us from a very old family relative. She had cultivated it from her great aunt’s garden and passed it on to Karen one day.

It blooms in May and the early part of June. It has tall green blade-like leaves and these very tiny blue/violet flowers that bloom during the day and close up at night. The even tinier yellow stamen in the middle of the blossom look like diminutive blooms themselves. That’s what drew me closer.

So I don’t know what the name of this plant is, but I do know two things. That it is full of beauty, in it’s tiny form and fuzzy pods, and that it is a type of family heirloom.

It makes me wonder about passing this on to other generations of family, and keep the story of Mary Fran’s flower alive.

I’m not sure if there’s another creature that naps as much as a cat does.

Certainly this one grabs some shuteye whenever and whenever possible.

Meet Sissy, our lovable feline. Far less curious than her sister cat, Smokey. There’s only two things that interest Sissy: animals outside our house, and the desire to be petted, stroked, scratched and paid attention to.

The squirrels, chipmunks, birds and other creatures that scamper about outside our home are forever a vexation to poor house-bound Sissy. She’ll sound out her frustration at them, staring and chitter away out loud until they leave her view. Then she goes for a nap.

Anytime either Karen or I are anywhere near Sissy, she complains loudly that we’re not reaching down to pet, scratch or stroke her. She’ll come close, but stay just out of reach, as if it’s our duty to get up or walk closer to satisfy her desires. After a fit of complaining, or after a session of satisfactory touching, she’ll go for a nap.

You get the idea. Napping is critical to her well-being.

Since she usually wants to complain when I get near, I count myself lucky that this time, she remained asleep. Or at least did a good job of tolerating my intrusion. Then she went back for her nap.

Life thrives wherever it can.

Here, a young tree is climbing up the old bark of a tree in Lincoln Memorial Garden

As I was walking by, the new red leaves struck my eye and had me stop.

There’s so much going on here. The base layer of bark with its deep ruts tell part of the story of this tree’s age. The bark is covered in part with moss, another life, clinging and thriving in the garden. There are old vines, looking past their prime but still clinging to the bark. Finally the new tree limbs are climbing up the side of the old tree.

Whether this new tree continues to grow will be something I’ll be on the lookout for, as I continue to take my walks in these woods.

Not only is it good to look up, I’m finding that I need to be reminded to look back.

I’m always looking forward both to make sure I have sure footing, but to keep my eyes open for what lay ahead that might be of interest. I’ve long since learned to look up, not just ahead and down, left and right.

Of late, I’ve started to train myself to pause every so often to look backwards, to see what I might be missing along the way.

This sky showed up as I looked back as I was walking through the Ostermeier Prairie Center, part of the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Garden along the shores of Lake Springfield. It’s one of my favorite types of cloud formations. The wind has taken the wisps of white and brushed them across the blue sky in all different directions.

It was a windy day on the ground. Looking at this sky makes me wonder how much more wind there was at the altitude of the clouds.

A beautiful sky.

Karen seldom makes requests of me to take photographs. She did so today, pointing out the Columbine by our driveway that is in perfect bloom, ripe for a picture session.

I asked her to leave me a note, on my chair, as I was getting on my exercise bike for some workout time.

I promptly forgot all about the flower.

Much later, I saw the light of day fading, then recalled the request, and my thought that the flower would look better at sunset. Yikes! I had forgotten. The note not even jogging my mind until I saw the light slipping past twilight.

I ran to get the lens I had in mind. A gift from my niece, and her step-father, who had been about to garage sale the lens among others when my niece kindly thought that Uncle Matt might like this stuff, and gifted me this beauty of a lens among others. It’s an old lens, but it sees with such beauty that it can take my breath away when I use it to its best.

With the last light reflecting on the first dew of night, drops clinging to the tiny spider’s web, I composed then fired off three frames. This being the best of the three. I’m thankful that my camera works so wonderfully well in low-light.

The beauty of Karen’s Columbine pops from the screen.

I hope she likes it.

A bloom from a Peace Lilly plant, standing alone amid the plants and flowers of the Washington Park Botanical Garden.

These flowers always catch my eye. Their simplicity and that complex center-piece draw me in to contemplate their beauty, whenever I stroll near them in the hothouse.

This one was separate from the other blooms of the plant. Standing tall and solitary. Catching the diffuse sunlight as it was filtered by the glass dome. It glowed.

Simple yet elegant and serene.