High Places

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Fred “Walter Mitty” the blogger pretends to be places he’s not. Wandering through his digital scrap book, he goes far afield in his head, even while the rains pour down and cold winds cut like a knife, and he sits behind his desk, not far from the cheery fire in the woodstove.

Here’s one I found going back to a Parkway excursion a month or more ago. I had passed over it in Photoshop when working on that folder of images, since my main purpose that day was to document infrastructure decline in the National Park. Of course, some of the pix that came home were of scenes and landscapes for their own sake, this being one of them.

There is something about tree silhouttes that intrigues me. One future note cards set, I hope, will be of trees through the seasons: maybe a winter set, and another with them in leaf in spring or fall.

Speaking of note cards, the Parkway cards I wrote about a few weeks back have been delayed by some printer-color problems at the shop. They’ve had to replace a part or two, and that has delayed the availability of the cards by a couple of weeks. Best laid plans (of mice and men…)

Which reminds me: last night–no mousey noises. Bar Bait. Thanks for the tip, y’all.

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  1. wow…i LOVE the clouds. i, also, love tree silhouettes…especially winter trees. i have about 20 shots of one tree that i saw recently….i just couldn’t get enough angles.

  2. oh…. i wanted to tell you that i saw bloodroot today in the woods. i was so proud of myself for knowing what it was- it was very exciting! ahh, the simple things that make me proud of myself! 🙂
    thanks for your little biology/ecology lessons!