Like a Weed: Forget-Me-Not Part Two
A closer look at our discovery (Part One) reveals the details of this sea of tiny blue flowers, details easily missed from a distance to those too busy for a bugs-eye view. It means getting down on your knees in…
Category Blue Ridge Parkway
Friday SHoRTs
&tc… This has been a difficult fern to make look nice, because unlike yesterday’s featured pteridophyte (Osmunda cinnamomea) that had feather-duster distinct spore-producing separate stalks, this Interrupted Fern (same genus) looks like it forgot what it was doing, interrupting the…
The Seldom Scene
I have a few *pterible images from that Blue Ridge Parkway meadow full of ferns I discovered a couple of weeks back, and will post one or two of my favorites. As with wildflowers, the first blooms (as if ferns…
Parkway Wildflowers
I caught a flash of orange-red out of the corner of my eye, off in a morning meadow beside the Blue Ridge Parkway. “California poppy escaped from cultivation” I thought, but pulled off the shoulder anyway, because these small but…
The Burning Bush | Flame Azalea
Flame Azalea | Rhododendron calendulaceum | acid soil loving shrub of the southern Appalachians I had what I would call a successful day in “the field” with the camera the other day–a wonderful couple of hours devoted to stopping whenever,…
Spring in Passing
The solution to finding the spring we missed while out West: go HIGH young man, go HIGH. (Well, forget the young part.) The Blue Ridge Parkway is lush with spring wildflowers along its 3000 foot plus ridges, and it took…
More Than Scenery: Viewshed Protection
That we are deeply affected at a gut level by what we take in through our eyes is a given. A picture of an abused animal makes you want to cry, while another image of an injured soldier can make…
Solved!
Maybe: the matter of keeping note card packages sealed (as per your vote a few weeks back) and still letting folks know what’s in each pack of five cards. I am printing two sets of five thumbnails on a single…
Friday Shorts: April 5
Hmmm. More like Friday Long Woolies. Spring was nice. Remember? :: First, thanks to Blue Mt Mamma for including two Floydians in her “Thinking Blogger” Awards post this week, after herself being tapped thusly, twicely. :: Google has made custom…
Mayberry, Maybury, Maybrey, Mabry
I get google visits from searches for the popular tourist stop along the parkway that is just barely in Floyd County. I’ve seen searches with all these spellings. By most accounts, it is the most photographed single feature along the…
Sharing Some Good News
A few of you reading this have been following this dog and pony show since the early days (five years ago almost to the day). Suffice it to say that when this epic began, the destination was far from certain.…
Blue Ridge Parkway Notecards Set #1
Be among the first to see the FIVE cards that were voted to the top by readers of Fragments from Floyd and Nameless Creek. Thanks for your suggestions, and I hope many of you will want multiple sets of these…
Fools Names and Fools Faces
It was not hard to find evidence of Blue Ridge Parkway decline a few weeks back when I went looking for it for the purposes of a Parkway newsletter. Damage from the vagaries of weather–like the two ice storms we’ve…
Our Beleaguered National Parks
The 469 mile long Blue Ridge Parkway is the nation’s most visited national park, and yet funding for it has not increased relative to the economy or to other national parks. Consequently, not only the aesthetic experience of travelers is…