Mass Audubon Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary, Massachusetts
I happen to know Milkweeds through the story of Monarch butterflies...
For Monarchs, Milkweeds are partners in survival.
They feed their young, and endow them with toxins that guard their lives.
We do not like to have Milkweeds around for fear of their toxins,
and a misbelief that they will choke those plants we love...
... so their beauty passes... each season... with Monarchs being the only ones to notice...
Mass Audubon Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary, Massachusetts
... untouched autumnal meadow awakens and makes seeing an art form...
Mass Audubon Rough Meadows Wildlife Sanctuary, Massachusetts
Where woodlands and marshlands mingle with the ocean...
... and tides roll over grass blades in the rhythm of celestial motion...
... a place of energy and silence... of land and sea, the Sun and the Moon... coming together...
Mass Audubon Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary, Massachusetts
I love walking through fern-lands...
... forests with moist grounds where ferns live happily in the shadow of trees...
Ferns are one of the oldest plants, dating back to the middle Devonian, some 390 million years ago. They became the most dominant plants on the planet some 300 million years ago, in the Carboniferous period, when Earth abounded with tropical swamp forests - the ideal places for ferns to thrive - and left us all this coal we are burning today...
... looking at their fronds... curving, twisting, rolling... dancing spirits from far-distant times...
Mass Audubon Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary, Sharon, Massachusetts
This was a summer with almost no-rain in sight. Streams have dried-out. Trees are hanging in there...
Still warm and thirsty... not the best time for prime autumn colors...
... nevertheless...
