Quincy IL – Dogwood City

https://gottbs.com/ttlabs/ Dogwoods Accent the Skies

go here Travel down the streets in Quincy. Illinois on a spring day and you’ll see why it’s been recognized as a Tree City USA.

source site Pink Dogwoods

Buy Zanaflex Online Without Prescription During the annual Dogwood Festival, the Dogwood trees seem to compete in their own beauty pageant. Every yard seems to sport its own tree, a mixture of creamy white blossomed trees and the more familiar pink Dogwood flowers.

https://ballymenachamber.co.uk/?page_id=52 The annual Dogwood Festival will be held next weekend, May 2 through 4, 2008, though I should be returned to my home in Madison by that time. I’m anxious to see what the last blast of winter did to my just-peeking-out bulbs and perennials, not to mention my own flowering trees.

Bleeding Hearts and Memories

Bleeding Hearts

go Bleeding Hearts

Pregabalin 300Mg Buy Online This is the very bleeding heart plant I loved as a child. Returning to my hometown to tie up loose ends this week, I made a stop at my childhood home.

Buy Zanaflex Online Without Prescription Each Spring my grandmother and I would eagerly watch this plant from the back porch, awaiting the blooming of the little hearts. Today I made an unplanned visit to the old house and found the bleeding hearts blooming bravely, standing amidst all the old memories.

Peepers in the Marsh, Peeping

https://www.dentistcorpuschristitexas.com/reviews/ Peepers at the Marsh, Peeping

You can’t hear them or see them but earlier this week the air around this marsh was filled with the spring peepers doing what they do best – peeping. Spring peepers are actually tiny frogs (the northern ones are about 1 1/2 inches long with a brown X on their backs) and in spring they noisily sing their mating calls – by peeping, of course. It’s a lovely call – no wonder there are lot and lots of tiny peepers.

If you do not know what a peeper sounds like, take a listen. You may very well recognize it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Peeper (check under the media heading)

Wakonda State Park
LaGrange, Missouri
March 29, 2008

Crossing the Muddy Mississippi

Across the Mississippi River

I have traveled across this bridge my entire life. Here, the bluff city of Quincy, Illinois is attached by steel girders and pavement to Missouri. I have traveled across this bridge to visit relatives in Hannibal and Palmyra, to take trips to St. Louis for shopping and Cardinals’ baseball games, to buy gasoline (Missouri’s gas tax is enough less than Illinois’ to make the trip financially worthwhile) and to catch the Amtrak in West Quincy when I went to college in Chicago.

Now I cross it when I travel from my home to my hometown. (I live in Wisconsin, but believe me, it is faster to travel Wisconsin-Iowa-Missouri-Illinois, than it is to head due south through Illinois.) Last weekend I crossed this bridge once again. I had never before taken notice of the brilliant blue of the bridge structure contrasting with the road, nor the red brick buildings climbing the bluffs in the distance. But then, never before had I traveled the country’s roads with a camera resting by my side.

Why is it I see so much more by adding a camera into the formula?

Bald Eagle in Winter

Bald Eagle in River Steam

Bald Eagle in River Steam © 2008 Bo Mackison

Taken at Sauk City, Wisconsin – the eagles’ wintering grounds on the Wisconsin River – in bitter cold weather. With the temperatures below zero and the river temperature at 30˙ F, huge clouds of steam were rising from the water’s surface and ice crystals were forming on the nearby tree branches. A single Bald Eagle swooped downstream and landed in this tree across the river from me. I took a few photographs because the eagle was within sight and it would be my last chance to photograph an eagle until next winter.

I nearly deleted all of the photos – they were really bad – but then decided to play around with one of them. I increased the exposure of the dark photo, added a little saturation, and cropped tightly. This is the result – a different look from the sharp photos I like, but the effect seemed to fit the mood. Looks a bit like a painting to me.