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Reminds me of Steeleye Span's Marigold/Harvest Home .. listen to the clip if you wish! www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Steeleye+span+harvest+home&a...
And the lyrics? -->
When the marigold no longer blooms
When summer sun is turned to gloom
See the forecast winter snow
See the evergreen that lonely grows
Move close to the fireplace
Neglect the garden
See the ground harden
At a ghostly place
The golden summer sun is silver now
The fruit has fallen from the bough
The season moves to chestnut time
Toffee apples, treacle and mulled wine
Quilts and furs and woolens gay
You wrap around you
But the cold confounds you
On an autumn day
Stout and strong the walls of home and hearth
Curtains drawn against the draft
The rake has reaped, the blade has mown
Nights draw in to call the harvest home
The quiet of a heart at rest
In peace abounded
By love surrounded
Here the home is blest
Harvest Home
Come, ye thankful people, come
Raise the song of harvest home
All be safely gathered in
Ere the winter storms begin
God, our Maker doth provide
For our wants to be supplied
Come, ye thankful people, come
Raise the song of harvest home
From the lovely Steeleye Span. 😄
I've been known to warble this song myself .. a good way to empty a building! 😁
I was patiently waiting for a Snowy Owl to take flight and happened to look behind me to see this scene. If I didn't have my other camera with 24-105 lens to reach for, I'd have missed this particular moment. The light and clouds changed very quickly from this status.
Picher, OK, was a mining town in the northeast corner of Oklahoma, and the area around it was a major producer of lead and zinc in the first half of the 20th Century. At its peak, more that 14,000 men worked the mines in the area, and 4,000 more in mining-related services. Eventually, the mines played out and the last one closed in the late 1960s, leading many people to move away from Picher.
The result of this activity was huge piles of mine waste (chat) in various places in and around Picher. Although not economically viable, the chat piles still had trace amounts of lead in them, and the wind would stir up fine dust particles which the townspeople would inhale. Contaminated water turned the local creek red, and sinkholes began to appear as the abandoned mines collapsed.
In 1983, the Environmental Protection Agency declared a 40-mile (104km) square area around Picher one of the most contaminated areas in the United States. A study in the mid 1990s showed about a third of the children in Picher had elevated levels of lead in their blood. The federal government began buyouts of the remaining residents in 2005, but not all took the offer. In 2008, an EF-4 tornado cut a path through the remainder of the town killing 7 people and destroying many houses; none were rebuilt. In 2009, Picher disincorporated and the school district dissolved, making it a modern-day ghost town. More wildlife than people now inhabit the area, but Picher’s legacy remains. Early in 2015, more than 1,000 migratory birds were found dead in Picher; the cause was thought to be zinc poisoning.
Infrared
A majestic Bald Eagle is perched on a tree as snow falls gently to the ground near Trout Creek, Montana. While it almost looks B&W, this photo has not been converted.
My dog and I walked around the farm, then detoured to take a look at the pond - I was wondering if the frogs have started to appear yet.
I didn't see any frogs but I had the most magnificent but fleeting sight of a dazzling blue Kingfisher. What a wonderful way to end the year.
Wishing you all a Very Happy New Year.
Woke up this morning to freezing rain which then turned over to snow. Will I ever get use to winter in the Midwest? I doubt it!
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View on black:
I was cutting wood, turned around, to my surprise (and the tree's) we saw each other. Very little post process, just desaturation, contrast, and sharpening.
For whatever reason, there is one particular spot in the middle of the Fox River (just south of the State Street bridge in South Elgin, IL)... where the geese like to bunch together in a tight pack. Warmer water? Colder? Something else? Don't know. But they know... and they've been there every day since the weather turned colder.
But every once in a while, things get a bit crowded... and a few of the geese that are squeezed to the outside fringe of the tightly-packed group decides 'enough is enough'... and they're off to find less crowded waters. Like these... =) At least that's my theory...
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