The days just fly by

Enjoying every day with my wife, my best friend of 41 years.  After her long hard 2025, we appreciate her good days even more.

Walked a mile, rebounded for 15 minutes, ate only one full meal and part of another.  Vice:  12 oz Mexicoke.

It's just been that kind of month

 

Afternoon napping

From left:  Nelson and Kit Charlemagne

Back yard, late afternoon, the day after a foot of snow

Early morning snow

Taken at 6:00 a.m., or about 90 minutes before sunrise.  Details on the file say that it was 1/4 second at f/1.8 and ISO-2500, with no flash.  The neighbors have several ground lights in their front yard.  

 

Kit Charlemagne in the late afternoon sun

Waiting with faint hope

To begin with, I was pretty, pretty, pretty close to 40°33'56.9"N 75°35'07.2"W in the map screen shot immediately below.  

The next image gives you an idea of what I saw looking west from nearby Grange Road, April 21, 2024.  One white flower was visible in the middle of an open field, and I walked over for a closer look.   

Soon the flowers were gone and the field was planted in soybeans.  But next spring, April 29, 2025 to be exact, the same kind of white flowers reappeared, shown in the third image.  They're called ornithogalum nutans, or drooping star-of-Bethlehem, and evidently their bulbs are pretty hardy, if not always welcome.

Finally, a view of the same field looking south, January 6, 2026.  The area shown in the prior pictures hasn't yet been dug up or graded, but in my experience, there's not much reason to be optimistic.

Until the early part of the decade, the roadside was seldom tended, and wildflowers grew all along it, including chicory, hawkweed, red clover, and Queen Anne's lace.  A short distance away, purple asters thrived near the bypass.  All that has changed, and I'm glad I took pictures while I had the chance.