Backyard Gardens

There are several cool gardens along Shippensburg's back alleys which I like to watch progress through the growing season, and now is about the time when they hit their peak. There's a vegetable garden featuring Sunflowers raised for their seeds out back behind the Church of the Nazarene, and there's a gorgeous little garden just up Lutz Ave. from Memorial Lutheran that mixes flowers, veggies, and fruits (i.e. grapes). Plus some flower plantings along the way that caught my attention. Take a look!

A BIG Sunflower in the Nazarene garden; that one will yield lots of seeds!

The flowers in the Lutz Ave. garden, including some Hummingbird feeders at the back

Grape vines are grown as a sort of screen along the street side of the garden; looks like there's a good crop of grapes coming this year.

And here's the vegetable part of that garden. I'll bet the eating is good at that house!

Covering a fence with flowers along Lutz Ave.

And another garden with plenty of perennials, which are good, low maintenance beauties 

© 2016 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

A Sunday Morning Service

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church,
I keep it staying at Home—
With a bobolink for a Chorister,
And an Orchard, for a Dome.
- Emily Dickinson

I went to my "church" this morning - Nature. And specifically the Dykeman Spring Nature Park. Since I'm on vacation I took my time and spent a leisurely 3 hours wandering, sitting, and meditating. Join me in absorbing the beauty of Nature, basking in Mama Gaia's glory.

A Northern Rough-winged Swallow greeted me at the beginning of the nature trail

Cool, running water is always a welcome sight on a hot Summer morning

My pew this morning was a bench under a Black Locust. This is the upward view

Reflections on the north duck pond do very well as a stained glass window

Going up to the upland meadow you need to climb this stairway

The hay path on the meadow. I always expect to see a Conestoga wagon on it

"For purple mountains' majesty" - the northern mountains from the meadow

A Cabbage White butterfly on the upland meadow

Coming back down the hill to sit by the pond again; it's the ducks' lunchtime

A Common Whitetail dragonfly, a parting gift from Mama Gaia as I head for home

© 2016 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

A Walk in a Drying Wetland

It's day one of my 9-day vacation, and after doing some laundry this morning I decided that, despite the heat and humidity, I needed to take at least a short walk. So I popped over to the Brookside Ave. wetland, which feeds Burd Run midway through its path from South Mountain to Middle Spring Creek. And I discovered that this very dry Summer has had quite an effect on the wetland.

Despite the prevailing humidity, there really hasn't been any useful, soaking rain since May. There have been pop-up showers and thunderstorms created by the effect of Summer heat and sunshine on humid air, but those only dump their load and disappear, and the rain they dump is gone almost as soon as it falls. It can create some flash flooding, but that quickly runs off into the local creeks and flows away to the Susquehanna River. What's needed is a good day or two (or three or four) of soaking rain. But we haven't had that since Spring.

So when I arrived at the wetland I found that despite the green and the flowers the water level in the collection pond and in Burd Run itself are very, very low. In fact, the pond is almost completely dry, with only a few of the deeper parts still holding any water, and most of them are greening up with algae. And no ducks or geese or herons; there are plenty of regular birds (the Red-winged Blackbirds and the House Wrens were complaining at me the whole time I was there), but the only waterfowl or marsh birds that were there were a crowd of Killdeer on the dried flats of the pond and in the adjacent farm fields. It's dry, folks! We definitely need a good rain!

The collection pond is very, very dry!

Cattails and flowers in the wetland

At one point the path around the pond is overrun by flowers

The water level is way down in Burd Run, too

Daisy Fleabane in the wetland

A Common Wood Nymph butterfly among the Spotted Knapweed blooms

Another look at how dry the collection pond is

© 2016 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

A Shippensburg Pastorale

When I woke up this morning I had no idea what I'd do with today, my second day off of two. I knew I wanted to hike somewhere, but I couldn't decide where. Then I discovered it was the birthday of English Pastoral composer George Butterworth (more on him and a sample of his music after the photos), and in searching out music videos of his work on YouTube to post on Facebook I was inspired to consider a hike in an area I haven't visited in a while. So today I bring you scenes from an area west and slightly south of town, going out Possum Hollow Rd. to Mt. Rock Rd., out Mt. Rock to Rice Rd. and down Rice to Molly Pitcher Highway (Rt. 11) and home. Lots of farms, flowers, and views of both North and South Mountains. Enjoy!

A cornfield along Possum Hollow Rd.

A pasture becomes a field of flowers (mostly Chicory and Queen Anne's Lace) along Possum Hollow Rd.

Farms and South Mountain from Possum Hollow Rd.

Looking toward North Mountain from Mt. Rock Rd.

One farmer's inventive way of clearing a field after haying, along Rice Rd.

A pastoral scene along Rice Rd.

One more pastoral scene, this one along Molly Pitcher Highway on the way back home

George Sainton Kaye Butterworth (1885 - 1916) was a friend of Ralph Vaughan Williams and with Vaughan Williams and Gerald Finzi, Gustav Holst, and others a member of what I like to call the English Pastoral school - music based on collected English folksongs and composed as paeans to the English countryside. In fact, Butterworth and Vaughan Williams used to go on folksong collecting voyages along the country roads of Great Britain together, and it was Butterworth who convinced Vaughan Williams to compose his first symphony. Butterwoth's music is the epitome of the pastoral style of the "school", but we have only few works from him; like many of the artistic lights of his generation he was killed in WWI, specifically in the Battle of the Somme, which swallowed up so very much of Britain's youth. "Two English Idylls" (1911) is one of the best examples of George Butterworth's English Pastoral style. Enjoy!

Photos © 2016 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

More Wildflower Portraits

Another picture-perfect Summer morning + another stroll through the Dykeman Spring Nature Park with the camera = more macro portraits of wildflowers. There are flowers everywhere!

Queen Anne's Lace

White Campion

Hedge Bindweed

Pale Touch-Me-Not

Spotted Knapweed

Nodding Thistle

© 2016 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Cooling Off

Well, it's definitely being July now. It's hot and humid and miserable, and outdoors is no place to be. I'm off work today, as I was yesterday; I had no choice but to get errands done yesterday, and hot as it was it was less so than today. Today is a little more oppressive, but you know me, I have to get outside at least for a walk up and down the street, to touch trees and walk in grass if nothing else. And when it gets like this I make a beeline for where the creek runs by the little park behind the Shippensburg borough offices on N. Fayette St. I put on my sandals instead of my hiking boots, walk to the park, climb down the bank, and walk out on the gravel bar into the creek for a visit to heaven. I wear sandals so I can wade out into the water and let its coolness drain the heat out of my body. That and the fact that this stretch of the creek is overhung by large trees makes this a nice shady spot to hide from the Summer heat. Here are two views of my little spot of heaven.

Looking north

Looking south

© 2016 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

All Creatures Great and Small

Last week's walk through the Dykeman Spring Nature Park focused on small wildflower portraits. On today's walk the focus was on small creatures met along the way. Unfortunately flowers are easy to capture; they stand still. Little critters are constantly on the move and a bit more difficult to to get them to sit still long enough for a portrait. Today's shots were all captured at long range.

A baby Eastern Cottontail on the Dykeman Walking Trail

A Spring Azure butterfly in the Dykeman Spring wetland

A Mallard pair on the north duck pond

A Groundhog sentry on duty in the upland meadow

© 2016 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Scenes from the Macro-World - Small Flower Portraits

Another perfect Summer day, and while out and about I got some very close-up shots of small wildflowers. Yes, I did the patented Hilbinger Crawl, slithering on my belly in the tall grass to get close enough to these beauties to use the macro function on the camera. The results were definitely worth it!

Scarlet Pimpernel

Deptford Pink

St. John's Wort

Moth Mullein

© 2016 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

A Morning Walk and a Conversation

I walked through the Dykeman Spring Nature Park this morning and noticed how Summer is moving on apace. Lots of birds and birdsong today, at one point dominated by two Gray Catbirds mewing at me from deep in the foliage, not pleased with my presence. And the Canadian Thistle is up in full bloom, a sure sign the Summer is well settled in.

The haying is still in progress up on the meadow. The farmer who does it was up there this morning and we stopped and had a nice long talk. He asked me if I'd seen any Turkeys up there lately, as he doesn't want to overrun any nests and will actually delay cutting if he thinks a nest is in the area next on his progress. Heh, heh! And lo and behold, while we were talking a big hen appeared from the woods on the north side an started running across the meadow. We figured there must have been somebody on one of the trails walking a dog that spooked her.

He was saying how being up on the meadow was his favorite part of his work, because it's always so beautiful up there, away from the rush of people and cars, away from the noise, and out with Nature, watching the birds and the critters. I have to agree; my walks through the park, both in the wetland and up on the meadow, are the high point of my week. And the fact that he was up there on a Sunday morning tells me that for him it's like it is for me - that's our "church" out there in the outdoors, surrounded by Mama Gaia (although I sincerely doubt he'd mention her!) and enjoying every moment of it.

So here are some scenes from this morning's walk.

A Gray Catbird along the Dykeman Walking Trail letting me know my presence was not appreciated

A Canadian Thistle bloom with a busy visitor

The haying continues up on the meadow

© 2016 by A. Roy Hilbinger 

Midsummer

[Tomorrow is the Summer Solstice but I'll be at work, so I'm posting my annual celebration today.]

In our modern urbanized, mobile society the Summer Solstice is considered the first day of Summer, despite the meteorologists annually announcing that June 1 is the start of the actual season. But our agrarian ancestors had a more practical view of the situation - the crops were already well up, in the orchards the nascent fruit was already appearing, and the hot weather had already settled in, so obviously the Solstice was the midpoint of the season, hence the name Midsummer. I tend to agree. Heck, the farmers around here have already done the first haying, so obviously Summer is well under way. In any case, here are some shots from this morning's walk in the Dykeman Spring Nature Park (when the temps were already in the 80s [26º - 30º C]) to celebrate Midsummer!

© 2016 by A. Roy Hilbinger