Hello friends! Tonight’s feature image is titled “Sunset Over Marmet Locks 21420” and is available for purchase by the instructions at the bottom of the article.
The big blue truck rolls back to my mountain with unwavering commitment in the evening. The trip requires less use of the headlights every day. For the first time since October I’m blessed to have a beautiful sunset on my journey home. I gently nudge the wheel and move to the side of the road. The only place where there’s enough room to get completely out of the way is across from the Marmet Locks. The series of locks and dams on the Kanawha River make it possible to transport the coal from the mountains to the rest of the world. I arrived at the wide spot just in time to enjoy the sun’s finale for the day as the crimson glow is cast against the rain clouds in a promise of the brighter days ahead.
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I’m now using Zazzle to fulfil orders. What this means for you is a secure way to place an order, discount codes & a broader product selection! Simplymessage me on Facebookoruse the contact form on my websiteand tell me which image you want and I’ll reply with a direct link to where you can place the order.
Clicking on the photo takes you tohttps://www.zazzle.com/lloydslensphotos?rf=238248269630914251Lastly, all of the photos and writings are my original work unless otherwise specified and are not to be copied or reproduced without expressed written permission from the photographer.
Hello friends! Tonight’s feature image is titled “Mockingbird 21420” and is available for purchase by the instructions at the bottom of the article.
During a break in the rainy day I decided to step out for a bit of fresh air. The little minstrel that visited me at lunch flew out of the forest and landed on a Multiflora Rose on the edge of the property. He had been singing his little heart out all morning and once more it was time to pay the piper. Today however, I was not caught without a crust of bread and presented my offering in return for his song. The mockingbird flew to roost with his meal and soon returned. Now, you may not know this but when birds aren’t singing they’re listening. And because they fly all over the lands they hear a lot and pick up on a lot of wisdom. The mockingbird looked me over and then I clearly heard him say “Thank you” in the voice of one of my teachers from many years ago. He must have noticed the shocked look on my face because he grinned and noted that he was a mockingbird and the imitation was no challenge at all. I’m sure that I was still blinking when I replied “You’re welcome.”
“Well then”, the mockingbird continued, “because that was such a fine crust of bread I’ll share with you one of the treasures that I’ve learned in my journeys flying to and fro and listing to the best teachers in the land. I leaned in closer as he spoke.
“You’ll never achieve a goal that you don’t believe in.” He said. “To have a dream is one thing but to believe in that enough to take action is another thing. If you believe that something is impossible then you won’t give a full effort and you’ll give up before you succeed.” Then he paused for dramatic effect. “Failure begins with a lack of faith in yourself. You’ll always have what you believe in. If you believe in success you’ll find a way to make it but if you believe in failure then that’s what you’ll create.” Then in typical little bird fashion he spread his wings and took off.
And so I took to heart what the little bird told me and as I looked back at my own life I saw times when his words rang true. And even though certain goals are genuinely out of reach most if the ones that I’ve missed I missed because I gave up too early in my efforts. Likewise, the things that I actually achieved I achieved simply because I knew that there had to have at to make it happen and I kept making small adjustments until they did.
I hope that you are encouraged by the things that the little bird told me. If so then let me know in the comments! 😊
Hello Friends and thank you for your support of my page. If you have enjoyed the photos or the writings please let me know by commenting and sharing my work on your social media. I also want to invite you to Follow Lloyds Lens Photography on Facebook
If you would like to Follow me on Facebook the web address is
Did you know that I also do portraits by appointment? If you’re interested in a portrait session either message me on Facebook or Use the Contact form. The YouTube link below takes you one of my slideshows.
I’m now using Zazzle to fulfil orders. What this means for you is a secure way to place an order, discount codes & a broader product selection! Simplymessage me on Facebookoruse the contact form on my websiteand tell me which image you want and I’ll reply with a direct link to where you can place the order.
Clicking on the photo takes you tohttps://www.zazzle.com/lloydslensphotos?rf=238248269630914251Lastly, all of the photos and writings are my original work unless otherwise specified and are not to be copied or reproduced without expressed written permission from the photographer.
Hello friends! Tonight’s feature image is titled “Bradford Pear 21420” and is available for purchase by the instructions at the bottom of the article.
Old man winter blasts the parking lot with his icy breath bringing forth our annual St. Valentine’s Day snow. I have noticed that in my little slice of Appalachia that we’re more likely to have a wet Christmas and a white Valentine’s Day. However, this year it was actually too cold for snow. We only got a few flakes that quickly dissipated. And even in spite of the bitter cold I noticed that Mother Nature is slowly opening her eyes from the deep sleep of winter.
In the urban areas the Bradford Pear is one of the first to wake up. As the big blue truck carried me by I noticed the buds are starting to swell. The papery outer scales have started to slip away and reveal the light green promise of new life. And this hits a mark on my natural calendar. Time of the swollen buds. It will most likely be several weeks before they actually open and even then it’s common to have snow covered flowers but as they drop the pear leaves begin to burst open and the other flowers follow. The Service berry, magnolia and Dogwood will also be making an appearance. Usually it’s April when they come out.
The temperature actually has less to do with the buds opening and more do with the earth’s angle to the sun and wavelength of the the light that hits the tree. So I pay attention to the Bradford Pear buds and take note of what they’re saying. Tonight they say “Get ready. It’s not much longer before the land is fully awake.”
Hello Friends and thank you for your support of my page. If you have enjoyed the photos or the writings please let me know by commenting and sharing my work on your social media. I also want to invite you to Follow Lloyds Lens Photography on Facebook
If you would like to Follow me on Facebook the web address is
Did you know that I also do portraits by appointment? If you’re interested in a portrait session either message me on Facebook or Use the Contact form. The YouTube link below takes you one of my slideshows.
I’m now using Zazzle to fulfil orders. What this means for you is a secure way to place an order, discount codes & a broader product selection! Simplymessage me on Facebookoruse the contact form on my websiteand tell me which image you want and I’ll reply with a direct link to where you can place the order.
Clicking on the photo takes you tohttps://www.zazzle.com/lloydslensphotos?rf=238248269630914251Lastly, all of the photos and writings are my original work unless otherwise specified and are not to be copied or reproduced without expressed written permission from the photographer.
Hello friends! Tonight’s feature image was taken specifically for this article as were all the photos in the post. All of the photos are my original work and are available for purchase by the instructions at the bottom of the article.
Last night I mentioned that the moss was starting to show a bright green of new growth. And that was a little bit of a foreshadowing of tonight’s Forage Friday post.
While not really thought of as a wild edible plant moss is considered to be a medicinal herb.
Some of my first reading on medicinal herbs came from Tom Brown Jr is survival books. He mentions that Stalking Wolf ( his Apache teacher) taught him to bandage wounds with sphagnum Moss. I was pretty intrigued with the idea that A clump of “dirty old moss” could be applied to a wound as a sterile dressing. But it is a historical fact that simple moss has been used to heal wounds since the caveman days. Moss was a major resource for wounded soldiers in World War I and is credited with saving “thousands” of lives. The Cotton had been allocated for uniforms and explosives ( nitrocellulose is made with cotton ) leading a shortage of cotton bandages. So the go to became viles of dried sphagnum moss. The secret it seems, was in the low PH factor of the moss making it impossible for pathogenic bacteria to flourish in the wound. ( I have found conflicting information about the PH of different types of moss. Some sources say that Sphagnum is neutral PH and peat is acidic. I have not taken the time to test this out for myself)
Further reading over the years has revealed that sphagnum was also used for diapers and feminine napkins with the same effect of limiting bacterial growth.
Image Titled “Star Shaped Sphagnum Moss 2120”
There are 12,000 different species of moss! But generally we think about either Sphagnum or Peat. There’s a granite moss in North America that’s red instead of green and it doesn’t seem to mentioned in the medicinal context.
Sphagnum is also said to help a sore throat and again it is probably due to the antimicrobial properties. In fact peat moss has been known to produce mummies in the lands of Celts and we occasionally hear that an anthropologist has been called in to deal with a body that was discovered in a bog.
Image Titled “Moss In Bloom” due to the sporophyte structures.
In the early Spring moss goes into spore and takes on the look of an alien jungle from a 1950s black and white science fiction movie. I always thought that it reminded me of a tiny alien jungle. When I was a kid I would look at the moss and imagine that crew of the Enterprise wading through those funny shaped pods.
Living walls have become popular. While not as effective as a tree, moss along with algae and lichens absorb 14 billion tons of carbon and fix 50 million tons of nitrogen per year. So in urban areas where a person might have nowhere to plant a tree the living wall fills the niche. The simple way this is being done is from mix buttermilk, moss and water retention gel in a blender and paint it on an outside wall. I would suggest that you make it shady spot since the moss doesn’t do well in direct sunlight.
Image Titled “Finding North”.
With the moss preferring to be in the shade and old saying is that it point a North. Well, yes and no. Moss likes shade and the shadiest side of a tree is going to be on the north side of the tree. The truth is that moss can grow on the south side of a tree if it’s shaded enough so the old trick is best used by sampling a number of trees and going with the average and even then it only going to give you a general idea of North.
Finally, the last resource that moss can provide is as a cash crop. In the final image below is only about 3 years worth of growth of moss on my property. When I was housebreaking my pup I leaned that I could train him to go to a large plastic tray like a cat would go to a litter box if I filled the tray with moss. I have since replaced the moss with sawdust for easy clean-up but the point is that moss is a renewable resource and Now that I know that it can be propagated using the buttermilk paint techniques I can seed it in places where I have harvested for a quicker turnaround time. As a child, I had neighbors who would collect and bale dried moss to sell to a buyer for use in potting soil mixes. They never made a living from it but the moss along with other herbs gathered in the forest provided a little extra money for Christmas funds, vacation or just to splurge on the latest desire. What they accomplished by searching the mountains could conceivably be done by seeding the moss in a designated area that’s a little easier for harvest. One might even use the idea to create ready made terrariums for decor.
The Moss I harvested just a few years ago it’s almost ready to harvest again.
Moss in general is a commonly overlooked resource that provides a variety of benefits and I’m certain that I’ve left out a lot but perhaps you have some knowledge that you’d like to share in the comments.
Hello Friends and thank you for your support of my page. If you have enjoyed the photos or the writings please let me know by commenting and sharing my work on your social media. I also want to invite you to Follow Lloyds Lens Photography on Facebook
If you would like to Follow me on Facebook the web address is
Did you know that I also do portraits by appointment? If you’re interested in a portrait session either message me on Facebook or Use the Contact form. The YouTube link below takes you one of my slideshows.
I’m now using Zazzle to fulfil orders. What this means for you is a secure way to place an order, discount codes & a broader product selection! Simplymessage me on Facebookoruse the contact form on my websiteand tell me which image you want and I’ll reply with a direct link to where you can place the order.
Clicking on the photo takes you tohttps://www.zazzle.com/lloydslensphotos?rf=238248269630914251Lastly, all of the photos and writings are my original work unless otherwise specified and are not to be copied or reproduced without expressed written permission from the photographer.
Hello friends! Tonight’s feature image is titled “Mountain Flow 21320” and is available for purchase by the instructions at the bottom of the article.
The rain continues to fall in my slice of Appalachia. However it is slowing down a bit and the rivers are slowly ebbing back to their normal levels. The rain brings to life thousands of little creeks that cascade off of the surrounding mountains. They pass through the forest creating a spectacle worthy of any display to be found in a theme park as they twist and turn through the tree roots and shoot over the rocks or just roll down the natural staircase of ancient stones.
As a child I loved to play in the woods on wet days and imagine what it be like to be able to shrink myself down like Alice in wonderland until I was small enough to make a boat from a birch leaf and a paddle from a twig. I would launch my tiny canoe in one of these streams and ride the rapids until I shot over the falls. Of course, being magical enough to change size would mean I would be normal size before I hit the bottom and thus avoided any real danger.
As look into the forest that encompasses the little wet weather stream the first thing I noticed was that the moss has that light green color that comes with new growth. Which is another sign that Spring is on the way.
Hello Friends and thank you for your support of my page. If you have enjoyed the photos or the writings please let me know by commenting and sharing my work on your social media. I also want to invite you to Follow Lloyds Lens Photography on Facebook
If you would like to Follow me on Facebook the web address is
Did you know that I also do portraits by appointment? If you’re interested in a portrait session either message me on Facebook or Use the Contact form. The YouTube link below takes you one of my slideshows.
I’m now using Zazzle to fulfil orders. What this means for you is a secure way to place an order, discount codes & a broader product selection! Simplymessage me on Facebookoruse the contact form on my websiteand tell me which image you want and I’ll reply with a direct link to where you can place the order.
Clicking on the photo takes you tohttps://www.zazzle.com/lloydslensphotos?rf=238248269630914251Lastly, all of the photos and writings are my original work unless otherwise specified and are not to be copied or reproduced without expressed written permission from the photographer.
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