forest dwellers – LLOYD'S LENS PHOTOGRAPHY LLC

Sunbeams In The Forest

A Cardinal and his mate sing out their melodies in a conversation known only to those who find true love. Their voices carry above the background of the morning chorus. The breeze is gentle and smells of the fresh moss and morning dew. A little fluff of down leftover from an unknown flower carries its single seed in hopes of finding fertile ground to spawn new life in the coming months. Some might say that it’s unseasonably warm but I think that the seasons know what they’re doing and don’t need advice from mankind. The sun casts it’s glow across the mountains to sweep away the remanent of shadows from the forest floor. The darkness evaporates back into the ether and reveals that resilient green that knows the light and reaches through a blanket of duff and leaves to embrace the solar blessings. It’s new life on a new day and a chance become more than yesterday could define. May it be so with the rest of us. Good advice from a little clump of simple moss. Hold your ground in the darkness and reach for the heavens when you have the chance. Don’t worry about how fast you can grow. Just grow steadily.

Good night friends and be blessed throughout your days.

Announcement 2.0

For those who have been following me on Facebook and know of the struggle content providers have to get circulation from big tech I’ve been recommending for people to adopt MeWe as a social media platform. One of the problems I’ve run into on MeWe is that people don’t know how to navigate the platform. So to help with that I’ve created a permanent page on my website as a basic Basic Beginner’s Guide To MeWe I’ve tried to anticipate all basic questions there and You can bookmark the page to have as a reference and if you have any questions or suggestions don’t hesitate to contact me. I do still have a day job and I help admin several pages on both platforms so replies might be a little slow but I will answer you.

We also have the Lloyd’s Lens Photography Discussion Group on MeWe that is set up as a fully functional community. There you’ll not only be able to see and connect with me but you can also make your own posts and interact with each other.

I want you to join my group on MeWe: https://mewe.com/join/lloydslensphotographydiscussiongroup

Click the link below to jump to the Basic Beginner’s Guide To MeWe.

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Hey Friends! Just a quick reminder that Lloyds Lens Photography is available for portraits!

To book me simply reach out using the Contact Page and we’ll set a date. If you’re within a 50 mile radius of Summersville West Virginia all travel fees are waived.

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Life-Time

Color Photography, winter

Hello friends! Tonight’s feature image is titled “Misty Forest 121619” and is available for purchase by the instructions at the bottom of the article.

Water gently falls from the the bare twigs striking the sparse leaves. Deep within the mists the sound of hooves cautiously moving through the bush echoes up from the hollow below. The air is full of random chirps from the various little birds. I can also hear the dull thud of the local Pileated Woodpecker as he probes the old snag that’s just out of sight. The mists have stirred up the smell of the moss and it occasionally wafts my direction in the light breeze.

In my youth I would sit for hours on a rock ledge and immerse myself in the surrounding forest. In an age when the only wireless communication was a two way radio and reality wasn’t virtual time belonged to the experiencer.

It makes me question the definition of a lifetime. Is it a measure of quantity or quality? Is ten centuries of existence in a box a lifetime or is life-time the time spent experiencing creation?

The laughter of the woodpecker rings out as I contemplated my place in creation and I realized that his jovial outlook on life is tied to the fact that woodpeckers never invented a clock to divide their lives between existence and living.

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

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When You Suddenly Realize That You’re Not Alone

Color Photography, wildlife

Hello friends! Tonight’s feature image is titled “Deer Family 81019” and is available for purchase by following the instructions at the bottom of the article.

My big blue truck rolls through my uncle’s pasture as I approach the old grove of black walnuts. The little meadow down in the lower corner of the farm was always a special place for me. As a child I would sit for hours on a flat rock in the middle of a marsh and just take in the nature at the base of a spring.

On the particular day I took the picture I was milling about when I suddenly felt like I was being watched. You might think it’s just cliche but it’s real. I have seen bears and other predators in this spot before so I froze in place and rolled my eyes in the direction that I felt the gaze coming from. My eyes are not what they used to be but I saw something moving in the deep shadows. Fortunately, there were no bears this time. It was just a family of deer trying to figure out if I was dropping off food for the cattle. They like to hijack the sweet grain and mineral supplements if they get a chance. In fact a low tech way of removing a tree stump is to salt it. A mixture of mineral salt, vitamins and molasses is poured into the stump around the roots and over the stump until it’s saturated. The stump is then abandoned. Within a few days the deer will dig it out for you as they try to get their dietary supplements out of the ground. At this point there’s no feral pigs in my area but it’s a safe bet that they would be even quicker at rooting out the stump.

Today however, there’s no prizes for the deer that show up. I began to move and behave as if I never noticed them and they soon slipped back into the shadows that lay beyond the ferns.

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https://youtu.be/FDcrY6w8oY8

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Forage Friday #9 Wild Grapes ( just the vine for now )

Color Photography, Forage Friday

Last weekend we missed Forage Friday due to a weather event so this Friday we’re going to pick up where we left off.

Hello Friends! Tonight’s feature image is titled “Wild Grapes and Snake Tongue “. The image was taken specifically for tonight’s post. All of the photos on my blog are available for purchase by following the instructions at the bottom of the article.

We’re all familiar with Grapes. The fruit of the vine permeates our culture world wide. Everything from fine wine to to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich uses the grape berries. I have recently learned that the leaf is a huge Mediterranean delicacy. A quick internet search revealed that other parts of the world use the leaves in a lot dishes. However, the leaf is not the focus of tonight’s post. It’s the tendrils that I’m interested in on this foraging excursion.

As a kid we called them snake tongues. And it was probably while doing a silly snake impersonation and using the forked tendrils for a prop that I discovered the flavor.

The tendrils of wild grape resembling the forked tongue of a snake.

The taste of local wild grape tendrils reminds me a little of sweet tarts candy. I normally only grab a few while walking around the mountains. The candy like flavor helps me with dry mouth and it’s a little pick-me-up. Although that later trait is probably due my association with childhood.

I have been curious to chop a few up and toss them into a salad but so far I’ve just used it as a trail nibble like most of the wild edible plants that I’m familiar with.

I believe that the particular variety of grape in the feature image are Porcelain Berry. The reason why I think that is because the property where I took the photos is thick with Porcelain Berry.

Porcelain Berry looks nothing like the grapes in the grocery store.

The Porcelain Berry is a really interesting grape visually. The cluster often contains a variety of blues and reds in multiple tones. They are edible raw or cooked but I’m told that the flavor of the fruit is somewhat disappointing so I have never bothered to try it.

One last thing about the actual leaf. Specifically on Porcelain Berry. Because I have just discovered that grape leaves are edible I did a little digging around the internet and Porcelain Berry leaves are said to only be edible when cooked. Porcelain Berry is not a true grape even though we commonly call them wild grapes. True grapes are in the genre vitis. True grapes leaves can be eaten raw while Porcelain Berry (genus Ampelopsis ) leaves cannot be. I also need to warn you of a toxic look-alike to any kind of wild grape is Canadian Moonseed which contains a substance similar to curare. For more information about Moonseed here’s an old video from my YouTube days.

As always please do independent research and keep in mind that Forage Friday is only intended to be used as a starting point and a conversation starter.

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https://youtu.be/FDcrY6w8oY8

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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! Simply message me on Facebook oruse 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.

Thank you again for your support of my page!❤

Take Time To Grow

Color Photography

Hello Friends! Tonight’s feature image is titled “Hickory Seedling 43019″and is available for purchase by following the instructions at the bottom of the article.

It’s not how you start out but where you end up that’s important. Growing as hard as it can this little hickory tree is barely a foot tall. But if it lives long enough it could end up being one hundred and twenty feet tall. But that’s not going to happen overnight. It’s likely to take hundreds of years of hot summers and icy winters. It will have to survive multiple windstorms and seasons of drought before it can be a giant.

In our age of technological wizardry when you can fix a hot meal and download your favorite feature length film in less than five minutes we have come to expect instant success. We want the “cheat codes” of life. But then what? You can’t cheat life without cheating yourself out of the reasons why winning is awesome. A one hundred and twenty feet tall tree that has never weathered the storms will be doomed to crashing down in the first gust of wind. Like our own bodies, a tree has to develop its strength and flexibility by being exposed to the harsh conditions. It takes time to develop that kind of strength. It’s a battle that often leaves scars inside the wood. Not every tree reaches its full height. In fact, the average hickory tree is only sixtyfive feet tall. About half of its potential. And still we sit beneath it’s branches in awe of its size not considering that at one point in its life it was just another plant growing in a ditch. Most of us would have mistaken it for a weed.

A hickory seedling looks like just another weed

We shouldn’t measure our lives by where we are now. We need to consider that reaching our potential means weathering many storms and taking the time to develop those strong roots that hold us fast.

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