We still have one or two left . . .
. . . but after their glorious peak, it’s only a few days until most of the petals look like this:
Still, we shouldn’t shed a tear. With a little luck, there’ll be even more next year.
Camellias in bloom
Saturday afternoon, in the triangle garden.
Wikipedia Reference: Camellia
Magnolias in bloom
Above, 6:30pm Wednesday 14 March 2012. Below a shot in the dark from tree number one, about 6am Saturday 17 March, then again below, tree one about 9am. (About 5:30am, I’d been awakened by an owl of the variety “ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, UH-OOOOOH”, and subsequently dragged out of bed by young dog Cadbury.)
Wikipedia References: Magnolia, Magnolia Soulangeana
Super Tuesday
Worked 4:30am to 8:30pm here at Hartwood Presbyterian Church, Super Tuesday, the Republican presidential primary election on March 6, 2012. Left to right, Judy Miller, Bob Jankovits, myself, Judy Feather, and Lois Steiner. Served 276 of our precinct’s 4000 registered voters, of whom 120 voted for Ron Paul and 146 for Mitt Romney. (Our 10 absentee ballots were counted separately by the Registrar.)
Presidents’ Day
Our second major snowfall this winter, twice what we had in January.
About an inch, Sunday evening, just in time for the Presidents’ Day holiday.
A walk in the park
Five miles on the trail from Oak Ridge to the Mawavi Road bridge and back in Prince William National Park on Saturday afternoon. Mostly sunny, about 60 degrees.
Half-inch of snow last night . . .
. . . but not much left by 10:30 this morning. Went for a run in shorts and t-shirt about 3:30, when it was 50 degrees. Perhaps winter hasn’t really got started yet.
A winter sunset in Manassas
Congratulations, Erin!
Philadelphia Women’s Rugby Football Club 2011 Most Valuable Player Erin Ridout
Great blue heron
At Government Island, Stafford, Virginia. 2:54pm, Kodak Easyshare, maximum zoom, no tripod. Got another chance at the same bird a few minutes later, 3:06pm, from a different angle and a bit closer.
How can the same bird look so different from a different angle and with light that must have been almost the same? And that is the same water, not snow, even the same spot. The temperature was about 60F, or 16C. I was in a T-shirt on the last Sunday in November.