Rocky Gap Redbuds

I love going to Rocky Gap State Park any time I year, but I especially love it in the spring when the redbuds are in bloom.   Here are some photos I took yesterday.

North Carolina in the Spring

I just got home from a trip to North Carolina and I wanted to share some of my photos.  The timing was great to see the azaleas (and a lot of other things) in bloom.  It was beautiful!

This is the Sarah P. Duke Gardens on the campus of Duke University in Durham, NC:

This is Airlie Gardens in Wilmington, NC:

My cousin and I also took a day trip to Charleston, SC. These cool critters were at the Magnolia Plantation, either along the river or in the Audubon Swamp:

This guy was hanging out at the Peacock Cafe (no joke!) on the plantation:

Orchids

Since much of the country had a long, cold, snowy winter (and some areas are still getting snow), I thought I'd post a pretty picture of some orchids I photographed last March. This was part of a special orchid exhibit at the Louis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond, VA. I have a few crocuses that have opened up but my area is still a long way off from springtime flowers. It helps to look at beautiful flowers, like these orchids.

Rocky Gap State Park

It was such a beautiful sunny day today so I took a trip out to Rocky Gap State Park.  Here are a few of my photos from that trip:

Most of the country has had a colder than normal winter.  The photo below illustrates that fact perfectly.  I took this photo exactly one year ago today and it was taken near the same spot as the last photo above.  Looks a little colder, doesn't it?!

Moon Rise

When I was getting ready to go to bed the other night, I happened to look out my front door and noticed the moon coming up behind the trees on the mountain. I never pass up an opportunity to photograph the moon, so there I was out on my front porch at midnight with my camera! I didn't have much time to set up but I think these photos came out pretty good.

Another Winter Cardinal

It's been a while since I posted anything so I thought I'd share this photo I took of a cardinal during our big snow storm last week. We got a little over a foot of snow. This poor guy had a little bit of trouble. He had been perched on a stump of a weed underneath my bird feeder and when he hopped down to get some of the bird seed on the ground, he disappeared into the snow! He was able to fly out, though.

Holly in the snow

Thought I'd share these photos of my holly bush that I took 2 days apart. The first one was from Saturday when the temperature managed to get up to 50 degrees. (It was back in December the last time we saw a temperature in the 50's.) The second photo is from this morning as the snow was coming down. We got close to 6 inches of really wet snow. Boy, is that heavy to shovel! I'm looking forward to spring!