Tag Archives: summer

Thoughts

Summer scenes from Grosvenor Park

For the past several years, we’ve lived in a beautiful community in North Bethesda, MD, called Grosvenor Park. The community was built inside a forest that stretches from Bethesda to Rockville. This is a video recorded in that forest, on the shore of a brook that makes its way through the community, in the summer of 2008.

The nature that surrounded us while we lived there was a constant source of inspiration and relaxation for us. I wrote and posted photos taken in Grosvenor Park in the past, too. If you’d like to see more, here’s where you can start:

You can also see several hundred photos from Grosvenor Park and from North Bethesda in my photo catalog.

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Events

The June rainstorm

I happened to have my video camera with me one June day as the sky darkened and it began to thunder loudly. Birds, scared by the noise, took flight. Soon, rain began to fall, in buckets. Everyone who didn’t take cover got drenched to the skin in seconds.

see this on YouTube — see this on blip.tv

This video was recorded in Grosvenor Park, North Bethesda — a beautiful community near Washington, DC, USA. I have lots of photos from Grosvenor Park in my photo catalog. Some are posted below, but feel free to click through and view all of them.

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Events

First torrential summer rain of 2009

On a clear day on the 21st of June, 2009, the sounds of distant thunder made their way into the valley in which the city of Medias, Romania, lies. I checked the sky but not a dark cloud was in sight. In spite of that, the wind began to quicken, and the ruffling of the leaves gave evidence of the approaching rain. Soon, dark clouds appeared over the horizon, and within a quarter of an hour, filled the sky. Peals of thunder punctuated every passing minute. The wind began to blow the dust from the pavement right into the eyes of passersby. People hurried home, shielding their faces.

In another quarter of an hour, the rain started to come down, suddenly. It rained in buckets, with large, thick, heavy drops that hit with a thud and splashed heavily all around. It only lasted another quarter of an hour or so, and it stopped as quickly as it started, but everything was soaking wet. The thick cover of dark clouds slowly parted, and the evening sun lit up the terracotta roof tiles in a golden-orange hue.

I’ve witnessed many rains of all kinds in my time, in temperate and tropical regions, but this was one of the few that I noticed more than the others. I’m not sure why — perhaps because I’d been outside, cleaning up the yard. In the past, I tended to slide in and out of my car and into air conditioned places (work, home), where I was seldom in contact with nature. Now that I’m spending more time at home, and in the yard, I’ve slowed down to where I can sense things a little more. I feel a little of my boyish wonder coming back, and that’s nice; I thought I’d lost it.

A quick video clip recorded while the rain was falling is up in my SmugMug galleries. You can watch it there, or below, if you happen to be reading this on my site (embedded videos don’t appear in the site feed, sorry, nothing I can do about it yet).

http://blip.tv/file/3046222

See this video on blip.tv or at SmugMug.

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Places

Green heron chicks in the parking lot

Guess what I saw in the parking lot at work? Fledging green heron chicks [reference]. (My thanks to Jorge for identifying them properly.)

I’d noticed the herons flying in and out at times during the past few months, but never even heard or saw the chicks before this, so I didn’t know they’d nested there. Around lunchtime, my colleagues told me they’d seen them, and even showed me photos they took with their cellphones, so I went outside and took a few of my own with my DSLR.

There weren’t just one or two, but six or seven of these little green heron chicks, standing about in the parking lot, unsure of themselves, eyeing me warily, wondering what I wanted to do with them. I guess it was their time to get weaned, so their parents either kicked them out of the nest, or they jumped out by themselves.

According to Wikipedia, they leave the nest at 16 days of age, and can’t fully fend for themselves until they’re 30-35 days of age. This means they’re going to be vulnerable to predators until then, and may even die of starvation if they can’t figure out how to get their food.

Photos taken in McLean, VA. Here’s hoping they’ll make it!

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Places

Passing through Cheile Bicazului

This is Part 1 of a two-part post on Cheile Bicazului. You can read Part Two here.

During our recent trip to Romania, we passed through Cheile Bicazului, a stunning, narrow pass carved through the Carpathian mountains. We started out on the Transylvania side, where the weather was beautiful and sunny, though we could see the clouds hovering over the mountains far into the distance.

Zigzag into the horizon

As we got closer, the weather got chillier, and we could see the mountain peaks enshrouded in fog. This mountain meadow was still bright and sunny, though the cold wind made us shiver.

Steep slope

Just a few kilometers away from the meadow pictured above, we stopped at Lacul Rosu, a lake whose origin is uncertain. It seems falling rocks blocked the path of a river, and a lake accumulated in that valley hundreds or thousands of years ago. The trunks of the flooded evergreens can still be seen in the water. Here the weather got even colder and wetter. There was no question about it — we were high up in the mountains.

At the edge of Lacul Rosu

That same punishing weather proved truly beneficial to my photography. Without it, the mountain peaks wouldn’t have looked quite as good. Here are a couple of peaks seen at the start of the pass.

Enshrouded in fog

Here’s a truly majestic peak seen from inside the pass. That fog was just perfect!

High above Cheile Bicazului

The sharply winding road broke through the peaks onto a meadow set in a small valley. I stopped the car and peered over the edge of the cliff to get this photo of the mountain brook passing below us. I love that little wooden bridge, twisted into a precarious position by spring torrents and autumn storms.

The little bridge down in the valley

There was a group of cabins in the meadow, and off to the side, I found this deserted hut, built out of stone right into the side of the hill. Grass grew on its roof, and overgrown shrubs surrounded it. I wonder what purpose it once served.

Deserted and overgrown

That same mountain brook seen just above can be seen in the photo below. The same bridge can now be spotted in the top left corner. I really like mountain streams. They flow fast, and the water’s clean, cold and invigorating.

A happy mountain brook

We weren’t dressed for the weather, and we ended up with slightly sore throats by the time we made it to the other side, but it sure was worth it! It was my first time through Cheile Bicazului. Ligia used to come there with her parents quite often as a child. We want to go back again and hike through those mountains should we get the chance.

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