Black and White Challenge #3

The soft light of spring.

To see in color is a delight for the eye but to see in black and white is a delight for the soul.

~ Andri Cauldwell

Seeds of time.

No color version today.  You’ll have to use your imagination for that because I want to use my blogging time and space today to take a walk around the meadows and maybe into the woods.  We’ll see how far we get.

Fluff ‘n feathered.

The reasons I want to walk rather than concentrate solely on one photo for the Black and White Challenge are twofold:

1. Spring is beginning to take over.  The grasses are greening and growing, plants are popping up all over, buds are forming or unraveling on some of the trees, birds are in the midst of their spring migration, the crocuses are finished for the season while the daffodils begin to open, and the dried plants and grasses from the meadows are not going to be the dominant feature out there for much longer.  Oh, we still have weeks to go before the Green Man replaces all the browns and golds and grays with green, but it’s surprising how fast spring pours across the land.  I want to take the time to honor and enjoy the texture, shape, and details of the dried plants before they give way to the new life of spring followed by the fullness of summer.
2. I’ve never taken a walk here on the blog where the images are all black and white.  I thought it would be an interesting challenge/experiment.

Return for deposit. (And wouldn’t there be less trash if we had to do that??  For those who prefer littering over returning the bottles, they could leave them on the roadsides as usual for someone else, someone who could use the deposit money, to return.)  Bottles found during the never-ending clean-up here at the Wabi-Sabi Ranch.

As someone who walks the same trails nearly every day, one of the things I’ve noticed lately is that more and more trash is making its way to the surface.  If you’re new here, I’ve written numerous blog posts about the immense amount of garbage we’ve found on the ranch, starting with Let’s Talk Trash, and the cleaning up process (which is almost constant since we’re always finding piles of rubbish).  (I picked out a few more, representative trash posts for you here, here, and here.  The last one is an open letter to the people who live in this area.)

Focal black & white, just because.  (Beer can in the cemetery.)

The ubiquitous beer cans (mostly Coors Light, but I was surprised to find a Miller Light can the other day) are popping up all over.  In the woods, in the meadows, in the thickets along the driveway, even in the cemetery, new piles of trash are bubbling up from below.  In the woods, a mound of trash that includes old, rusted paint cans is rising to the surface.

My mockingbird friend.

But I didn’t come here to talk trash.  Well, maybe a little because it’s part of what goes on around here, and you can’t take a walk without noticing it.

A bed of oyster shells.

Nature leaves behind a lot of trash, too, but it’s easy to find it beautiful, maybe because it is natural.  That thought makes me wonder if I shouldn’t somehow find a way to appreciate what the humans left behind.  M and I have done that with some of the things we’ve found, using them as sculptures in the woods, to decorate the outbuildings, and in the gardens in functional and/or decorative ways.

You’ll find all kinds of odds and ends in the meadows.

I don’t know if it will ever be possible to even begin to appreciate the plastics that litter the Wabi-Sabi Ranch, but there is a kind of beauty in the things that rust and rot, and maybe I think that because it’s what should happen.  Things should age and decompose.  Plastic does not.  It falls to pieces, yes, but those pieces do not decompose.  Knowing that, and knowing the harm plastic does to life (wild and otherwise), makes it more difficult to accept it.

Sweeping out.

I’m still trash talking.  Yikes.  This was not the direction I intended to go when I started this post.  It must be all the inner and outer spring cleaning I’m doing.  I’m beginning to find some space within to be more accepting of what is.  That doesn’t mean I have to love, or even like, what is.  To me, right now, being more accepting means to be more grateful for the experience of what is, and what those experiences teach me.

The Kingbirds have returned.

That’s about it from the Wabi-Sabi Ranch.  For the record, the rules of the Black and White Challenge are simple:

1. On 5 consecutive days, create a post using either a past or recent photo in black and white.
2. Each day invite another blogging friend to join in the fun.

My invitation today is extended to any of you who would like to jump in and join the fun.

Thank you to Woodland Gnome for inviting me to the challenge, and thank you for dropping by.  Be good, be kind, be loving.  Just Be.  🙂

A ribbon of grass.