No matter what kind of weather we’re having, Louise Edwards of Sweet Valley likes to walk outside and see what nature is up to.
“I’m enjoying the colors,” she said as March drew to a close. “The grass has started to green up. Some of the sugar maples are starting to send out their buds. Their twigs are more full; they’re starting to look thicker.”
“We live on a wonderful piece of property with so many interesting environments,” she said. “There’s a field that’s very wet, and the robins are able to fly around and get whatever they want to eat.”
While Edwards is exploring spring right now, not so long ago she enjoyed exploring some snowy scenes.
And while she was outside she shot a photograph that fairly cried out to her: “Water in Winter.”
“Water in Winter” was the theme of a photo contest the Brodhead Watershed Association sponsored earlier this year, and Edwards’ photograph is now featured on the association’s web site — along with 40 other photos, some of which accompany this story.
“We didn’t have a contest with a ‘winner,’ exactly,” Andrea Higgins of the Watershed Association explained. “All submissions are featured on our website, brodheadwatershed.org, and will be featured on our social media.”
So, in a way, everybody who entered the contest was a winner — especially since they had an extra reason to enjoy the outdoors while they searched for ideal photo opportunities. You could say everyone who sees the resulting collection of photos is a winner, too; few would deny they are a treat.
Some focus on majestic waterfalls, some on branches encased in ice; some on lakes or ponds or rivers. Dingmans Falls shows up, along with the Delaware & Lehigh Trail, an area near the Francis E. Walter Dam in White Haven and several other locations, including Edwards’ backyard, where “a very small thing called a rill or seep” periodically makes an appearance.
“It’s all seasonal, and it’s magical because it’s not there all the time,” Edwards told a reporter. “It runs from an Artesian spring, and it depends on how much rain we’ve had.”
While she’s outdoors, Edwards also noticed an abundance of birds.
“We see lots of hawks and vultures. We’re kind of a flyway along the mountain ridges. We see osprey, eagles, red tail hawks, goshawks, marsh hawks. They seem to fly through here and some will stay over at Sylvan Lake and North Lake.”
Another seasonal sign that Edwards noticed on March 26 was that “peepers were chirping in the marsh tonight for the first time this spring.” Also that day, she noted, “the wind took down several of the ash trees that were killed by the ash borer, and lots of branches from other trees on the property, so we have plenty of cleaning up to do.”
From shooting stars she spotted near the Cassiopeia constellation to a birds’ nest made from “long strands of field grass with a lot of mud, about 4 inches in diameter,” Edwards revels in what she sees outdoors. Recently, she even shot a photo of “a sweet little snake,” so perhaps she’ll be prepared if someone happens to sponsor a spring photo contest.
“I go out every single day,” she said. “I don’t remember when I didn’t go out, even when I had the flu.”