Early spring in the Ozarks is a mixed bag. Soon the hills will erupt in color, but not just yet. The trees are still bare but budding. Sometimes if you want to see what’s going on you have to get closer – much closer.
I have been getting up close and personal with nature – collecting shots with my Leica Macro lens. Sometimes when you get close you see beauty or complexity in the most mundane things. Color emerges, structure is revealed, discoveries are made.
The dandelion is far more complex that it appears from the seat of my mower deck. The center is almost crystalline.
These cover the fields all over this area – they look like a floating purple cloud from a distance. Up close they are more leaves than flowers, but those flowers are so delicate – less than an eighth of an inch across.
I love johnny-jump-ups, and these remind me of those but much, much smaller. This tiny violet is less than a half-inch across.
From eye level this looks like moss on a rock. When you get down to ground level it is much more complex than expected.
These hyacinths are at the end of their cycle. They mysteriously appeared a couple of years ago after my neighbor encouraged me to plant bulbs in the remains of an old cistern.
I don’t know what these are, but they look a lot like some I have seen in my neighbor’s flower beds. They are new this year. Thank you garden fairy!
Here’s a closer shot of that blue flower – there is so much structure to these flowers when you get close.
I think this is some form of bluets – it measures about a quarter-inch across.
I’m pretty sure this is southern bluets. Tiny and white.
Is this the skull of an owl? Nah, it’s just the shell of a black walnut – it was probably a winter meal for a squirrel.
The field around the Stone House is a mix of blue grass, clover, and low ground cover like this. An inch-long feather rests atop the ground cover.
I don’t know what this is, but it is very tiny – smaller than a head of a pencil. It is so small that its color is not even visible until you get very close to the ground.
I see these every year, they are low – under the grass. This one seems to have extra petals. I love its star-shaped foliage.
This is ice – water frozen in the bird bath.
Daffodil buds emerging.
Water condensing inside the stalk of a daffodil.
Getting these shots required me to get down in the dirt and undergrowth. Getting closer is not always easy, but is usually worth it.
the eff stop 