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From some pictures I have been taking weekly at a local bog since Feb...the pathway through the bog is actually part of an old railroad corridor that has been turned into a snowmobile trail in winter, and a multi-use trail during the other 3 seasons (no ATVs)...amazing access to a habitat/landscape otherwise difficult to penetrate..."staring" in a sense at one place for a full year to see how my shots evolve. I make a simple triptych from each trip and am trying to build a set of pictures based around an entire year's worth of visits.

I have to admit that I took this one before Mark's Picture Window project, but it is also Close To Home, and I have been meaning to post it. This is one of the last snowfalls of the winter (March I think). The train car pictured is filled with rotting materials of some sort, and an old seat has been torn out and sits just behind it. I like finding remnants of the railroad sinking in the bog reclaiming it...found a dumping ground filled with old glass bottles/cans, train parts at varying points, stone supports of some sort along the corridor in spots, and this one train car.

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This is the brook that runs behind my house, but I took it a few 100 yards down the road on my way to work this morning. I love fresh fallen snow!

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This is out the back door, but really only gives a bit of the effect. There's something rather delightful about a blanket of leaves in the yard (until they have to be removed.) We've got a few trees around the house, and this is what they give us on a yearly basis. Even my brother-in-law, who has seen pretty much everything, was impressed with our annual crop of leaves.

A tad of Scheimflugin' to get the slope into focus. Sean, it must be contagious: I had to turn up the SATURATION slightly. Does this work at this size?

One thing I like about living in the country is the privacy. Our home is surrounded by trees and even when you look up; it's like a private screening of a favorite movie, or something. This photo is from earlier this year, when there was some discussion about a "Night Gallery". Tim

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 The last two weeks have been spent battling the worst cold and lung infection I've ever experienced, and now that I've gotten to the point where I have enough air to go for a walk, the temperature has dipped to minus twenty degrees Celcius. Actually, it's minus thirty when you factor in the wind chill (for Americans that translates as dangerously cold), so walking around with photo gear still isn't an option. Thus, I am forced to recycle a shot from August.

It's not uncommon to come over the crest of a hill in this area and find someone moving cattle. Normally I'm in a vehicle when this happens, but on this occasion I was on foot as I was out for an evening walk with my camera. These cattle seemed a bit spooky around people so I had to crawl through the barbed wire fence to the right and stay out of the way for ten minutes or so until the herd had passed.

In terms of being  "wildness close to home" that is my home that you see at the upper left of the image. This is what where I live actually looks like and it is far removed from the more exagerated images that I'm wont to post over at my site. This is me being honest for a change.

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After reading Mark's post earlier this afternoon, "A pre-hanging event", I couldn't help but do a hunting related post of my own in the "wildness" gallery.  From my office window I have a perfect view of my neighbor's old maple tree.  Last fall I sat down at my desk like I do every morning, took a sip of coffee, and paused to process the unexpected addition to my favorite tree.  Turns out my neighbor  uses this tree to hang his kill before butchering and processing the meat.  He believes strongly in eating what he kills, and I believe the "hanging" part of the process has something to do with draining the blood and improving the quality of the meat (feel free to correct me on this).  The same thing happened a few weeks later when a black bear appeared one morning in the tree.  Unfortunately that was prior to stumbling across "The Landscapist", so it never occurred to me to make photos of this event.  I may have missed my chance.  Turns out my neighbor refuses to bait what he kills as it is against his hunting ethic, and most bear hunting involves various types of baiting.  The bear was a first for him as well.  The above photos are of this fall's buck.

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More death and decay, and... eegad! photo manipulation! But I gotta do it anyway... 

Where do these guys go when their time's up? Into the wilderness, I suppose - composte heaven.