Caw Caw Interpretive Center - A recent visit

Probably the most difficult part of being a photographer is the editing process. It's not that I haven't been taking pictures during the last...holy cow! It's been a year and a half since I posted anything here! Wow. Slacker. But anyway, the editing process—yes, the most tedious part of photography. I just kept snapping away during the past 18 months, but didn't have the space or time to keep up with photo editing.

I have missed sharing some of my pictures. So, I would love to post more during this year, and share some of my adventures with you. We recently took a family trip to a local county park—Caw Caw Interpretive Center. It's one of my favorite places in Charleston. It's part history, part natural history, and part alligator park. On a warm day, you're pretty much guaranteed to see some big ones. It's definitely a gem here in the Lowcountry.

Many people don't like this time of year down here, but it's one of our favorites. The temperatures are cooler, and though the landscape may seem gray and bland, there is still beauty to be found if you just have the eyes to see it. The simplest thing, like a weed or a decaying leaf or even the "fungus among us," speaks to an immense beauty and reflects the intricacies of creation.

Butterfly on flowers

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

--Sonnet 116, Shakespeare

Coastal Carolina

I still can't believe I live here!

Sunset & Sea Grass

“It isn't Narnia, you know," sobbed Lucy. "It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?"
"But you shall meet me, dear one," said Aslan.
"Are—are you there too, Sir?" said Edmund.
"I am," said Aslan. "But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

—The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (The Chronicles of Narnia, Book 5) by C.S. Lewis

The sea and everything in it...

"He is the One who made Heaven and earth

The sea and everything in it

He is the One who keeps every promise forever

He gives justice to the oppressed

And sets the prisoners free..."

—From the song "Praise the Lord" sung by Natalie Grant and Laura Story 

(Glory Revealed II) 

So long summer!

While Shakespeare may have said, "And summer's lease hath all too short a date." I'm just going to have to disagree with the impassioned bard. And here's why I'm looking forward to cooler weather...

Banana Spider
These grow GINORMOUS in size.

But, I will miss seeing more of these guys out my kitchen window. This one posed perfectly for me on our gardenia bush.

Dragonfly

Still, I say, bring on the cooler weather!