“Madison Indiana Wildflowers”

It has been about three months since my last post, can’t tell you enough how busy I have been, I have a large amount of images to share with you so instead of a lot of words I will try to keep it simple and keep my mouth shut.

Had a nice spring and now I am busy with weddings and portraits, not getting enough nature shots but I am getting paid so that’s a plus !!

Got some nice shots from Clifty Falls State Park starting with this Wild Geranium, I really liked the petals facing the differing directions in this one, any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome.

Well that’s it no more talking hopefully you are dong well and staying out of trouble, I have quite a few to post so I will try to get them up here quickly.

“Madison Indiana Courthouse Burns”

The Historic 154 year old Jefferson County Courthouse located in Madison Indiana burned today, no cause has yet been determined but on going construction work is a prime probability, crews were in the process of painting the beautiful building when the fire broke out.

The timing for this couldn’t be any worse, Madison is about to celebrate it’s Bicentennial starting June 6 with many activities scheduled including a reopening of the courthouse. The building was a center piece for the Downtown National Historic District and was an often visited destination for locals and tourists alike. Just this afternoon when my son and I were walking home from school we talked about how beautiful this landmark was and the wonderful gold color they had picked for the renovation.

The only good news to report from this is that there were no major injuries and everyone escaped safely. Hopefully this won’t damper the spirits of the Bicentennial Celebration that is scheduled to begin in a couple of weeks and also maybe they can salvage the building itself, but after witnessing the still smoldering fire tonight that might be a long shot.

Just as a side note Madison has endured it’s share of hardship recently, a couple of years ago two other Historic buildings burnt to the ground and to this day there has been no cause , also last September we lived thru Hurricane Ike with it’s 90 mph winds and then late this winter we were savaged by an ice storm. Kind of a string of bad luck wouldn’t you say, but at least no one has been seriously hurt thru all of this.

I posted a few shots of the fire as it really began to engulf the Bell Tower and firefighters arrived on the scene to begin the process of extinguishing it.

‘Wild Geranium”

I guess I better post them while I have got a chance, I shot this one at Clifty Falls Sate Park a couple of days ago, this is the first shot of this lovely little flower that I have been happy with.  Many times in search of this flower I have either been too late or in the wrong place, I got lucky with this one and hit it at the right time, I would have liked to have been able to get a little more dof out of this one but the wind was just strong enough to force me too shoot at a higher stop.

As of right now the woodland flowers have all but disappeared from the area and all that is left is in bad condition, it has been a pretty good year with lots of rain, but the cool weather has caused a lot of the blooms to get spots or other markings on them. I might post a couple more after this one, but if the rain continues I might be able to concentrate on the waterfalls and streams that dot our area before summer arrives and everything drys up.

I hope everyone is having  a great day and thanks for stopping by and taking a look !!