The morning creates light patterns on a stream that feeds the Little River in Floyd County. It is that time of day when light is replacing darkness and neither the camera or the eye have fully adjusted to the change.

A horse takes a morning run in the morning sun along Poor Farm Road in Floyd County.

Sunrise on the Little River near Christiansburg Pike (Virginia Route 615) in Floyd County, one of the few places where the river flows through flatlands in the rolling hills and mountains.

This area of the river faces threats from developers who seek to sell homelots with views of both the water and distant mountains. Subdivision development in Floyd County is running 4 to five times ahead of last year’s pace and continues to increase, threatening the country life that draws urban dwellers to this part of the state.

Spider works on his web in our backyard on a sunlit morning.

The light from a full moon plays tricks with rocks and water on a stream near Sandy Flats Road in Floyd County. No, this image was not altered in Photoshop. I simply changed the white balance on my Canon EOS1Ds Mark II to tungsten to provide altered colors and then stepped up the gain to saturate the colors. We used to do the same thing with film, using indoor color slide film, for example, for outdoor shots.

The rushing water is smoothed out by shooting at a slower shutter speed (in this case, an eighth of a second. I also used a polarizing filter to cut down on glare from the water and deepen the colors

The thunderstorms that drenched our neck of the woods Thursday night were, as my granddaddy used to say, real “gully washers,” accompanied by multiple lightning strikes and the constant rumble of thunder.

Didn’t have to go far to find good lightning pix. Shot these from the front door as the storm thundered through and lightning touched down all around the house. The closest strike came within 100 yards of the house, lighting up the sky and rattling the windows.

We may get another storm or two this morning before the rain passes to the East. A wet Friday but, the talking heads on the tube say, a decent weekend.

Better sharpen up the mower blades.

Morning sunlight filters through the trees on Greasy Creek in Floyd County. The creek got its name from trappers who used to clean their catches on the creek banks and dump the entrails of the animals into the water.

Ok, I’m getting into dangerous territory. Spiderwebs in Floyd County are, after all, the claimed province of one Fred First, the dean of mountain culture bloggers and Fred has captured far more of such creations on film.

But the recent wet mornings have produced, shall we say, a tangled web of spider creations, each highlighted by the morning light and each begging for capture by a nearby photographer.

I could, of course, wax poetically about the tangled webs we weave but “we” ain’t weaving these webs. Our friendly neighborhood aracnids are the architects of such elaborate conceptions and fully deserve all the glory. So our congratulations to each and every one of our eight-legged friends for their tireless efforts to give us photographic fodder.

At a distance of course.

Guess our assumption that the ducks departed was premature. They’re back and feisty as ever.

Yeah, we know. The duck pictures are getting a little old. But we enjoy chronicling the activities of our feathered friends and it gives us a chance to work some more with your new High Definition Video (HDV) Equipment. These shots are still-frame captures from video shot with a Sony Z1 HDV camcorder. In most cases, it takes a long-range telephoto to pull animals in this close but the ducks have become so accustomed to our presence that I sat on the bank just five feet from them to capture these images.

At first, the mallards didn’t want anything to do with the white domestic duck that lives in our neighbors’ pond but they soon accepted him as one of their own and they now feed together on most days.

We will miss the mallards when they move on but we know they will once their five ducklings are ready. But, for now, we simply enjoy each other’s company.