The Consolation of Foliage

My in-law’s have a “place” on Lake Michigan in Wisconsin and it has become getaway spot of choice for our family too.  The vistas, like our vacations,  are pleasant in an undramatic way.  There is no soaring architecture – natural or man-made – and definitely no gritty social reportage to stimulate the photographer:  just leaves and waves and breezes –  in the summer – and winds and ice and razor-sharp blue skies in the winter.  To wander, to photograph, is a gentle pleasure.  A close attention to nature heals the soul,  as Rousseau conveys so lyrically in his Reveries Of The Solitary Walker.   A dad on vacation with two boys, two dogs, his wife and in-laws cannot aspire to contemplative solitude,  but this quiet countryside absorbs stress like a green sponge that is never saturated.

Here are some pictures from a short walk on a long weekend in August.

We start in the “garden”..

solitude is a fantasy..but who cares when the alternative is so sweet

and the woods are so absorbing

back home..

hound and human have earned a rest on the deck

but someone has a restless trigger finger

and there’s always something to catch the attention