Fragments From Floyd

I remember as a novice woodburner many years ago, I asked my older, wiser, farm-raised neighbor what was the best kind of wood to use for my new woodstove. I'll never forget his answer, drawn from common knowledge from the experience of his peers.

"The best kind of wood to burn is the kind of wood you have plenty of" he said. And that made good sense to me. It was a kind of 'love the one you're with' answer, but there is a pragmatic wisdom here nontheless.

What is the best kind of picture to take? The ones you have plenty of.

Our valley provides opportunities for backlighting, and so I take advantage of that with spiderwebs, leaves or flowers that get full sun while the ridge behind them is still in deep shadow. It is one of the best ways to throw the subject full into the viewer's focus, leaving the background simple and dark, painting with light on a black velvet canvas.

Love the one you're with. This sumac wasn't the best shaped or the brightest colored specimen I've seen lately. But it was growing along the old logging road we walk several times a day, there ready for a portrait with its leaves outlined in frost just for that instant before the sun turned crystals to vapor.

I sometimes wish we lived back on Walnut Knob, with the vistas of the far-off horizon south into Carolina. But I am fully prepared to love the one I'm with. I just need to take the time to schedule more morning encounters, and carry my camera with me on our dates, just in case I get lucky.