Happy Thanksgiving!!! It’s always good to be home, even though there are no cultural places to visit nearby, or Diners and Dives restaurants. There’s also little rain, traffic, or noise – although cows make a lot of noise from time to time.
Yesterday was such a beautiful day that I took my big lens out for a walk to experiment with it. I took the wide-angle with me, but never got it out. It was too much fun to get up close and personal with the mountains.
These mountains I do know, and I know that we are looking east. The Sierra Nevada range is a Spanish name meaning sawtooth snowy. It must have been loggers that named it, but I think they were accurate in their description.
You can see that east of the valley is more frequently range land and not farming, although we do have groves of citrus in this area. Mountains compose 2/3 of Tulare County. This location is only about 40 minutes from the mountains where you visit Sequoia National Park.
I love the layers of hills and mountains. It’s hard to capture them with even the big lens., but we had rain while I was away, and the mountains took on a thin layer of snow which helps show their definition. Unfortunately for capturing the sky, I waited just about an hour too long before going outside. While it is clear as a bell from 10:00 to about 2:00, after that there is a winter haze that settles in.
These pictures may all start to look the same to you. I’m having to go back and forth a little to make sure I don’t pick the same picture accidentally because I didn’t save all the pictures in the file, and I didn’t go in order. I just stand in one place and pivot, so there is a lot of similarity. I’m sure every little peak has a name, but I don’t know them. However, I do have my favorites, and this little saw blade on the left side of the picture is one of them.
Just so you know, there are foothills on every side. This picture points northwest.
And this one points due west. See I really do know my directions.
Since I’m from deciduous Indiana, autumn is not complete without leaves. The sun was almost ready to set making these leaves shimmer and shiver with the impending dusk.
Even the ugly leaves are pretty in the sun.
I got a phone call at just about this time, and missed the sunlight on the dandelions. They looked etherial on the hillside. The more I take pictures, the more I am aware that if I don’t snap the picture from exactly the right place at exactly the right time, I miss it. I can walk one step and the view changes. This drives me nuts when I am driving and I can’t stop the car soon enough. In this case I had to settle for dandelions on flat land, not circling the tree like alien landing lights.
This at least gives you a glimpse of the magic I saw magnified through my mega 75-300 lens. Hope you enjoyed being back home again in Tulare County, California.
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Marsha Ingrao - Always Write 
9 responses to “Magnified Fall in the Foothills”
Absolutely fabulous!! I was enamoured. “The sun was almost ready to set making these leaves shimmer and shiver with the impending dusk.” Pure poetry. I loooved sweeping along the slopes of those gorgeous mountains, and I was quite content to see some trotting horses there, and those leaves…woooo gorgeous. I just adored this WELL done!!
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It was fantastic! So warm. So opposite of the drenched metropolis Seattle and surrounding .countryside south of there to Tumwater where they used to make beer. Now they just make water. Had lunch by a beautiful falls which I’ll post some day, hopefully! 🙂 thanks my friend. Your new Gravitar – hilarious. I think I had enough pluvial night to last me a while. 🙂
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Oh I would adore seeing some shots of the falls you mention!!! Oh it looks like such a grand time. Whilst you were doing that, I was feeding horses carrots. 😀 I am glad you like my grannie pic- note the wig is fabulous tint of steel grey 😉
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I have a story to go with a steel gray wig. Remind me and I’ll tell it to you sometime. It was a hilarious fall! One of my most public ones.
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Falling AND a steel grey wig was also involved? This I MUST hear all about! And now the night closes in, and enshrouds, so ta ta, to you for now, until the morrow, where you must reveal all. Ta la, night cheers to you lass,
Autty Jade
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Too bad I didn’t have pictures. My brother had just grown a foot in a year to the enormous height of 6’3″. I was 5’4.5″, and SLIGHTLY competitive. In it’s defense, the wig was only streaked with gray, and styled in a style that is popular now, shorter in back and longer in front, straight with bangs. At 16 I felt sophisticated, for some reason, with it on. Besides I could have bad hair days. OK that’s a teaser.
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Wonderful photos, Marsha. Happy Thanksgiving to you too. 🙂
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We fell in love with the Eastern Sierras when we spent time there earlier this year. Your photos bring back lovely memories. Thank you. 🙂
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They are lovely. I don’t usually see them from that perspective, but friends have a yearly tradition of spending a week there every June.
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