Mercer County in Spring

Mississippi garden writer and author Felder Rushing, visited Mercer in 2002 researching information for his book, Tough Plants for Northern Gardens. The above photograph shows the lush spring growth of a Japanese quince with red flowers and a yellow forsythia, both shrubs grow well in Mercer County. The historic Mercer County Courthouse is in the background.

Shenango River

Eagles and Fireworks

Shenango Lake is home not only for fishing and boating, but also for eagles. It may be too early in the season for them to be here yet, but I had a nice chat about where to find them from the owner of Zambelli Fireworks of Newcastle, PA in neighboring Lawrence County. At least I believe he was the owner. I mentioned seeing Zambelli on the Discovery Channel (heck, he was wearing the T-shirt -- I had to ask!) and he mentioned several shows he's been on, including Myth Busters -- the one with the box full of arrows. If you're curious, check the link above or this one:
http://www.visitlawrencecounty.com/fireworks_capital_of_america.asp

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Good News! Another local writer-photographer has joined the blog. I met TC Conner at my first local book signing where his bluegrass band was playing in the town square. Turns out he's also a master gardener and loves photographing nature. Be on the lookout for his first post here!

Welcome to Mercer County!

When I started researching this area online as a possible settling point after 20 years of military travels, I wished for more photos of the area -- detailed photos to give a good glimpse of actual life, locations, recreation, and a general feel. Now that we've been settled here for over a year, I'm very much enjoying my new home community and decided to add to its internet presence. It's a great get-away place if you love the outdoors and no traffic congestion and mild summers and fairly moderate winters considering we're a northern state.

I may be presumptuous being a relative newcomer and putting up this blog, but I'm a hobbyist photographer and take tons of photos I want to share, and I have family and friends scattered everywhere. Here, they can see where I am and why I'm content with where we've landed.

I also wanted to give the area a louder voice.

Stop back from time to time. If I can wrestle other area photographers, writers, artists into it, this will be a shared project.