Arabia Mountain/Spring Comes Early

 We did our walk on Arabia after work and ended up staying until sunset.  Look at these photos.  Can you blame us?

 These flowers are oneflower stitchwort but I will always think of them as the little white flowers which give me great joy!  I think my name for them will be joyflowers. 

 Here we are on the top of the mountain and the pools are rather full after the rain this weekend. (Richard took this with our new camera with the fish eye effect, we've never had that before!)

 This is on the other side of the mountain and the water drains down on this side into the lake. The sun is so bright here that you can't see how thick this is with the bright green moss... And at the base, this water combines into small waterfalls!  Just lovely! Richard takes videos of them, so sorry I can't share them with you!

 Can you tell how very clear this water is in this pool?  It's hard for me to tear myself away from this sight...I just want to gaze and gaze. 

                                                                                                       
This is a mockingbird and it was eating those blue berries on this cedar tree but when Richard got there with the camera, it looks as if he is wanting him to go away, doesn't it?  Mockingbirds really do "mock" other birds, they will do a bird's call three times and can be quite vocal.  They sometimes will sing well before daylight. They are also very protective of their nests and will "dive bomb" at cats and humans. Never heard of anyone dying from a mockingbird though, so I think we are all safe.!

 Another view of this side of the mountain, but just next to the lake with the pine tree blocking the sun!

 We have seen this yellow before but this was the most pronounced.  Could it be golddust lichen? I read a description of it and it certainly was yellow!  This is only a guess, as my knowledge of all plants is very elementary.  Well, all my knowledge, to be honest.

 Can you tell how the diamorpha grows in the smallest amount of soil?  It is so beautiful!

 This is wooly ragwort, sometimes called "bunny ears".  Once again, I believe this to be correct!

 The lake, very quiet and peaceful...only the sound of birds and the water trickling down the mountain.

 Richard took this as a close up from the next mountain over, "the quarried mountain", I called it in an earlier post.    At first, I felt very uncomfortable on that mountain, but now,  I am seeing the beauty of it and we walk over to that mountain now.  But not on this day, we wanted to see the flowers coming to life.

 Walking back to the top of the first mountain and these boys were on the very top, and I asked Richard to quickly take the photo!

 The sun going down made everything a golden rosy shade.

 

 Close up of the diamorpha smallii.  

 

 I told you we stayed until the sun went down!

 This tree at the bottom of the mountain had these white blooms.  What is this tree?  It's lovely!

We wonder if this might be a Georgia oak?  It only grows on stone outcrops like Stone Mountain and Arabia mountain and was also near the base of the mountain.  It is a small scrubby oak and hangs on to its leaves during the winter. 

We also went to Arabia Mountain this past Friday and Richard took some magnificent photos of the clouds over the mountain that evening.  For me personally, it was so beautiful that tears came to my eyes.   Clouds over Arabia, look for that post soon!  In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this walk that we just did yesterday!