When you think of spring flowers on trees I would expect things come to mind like Dogwood, Redbud, or the ever so popular Bradford Pear. But pretty much every tree flowers in one way or another… it has to in order to perpetuate it’s species. It’s just that not all of them do it in such a showy fashion.

Take for example Maples. No one ever associates Maples with flowers. Here is a Norway Maple in my front yard. At a glance it appears that the tree is simply pushing out this year’s set of leaves. Closer inspection reveals that it’s actually the maple’s bouquet of flowers, it’s offering to would-be pollinators. I have no idea what those pollinators are, but I’m sure it’s some kind of insect.

And here we have a Norway Spruce. Apparently someone of Norwegian descent must have lived here decades ago and attempted to recreate their homeland. I assume these are the starts of flowers, but I could be wrong. Spruces and Firs often have red, purple or bluish colored flowers and I believe most conifers tend to rely solely on the wind for pollination as they produce exorbitant amounts of pollen.

When I first started this journey to becoming a semi-professional nature photographer I priced some custom mats at Michael’s and instantly came to the conclusion that I need my own mat cutter. Since then I would estimate I have cut roughly 50 – 60 mats and have learned the following things:

1. Unless I have scrap in the necessary size, it is generally more cost and time effective to purchase pre-cut mats on sizes 11×14 or smaller.
2. Mat board is expensive and easily ruined.
3. Carrying several sheets of mat board across a parking lot on a windy day is an excellent way to ruin a lot of mat board.
4. Cutting mats sucks.

I have also determined that the larger the mat, the more ways I can screw it up. In fact, the frustration level involved in cutting my own mats can be expressed mathematically, being directly proportional to the size of the mat. So Here is a formula I came up with where F represents the level of frustration, L and W represent the outside dimensions of the mat:

F = (LW) x 1 / ∏

So you can figure that cutting an 24 x 36 mat is going contain roughly 5x the amount of frustration units (FU’s) as an 11×14…ha. While I should probably set my prices based on cost of materials and some arbitrary “art” markup, I have decided the only thing I really care about when pricing a finished print is how irritated I get when cutting the mat.

This has been among the coldest of winters I can ever recall so I guess it’s fitting that the first day of spring brought about 9″ of snow to the Joplin area. After several years with little to no snow this winter has been off the heez, as far as snow goes. Joplin averages 16″ per winter, and so far this year we’ve amassed 31.5″ (according to Doug Heady).

Although I am more than ready for warmer temps and seeing the deciduous trees come back to life, I always enjoy a good snow storm. Taking this was actually a bit tricky, thanks to the horizontally blowing snow. I felt like I was trekking up to the north pole or something just walking around in the front yard.

What’s really on my mind though is the bike ride this saturday. I recall when they postponed it to March thinking “it can be really cold in March… heck it could even SNOW!” So we’ll see how the next few days shape up for bike riding…

Tomorrow (thursday) is the first Joplin Artwalk of 2010 and I will have a couple photos on display. Mine can be found at a new hot dog place on the 500 Block of Main, just a few doors down from where I was last time.

It’s supposed to be nice out tomorrow, so this will be a great excuse to get out and enjoy it. I am not sure what the official hours are but I would guess roughly 6 – 8pm.

Saturday we had originally hoped to head down to Roaring River but the weather ended up being cold and dreary. Instead we decided to make a day trip down to an amish cheese store in Chouteau, OK. As luck would have it, the weather was a bit nicer down there so we stopped by Natural Falls State Park to do a short hike and check out some scenery. It also gave me an excuse to get out the camera and take a few photos…

Steph loading Emma into the stroller.

The waterfall from the bottom of the trail.

The three of us squeezing into a pic.

Em running from Steph across the bridge.

Me and the Lady.

Me and the Little Lady.

It was a great day and I particularly enjoyed the waterfall trail. If you want to check it out for yourself, the park is located in Oklahoma just off hwy 412 a few miles west of Siloam Springs.

Oklahoma’s state parks are operated in the same fashion as their highways, so be prepared to pay a toll to view the waterfall. Also from the few I have visited, Oklahoma state parks seem to be geared more towards recreation, with a dash of conservation, where Missouri parks are more about nature and conservation with a little bit of recreation. Having said that, Oklahoma does have some real gems as far as natural areas go.

We’ve been jipped the last few winters in terms of snow so I for one have enjoyed the above average amount of snow we’ve received this winter. While our measly 4″ at a time may seem pretty weak compared to many parts of the country, here it’s enough to nearly paralyze civilization and empty the shelves of every Wal-Mart in the process.

Here are a few recent snow pics I’ve taken…