Santiago Oaks Regional Park is a 1,269-acre secluded nature reserve in East Orange, California. It is unique for its immersive mountain vistas, meandering streams, mature woodlands, and its historic 1930s dam. The 1932 Santiago Creek Dam features a small, picturesque waterfall, depending on the season.
View of the Historic Dam
Historic Dam
Lying peacefully in East Orange, California, alongside the Santiago Creek, the 1,269-acre Santiago Oaks Regional Park is a nature lover’s paradise. This secluded refuge offers hikers, bikers, and equestrians the natural charm of mountain vistas, an orange grove, a meandering creek, and a mature forest with many different tree species.
Hiking Trail
Horse Trails
Horse Trail
“Artsy” means having an inclination towards art and creative expression, often seen in a unique, sometimes unconventional style. Here is an artsy image of nature’s creativity, displayed in clouds.
Artsy Clouds
Ending a series of nature-inspired designs.
Here is an image of tall grass lit by natural light, which one can visualize as an artistic lamp.
Lighted Tall Grass
Nature created artful designs in a rocky wall in Galapagos
Designs in Rocky Wall
Backlit leaves create a simple symmetrical image designed by nature
Bright Green Leaf Designs
Symmetrical web created by nature
Web of Nature
The symmetry in this cactus is almost like the Fibonacci Sequence – it appears in nature as efficient growth patterns, especially in spirals and petal counts
Cactus Designs
Nature, with wind and erosion, created an imaginative sculpture – a bear mother holding a cub, if you look closely
Sculpture of Mother Bear with Cub
One could normally say this is merely a fallen tree, but if you use your imagination, it looks like a natural wooden sculpture
Roots Like a Sculpture
If you notice, nature has created leaves that are symmetrical art
Symmetry of Nature
Cacti with thorns have straight and slanted lines created by nature
Thorns of Saguaro
Thorns of Cactus
Walking around in nature with an open photographic mind, one can capture images that can be visualized as designs.
Here are simple photos of bark on tree trunks that display natural designs.
Tree Bark Designs
Tree Bark
From animals at the zoo to flowers, this week. A blend of colorful flowers makes nature’s painting
A Blend of Colorful Flowers
The home in Lexington countryside was surrounded by nature, with a view of the moon, and far away from the traffic of the cities
Framed View of the Backyard
Moon Looking Over the Trees
Raven Run Nature Sanctuary is a 734-acre nature preserve in Lexington, Kentucky. It’s located on the city’s outskirts and borders the Kentucky River.
Raven Run Nature Sanctuary Sign
Trails at Raven Run
Hart Square has several benches for resting and admiring the views of the Chapel of Peace, a covered bridge, and nature.
Bench to View Chapel and Bridge
Bench to View Nature
We end our series on sunflowers with an image of a butterfly on a sunflower, creating a beautiful representation of nature.
Butterfly on a Sunflower
The word “Bon-sai” (often misspelled as bonzai or banzai) is a Japanese term which, literally translated, means “planted in a container”. It has been around for well over a thousand years. The ultimate goal of growing a Bonsai is to create a miniaturized but realistic representation of nature in the form of a tree. Bonsai are not genetically dwarfed plants, in fact, any tree species can be used to grow one.
The Triangle Bonsai Society displayed an amazing array of bonsai carefully pruned plants in the Doris Duke Center at Sarah P. Duke Gardens, Durham, North Carolina. The 2-day exhibit included more than 40 bonsai created in multiple styles from a wide range of plant species, including maple, azalea, pine, elm, juniper, bald cypress, crabapple, ficus and more. We will post some images from our visit there on July 6, 2024.
A Bonsai Tree
Low hanging clouds nestled in the mountains while streaming ones above in the sky display a varied perspective of nature
Clouds Nestled in the Mountains