Maroon, orange, pale green
The opening picture a few days ago showed that the flow in the Pedernales River at Milton Reimers Ranch Park on January 14th was reduced enough to have left portions of the river bed dry or largely so. That provided me opportunities for views of algae, like the orange patch above with a maroon sycamore leaf (Platanus occidentalis) in it, or the green algae below that was corrugating and turning pale as it dried out.
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Large-scale American government lawlessness every day
Footage from FOX News reporter Bill Melugin shows large numbers of single adult men being dropped off by bus, processed, and sent to the airport after crossing the border illegally near Brownsville, Texas.
“These are all single adults being released, almost all of them men. No children, no family units. Single adults are supposed to be expelled from the country,” Melugin reported.
“We followed their taxi cabs… and those migrants were just dropped off at the airport to fly around the country,” he explained. “We talked to a couple of them who said they were going to Atlanta, Houston, and Miami and they had just crossed illegally and paid the cartels $2000 to do so.”
It’s been said that crime doesn’t pay, but this story contradicts that adage. The people who enter illegally pay the Mexican cartels, and our government then uses our tax money to pay contractors to transport the illegal entrants to places inside the United States. One cynic described the contractors who transport the illegal entrants as “travel agents” for them.
You can read the full story in a RealClear Politics article and a New York Post article. The first video embedded in the RealClear Politics article reports that last month (December) the border patrol reported 178,840 encounters with people who had illegally crossed the border. That number is slightly more than the total for December 2018, December 2019, and December 2020 combined. What the 178,840 figure does not include are the tens of thousands of illegal entrants who completely evaded the overworked, stressed-out, stretched-thin border patrol in December 2021.
Like I said, lawlessness.
© 2022 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
When I read your title in the email, I tried to imagine what you’d found: entirely wrong, I was. The drying algae certainly does seem corrugated, although I’m not sure I would have thought of it without prompting. And how nice, that your ‘orange patch’ has just enough maroon in it to complement the bolder maroon of the leaf. It’s an unusual, but pleasing, combination.
shoreacres
January 28, 2022 at 7:32 AM
So we can say that the leaf got marooned in a patch of orange that also had some maroon in it. I don’t remember ever making a picture with this color combination, which appeals to me. I just did a search for “orange and maroon clothing” and got plenty of hits.
Steve Schwartzman
January 28, 2022 at 7:40 AM
I thought of clothing and fabric, but my first thought was of Kente cloth and Kente patterns.
shoreacres
January 28, 2022 at 8:28 AM
Knowing your history, I’m not at all surprised that you thought of Kente cloth and patterns. Would that American clothing were as colorful.
Steve Schwartzman
January 28, 2022 at 8:49 AM
Nice pics
prejila
January 28, 2022 at 7:43 AM
I’m glad you like them.
Steve Schwartzman
January 28, 2022 at 8:14 AM
This looks like an interesting park. I love photographing the leaf of the sycamore, you did a good job there. The green abstract also turned out nice.
Alessandra Chaves
January 28, 2022 at 8:10 AM
We were glad we returned to this park after so many years. When I try to recall our first visit, I don’t remember going all the way to the river, which seems the most interesting part of the park. It certainly provided subjects for abstractions like the two shown here. The maroon sycamore leaf on the orange algae especially pleased me.
Steve Schwartzman
January 28, 2022 at 8:24 AM
The leaf looks excellent with the orange background. I am surprised to read that river beds become dry in January.
Peter Klopp
January 28, 2022 at 8:13 AM
I don’t know if this part of the Pedernales River ever completely dries up in the winter. I’ve seen other portions of it that were fully dry in the summer heat.
Steve Schwartzman
January 28, 2022 at 8:28 AM
The unusual coloring in the first makes the shot!
denisebushphoto
February 10, 2022 at 11:39 AM
Definitely. It was that combination of colors that attracted me.
Steve Schwartzman
February 10, 2022 at 12:00 PM