Pic(k) of the Week: Old Grist Mill in early autumn afternoon

Click on the image for a larger, hi-res version (on Flickr).

A restored 19th-century water-powered gristmill in Stone Mountain Park: DeKalb County, Georgia, USA.

Photo taken 10 October 2025.

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About the mill

The mill was originally built in 1867, operating along a creek in Fannin County in north Georgia (near the current town of Ellijay). It fell into disuse and was eventually abandoned.

In 1965, the mill was dismantled and moved to Stone Mountain Park. There, the mill and its milling equipment, including the mill house and millstones, were reassembled. Additionally, a thirteen-foot-diameter wooden overshot water-wheel and a stone millrace were replicated and put in place.
— Scenic USA.
— Stone Mountain Park.

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Photographer's Notebook

The mill is a well-loved spot in the park, easily accessible from the perimeter road. So, it took some time to capture the image without any visitors in the frame. Fortunately, I finished just as a large group of school children arrived.

The entire scene featured deep contrasts between sunlight and shadow. To capture the full range of tones, I took four separate exposures, blending them later during the editing process. Wind gusts were strong, and some of the foliage shows motion blur. C'est la da-guerre-otype!

Per Merriam-Webster, "gristmill" is one word; the park spells it as two.

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Weather Report: American Tango (Vitouš/Zawinul)
Album: Mysterious Traveler (Label: Columbia, 1974)

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Pic(k) of the Week: Afternoon of an owl

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"Chiefly nocturnal, a barred owl does not generally tolerate close approach." Yet there he was, in late afternoon, perched only a few meters in front of us.

Seminary Wood in Decatur Legacy Park: City of Decatur, Georgia, USA, 24 September 2025.

The barred owl (Strix varia) is a chunky owl with dark eyes, dark barring on its upper breast, and dark streaking below. It is a common resident in dense coniferous or mixed woods of river bottoms or swamps, and upland woods. Its distinctive call is a rhythmic series of loud hoots: 'who-cooks-for-you, who-cooks-for-you-all.'

— National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America.

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Gonzalo Rubalcaba: A Quiet Place
Album: Skyline (Label: 5 Passion, 2021)

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Pic(k) of the Week: Sunrise tree

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Tree in morning sun.

Lakeside Park: St. Augustine Beach, Florida, USA. 4 September 2025 (7:38 am EDT)

I was leaving a sunrise photoshoot in the park's sculpture garden, and I paused in the parking lot to glance back at Lake Anhinga. I saw this: the morning sun backlighting the branches of a perimeter tree, reflected on the lake. An afterthought had become a highlight. (Photographic moral of the story: don't forget to look behind you!)

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Ahmad Jamal: Poinciana
Album: At the Pershing: But Not For Me (Label: Argo, 1958)

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Pic(k) of the Week: Blue Mistflower in Georgia autumn

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Native blue mistflowers, blooming adjacent to a wild-garden pond.

Trailhead Community Park of the East Decatur Greenway, in Decatur, Georgia, USA, on 3 October 2025.

Conoclinium coelestinum — commonly known as blue mistflower, mistflower wild ageratum, or blue boneset — is an herbaceous perennial flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native to eastern and central North America, growing in moist soils, wood edges, sandy woodlands, wet meadows, and stream banks.

The plant grows to a height of 1 to 2½ feet (30 to 76 cm) with round, light green stems; the opposite-growing leaves are ovate to triangular in shape, with blunt teeth; it flowers from late summer until frost. Flat-topped clusters, or panicles, of blue, purple, or lavender flowerheads, measuring 1 to 3 inches (3 to 8 cm), are located at the end of the stems. Each flowerhead consists of about 40 to 50 disk florets with tiny tubular corollas that have 5 spreading lobes.

— North Carolina Cooperative Extension.
— Wikipedia.

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Tommy Flanagan: Delarna
Album: Sea Changes (Label: Evidence Music, 1997)

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Pic(k) of the Week: Coquina rock in surf at sunrise

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A coquina rock is battered by the Atlantic Ocean surf, captured in a photograph at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park in Palm Coast, Florida, on September 6, 2025, at 8:21 a.m. EDT.

This boulder is part of a ¾-mile-long coquina rock formation, the second-largest of its kind along the east coast of North America. The largest formation is located further south on a barrier island in Jupiter, Florida, Blowing Rock Preserve.

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What is coquina?

Coquina rock is a type of sedimentary rock (specifically limestone), formed by the deposition and subsequent cementation of mineral and organic particles on the floor of bodies of water at the Earth's surface. The coquina rocks at Washington Oaks are part of the Anastasia formation —stretching from the city of St. Augustine to Palm Beach County — that was created during the Pleistocene era (12,000 - 2.5 million years ago). Lower sea levels allowed slightly acidic rainwater to dissolve calcium carbonate in millions of exposed shells. This process effectively bonded the shells to the sand, resulting in the creation of rocks that solidified over time.

One characteristic of coquina rocks is the regular, perfectly cylindrical holes in many sections of a formation, formed by erosion of rock by rainwater. These weathered formations create shallow tidal pools that support crabs, sea snails, anemones, and other small marine life The word 'coquina' is Spanish for 'cockle' and is the name given to Donax variabilis, a small, burrowing clam that lives in the sand just at the ocean’s edge, and is the main shell component of the rock.

— Florida State Parks.

Sunrise took place at 7:04 a.m. EDT; I didn't capture this photo until 8:21, an hour and seventeen minutes later. Why the delay? When I arrived at the park entrance at 6:30, the gates were locked. Florida state parks don't open until 8 a.m. The moral of the story? Do your research.

And yet, a beautiful moment to experience.

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Thelonius Monk: Brilliant Corners
Album: Brilliant Corners (Label: Riverside)
Recorded 1956; released 1957.

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