CC Weekly Creativity Challenge: April Showers

Here’s my entry for this week’s Creative Construction weekly creativity challenge, “april showers”—a photo titled Marion County Roadside. Click on the photo to enlarge for full effect. I took this shot last year about this time on the way home from a meeting in Tampa. I’ve always wavered back and forth between wanting to live my life on the river and wanting to live my life on a horse farm in Ocala. Some of the most beautiful property in all of Florida is along state road 301/441 in Marion County horse country. I loved how this view captured the rain on the left and the sun on the right at the same time. I added my favorite layer to create that softening effect with the added bonus of what could be lightning....or God reaching down.

For years, the most stunning of all the horse farms, in my opinion anyway, was Irish Acres. Sprawling acreage with rolling hills and virgin oak trees, just gorgeous. Every time I drove by it, which was several times a year either going to meetings in the Tampa/St. Pete area or driving down to our annual Boca Grande vacation, I always sighed, “Oh, one day…when we win the lottery…we’ll buy Irish Acres and live happily ever after with a bunch of horses.” So how saddened was I when I drove by there last summer to see that my dream had been sold….and not only sold, but sold to a housing developer?!?! Now, the rolling hills are obscured by berms along the roadside and cut up by roads and street lights waiting for new homes. At what price, progress? Very sad.