Walls

Wild grasses by a masonry fence protecting a private garden. I took this back in May. Now everything around here has turned the color of straw in the unrelenting heat. :( HFF and have a cool, green weekend!

Happy Wall Wednesday! Wild flowers against the wall of the former church of Santa Maria dei Battuti (see PIP), now part of the municipal historical archive structure. Built between 1300 and 1400, it's one of the oldest buildings of the town of Belluno.

Looking for a road that would let me explore the left bank of the Arno river, I got lost in a maze of narrow side roads, most with walls on both sides protecting the privacy of well to do estates and interrupted here and there by custom made gates in various styles and tastes. The afternoon shadows were interesting though. In the main image shadows of trees, wall and gate seemed to form interesting lines and designs. In the first Pip the gate that produced the shadow and in the second Pip another take on the shadows of a border wall and trees on the opposite wall. Can you find me in one of the photos? Have a great Fence Friday, everyone, and a sunny pleasant weekend with lots of photogenic subjects to enjoy!

On a spring walk, I enjoyed seeing how spring exuberance managed to colonise even the walls. First pip: a caper plant (these live exclusively on walls) sprouts colorful new leaves; Second pip: a wild flower manages to make a home even on a concrete wall; Third pip: a climbing vine comes alive after the winter rest.

A resilient tiny new plant makes the most of the scant resources to be found in the crumbling mortar between two bricks on an old wall.

At the children's playground of the Anconella Park in South Florence one can see a small, half finished replica of Brunelleschi's cupola that was made to demonstrate one of the possible building techniques the master architect could have devised for his unique masterpiece (see also side view in the pip). The replica shows both the herringbone bricklaying technique and the "slack rope" curvature of the various subsequent sections that make up the cupola's unusual building structure. (anyone interested can see a video illustrating this hypothesis of Brunelleschi's building technique here: brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/genscheda.asp?appl=LIR&xsl=filmato&lingua=ENG&chiave=100986 ) The openings left at ground level were later either bricked in or fenced off (or both, as can be seen in the main image), probably to keep children and pets from wandering in. Only a rather small grid/fence this week, but HFF all the same! I hope everyone has a pleasant weekend!

My husband is redoing the roof on our old shed, so for the time being it is roofless and sunlight gets to play games on its weathered, pockmarked walls.

The afternoon sun, filtering through the canopy of one of our trees, paints fantastic shapes on our wall. I saw a bouquet of flowers in the shadowy shapes, but I like Judite's "reading" of the image as a flight of swallows (see her comment below) far better! I would love it if people told me what they "see" here - and don't worry, it's not a Rorschach's test :))) Title by J. Garcia

Light streaking through the neighbour's fence on a sunny day created this interesting display on the weathered back wall of my garden. The actual fence is out of frame here, so I put it in the pip (hoping I am not stretching the group rules too far!) HFF everyone!