After Snow Day, the temperature slowly raised, and the snow started to melt. However, we found few remaining snow patches at Bastrop State Park, and our favorite lichens had snow caps there. Enjoy a few of my snapshots.

Rained all night, then temperature dropped during early morning and sleet started to fall, then snowed. Temperature remained freezing and snowed all day, painted our area white. Cold outside, and I burned a good amount of logs in our fireplace during the day. We love our cozy cabin life, and we are happy. Enjoy few of my snapshots taken at our house.

We love to celebrate the Holidays close to Nature. A quiet, slow walk on the trails, greeting our plant and animal friends, touching the tree trunks, and feel their energy are special and inspirational gifts for us. We hiked all of the hilly trails of Bastrop State Park on the first two days of January 2021. What a great start for the new year! Enjoy a few of my reference shots.

The Old year passed and this happened fast again. When I enjoyed the light of the rising sun shining on my beloved loblolly pine trees this morning, I felt how lucky and blessed we are, then when I thought about the past year, I had to conclude: if the year 2021 will be just as good as the year 2020 was, we could be very happy. 

I am 68 years old, in good shape, and I feel strong and healthy. My lovely wife Lexi and our two grown-up kids Daniel and Gergo are healthy too, so I cannot have a better wish about it.

As you all know, Lexi and I retired at the end of June 2019 and we focused on our new and challenging retired life in 2020. Finally, with the help of our kids encouraging good words for inspiration, we decided to sell our beloved Houston home, and move into a new house in the beautiful pine forest of Tahitian Village of Bastrop, TX, just a short drive from Austin, TX where our kids live. What a challenging decision and project at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to buy a new house and selling one! From mid-February to mid-April we worked hard to pack, clean, move, plan, design, customize, and finally we did it, together as a team with my wife Lexi, our kids Daniel and Gergo, and our excellent Real Estate Agents Amy Bernhard and Mary Christ. Many thanks to all of you!  Finally, everything moved to the right place, we settled,  and slowly we became Bastropians. We started to explore our new surroundings and built a strong connection to Nature next to our loblolly pines covered areas and at the nearby Bastrop State Park, Lake Bastrop, and Colorado River Refuge. 

As a retired scientist, I worked on scientific papers with a few of my former colleagues, and as a contributing author, they included me in their peer-reviewed publications. As a Photographic artist, my wife and I, continued to work on several photography portfolio projects, and I tried my best to make Naturalperl, my Fine Art Photography small business profitable, but unfortunately, we did not sell any of our images in 2020. Our images were on exhibition in the first part of the year 2020 with the Houston Photographic Society and PixelSilver group, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic, all of the venues were closed down soon after the opening. However, I started to be familiar with new online teaching methods and tools, then with the help of Zoom meetings, as a photography instructor, I thought 3 workshops at the Houston Center for Photography, led 4 discussion/critique meetings at the Houston Photography Study Group and as a volunteer emeritus, donated 2 “Through the Lens” Photo-hikes to Brazos Bend State Park last year. With online submissions of our photographic art, we actively participated in national and international photography contests and won prestigious awards, and our works were selected and published in LensWork’s “Our Magnificent Planet” book. I presented my “Softies to Imaginations” color portfolio book to the Houston Photographic Society and “My Inner Peace” monochrome portfolios to the North Austin Photography Society program nights, and showed my new large-format black and white film-based portfolios (“Fallen” and “Bracken Ferns”) to the PixelSilver Group, and published my 2021 desktop calendar in December 2020. 

Because of the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we did not travel anywhere in 2020, but we explored many good new trails nearby to our house and through our love of Nature, we were able to understand deeper the inspiring messages from Nature. Gergo and I had a good time paddling on the nearby Colorado River or Lake Bastrop and he introduced me to the art and technique of fly fishing. Peace and happiness!

All-day rained yesterday, so my 400 loblolly pine tree saplings received a good rainwater gift. The temperature dropped close to freezing, but the air was clean, the sky cleared and stars were shining during the night. I made a good long-lasting log fire in our fireplace, were cozy inside the house. At midnight, we remembered the year 2020 and wished a happy 2021 to each other and to all of the missed ones. New Year Day started with a good breakfast then a two-mile hike at Bastrop State Park. We are happy in our new house in the woods and love the isolated cabin life close to Nature.

 In conclusion, 2020 was a very busy, filled with challenges year, but we gave thank you for every moment and blessings that we received. Well, we all had many sad and happy challenges, but we are always full of hopes, energy, and new plans.

My wife Lexi, and I are wishing to all of my Friends good health, and peace for the year 2021!

See the Light! Laszlo