Quality of Life: The Little Things

Unplanted Garden

While having the Forester’s oil changed yesterday, I took a short walk to this roadside meadow. And I thought back to all the places I’ve had my oil changed over the years.

I have reached the conclusion that being able to botanize and photograph along the Blue Ridge Parkway is my lifetime favorite place to have my car serviced. In the summer.

No noise. No trash. No busy. No ugly.

Click on the image for the larger view and see how many of the wildflowers you can name.

Now back to biz: I have to figure out two movie cameras and their formatting habits, then start from scratch using iMovie to figure out how to make useful clips out of footage from this morning’s shoot of the school kids digging potatoes. Old dog, etc etc.

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  1. There is a gas station on 81 near Wythville at which I stop when I’m on my way north. I like to walk back of it and look over the fields (very similar to your photo) and take a break from driving. Lovely view.

  2. Might be Queen Anne’s Lace but most of the white is white boneset. The low yellow is sneeze weed; any tall yellow is wingstem. Red is cardinal flower. Purple is Ironweed. Low blue-purple is giant lobelia. I did not trespass but was tempted as there are probably a dozen smaller blooming species mixed in but inconspicuous.