Studies in Orange: Part 2

The Green Tube

I had not intended to post four images in a row that feature the color orange. It seems more fitting as an autumn flavor that one found in the midst of the hottest part of summer.

The chanterelles are Part 1. Part 2, the Green Tube: the New Road I mention frequently because we walk its quarter mile daily–often more than once.

On a warm, humid July day, we are thankful for the shade, and the level grade. Even so, one of us considers the risk of over-heating the rabbit in the briar patch, and wears the hunting-season-colored sweatshirt. The dog scouts ahead for bear butt to bite.

Along about this point on the trail, the lead person bears the responsibility of breaking off a spicebush branch (they are very brittle and easily broken)–a Spider Stick–to sweep the air ahead free of spiders.

Yes, it is officially mid-summer, because the Trail Spiders are doing their best to make a meal of us. I look back over mid-summer’s past and find a satisfying, predictable-with-variations continuity of patterns: smells, clouds, bird calls, and the color green. Sometimes, with orange accents.

The Season of Spiders July 2002

Peak of Summer July 2007

The High Road July 2004

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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. I enjoyed reading the ’02 post abouty spiders, too. For some reason, I love those guys, probably just to freak out all my non-naturalist friends and family,.