SumSumSummertime
I have to admit that, so far–with the disturbing exception of our very local ongoing drought–it has been a benign summer. We can even cut grass and string trim and do other puttering in the middle of the day, off…
Category Outdoors
Hangs in the Air
We had a localized but vigorous storm yesterday. I was in town. Ann was here, unsuspecting, and almost got caught outside when it suddenly swept over. A very close lightning strike kicked my surge protector and knocked off (but not…
Green on Green In Black and White
It is now the time of year when I enter both temperamental and photographic aestivation: that state of hot-weather torpor typical of some terrestrial turtles. When conditions become too extreme for them to be in the presence of other turtles and remain…
Into the Bush: War of the Roses
I was feeling my oats during the cool early morning yesterday, so decided to tackle one of two of the more physically-demanding tasks on my Farm and Garden to-do list. The easier road (not taken) was to start digging up…
The Woods Are Watching
Just a word of warning if you’re on the trails in the Seneca Rocks area: they are watching–mostly from a distance, but this one brazen-branchy bad-boy was waiting right next to the trail to scare unsuspecting hikers by suddenly opening…
Exploring Eastern West Virginia
Understanding where you are–not just you as a dot on a map, not just your GPS coordinates of latitude and longitude–requires some knowledge of how that place came to look the way it does. Why this kind of forest mix…
Mother: Nature. Thanking Mom for Being Field Guide-Fisherwoman
Perhaps in this I am not alone: I owe it to my mother that I am and always have been a country boy. I have always been the most complete me when I was plugged into nature. And then, I must…
The Bear Came Over the Mountain
Again. Â Same place, same time of year as last. And Gandy the dog discovered it first. Actually, it was a THEM. She always runs ahead of us down the road the follows the edge of the steep woods along the…
Foto Friday ~ 2014-04-11
Galaxies collide. Sunstruck dewdrops bedazzle bowl-and-doily webs and pasture grasses of an early spring morning.
The Sun Also Rises
Just a quick grab-shot post–the first warm-from-the-oven image to grace these pages since the leaves and thermometer fell five months ago. I had not expected this view when I headed over to the barn yesterday morning. I looked up and…
Skin Stats and Stitches
I grew up southern. Our summers started in March and our clothes came off as the temps stayed high for the next 9 months. I worked shirtless for summer jobs that included life-guarding at a summer girl’s camp. I fished…
Making Peace with the Wind
I rarely am outraged at the cold. It is merely the passive absence of heat. But wind… Wind is alive, vicious, intentional, malevolent. It seeks me out, and having found me aims cruelly for the rift between collar and neck,…
Green Hole
I have probably told this story here before, but retelling is one of the privileges of age–partly for the joy of the story and partly due to CMS. So I will continue to repeat myself and just get over it.…
Land Shark
CandyGram! Pizza! No. It’s Land Shark. Don’t open the door! The very large white pine had been leaning since we moved here, lodged in the crotch of another tree thiry feet down the slope. Every year it leaned a little…