Beginnings

Every new year is a fresh start - a do-over; a chance to mend a fence, repair a wrong, fix a bad habit, renew a relationship, forget a pain.  May you not feel burdened by this new chance this year.  May you be gentle on yourself if you fail and may you not be afraid to try again in the months ahead.

Troglodytidae

Such an impressive scientific name for such a lovely little songbird.

Family Troglodytidae (from the Greek words for those who enter a cave or hole)
Genus Troglodytes (Troglodytes are reclusive mythical people who live in caves or holes.)

I do not think I have ever met anyone who would not find the song of the wren uplifting on the grayest spring day or the coldest winter day.  They sit on the end of a branch or the post of my deck and throw their little heads up to the sky and then sing silver notes.  This winter one has been sleeping in the wreathe over the front door and I have to remember about it or it will fly into the house in a panic and we will spend an hour trying to capture it.  They also have been caught in the garage several nights this month and refuse to leave seeming to enjoy the warmth of the newly parked car.

All of the above are a little blurry because they were shot through the deck window and not directly.  It is COLD outside.

Silver Light

I have a dozen in the yard this week, but this one seemed particularly red!

(My other blog no longer has a malware,  so I am guessing Blogger has run its scans and removed it after I sent the email to them.)

CAREFUL!

Please do not go to my other blog! It has contracted a malware...from another blog that I viewed. I will try to find a solution before I depart for the holidays and will come back here and explain...I HOPE!

Sharing

Do me a favor and share something today.

Wild and Crazy Guy

I have been waiting for this Court Jester guest to show up and decorate for winter's partying time.  Jack at long last stopped by last night and with his usual enthusiasm for finally being the primary decorator at the party and the center of attention he spilled his loot everywhere.  Fragile diamonds caught on the edges and in the hollows of plants and even on the dark brown leaf-covered forest floor, giving it a fancy costume.  He is such a show off...this wild and crazy guy.  

Too bad that he is so cold, but it gives me an excuse to finally wear a coat and scarf and keep up with him.

Tweaking Reality

I find that photo-shopping or digitally editing photos is much like decorating a cake or buying something for someone you love or making soup. You can tweak and stretch and add and subtract, and eventually you can end up with an inedible or unappetizing mess or getting someone way too much stuff. For me it sometimes ends up meeting the vision that I was trying to achieve or at least getting close enough that I am too tired to delete all the work I put into it. One of the people making a comment asked if the prior post was created from a real photo. It was, and below is the original (reduced to 40%) for your edification.   (You can click on the photo for a close-up.)

Holiday Help

Someone was trying to get me in the holiday mood yesterday. She was a big help.

Shroooom!

It is cold and rainy and no frost, so we are getting a wonderful harvest of oyster mushrooms.  We are not experts on mushrooms and know these are safe to eat because we planted them this past year!

As you can see we harvested some already in the photo above.  I had once read that there was little nutritional value in mushrooms but according to one website their nutritional value is as follows: "The good: This food is low in Saturated Fat and Sodium, and very low in Cholesterol. It is also a good source of  Dietary Fiber, Protein, Vitamin C, Folate, Iron, Zinc and Manganese, and a very good source of Vitamin D, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Pantothenic Acid, Phosphorus, Potassium, Copper and Selenium."  Since we cook ours with butter, garlic and salt and pepper, we probably negate a lot of the healthy significance of this fungus.  Another website claims that mushrooms have  complex carbohydrates that strengthen the immune system.  I can use more of that!

They have high water content and I think that is why I see squirrels eating them once in a while.  Our little harvest does get impacted by mice harvests.  The photo below is a wild mushroom, that looks like our cultivated, but could very well be inedible.  I ain't trying it.  You can see where squirrels have nibbled.

Other fungus in our woods is just pretty and exotic looking.  Some growths look like rubber ribboned ruffles (say that fast three times) and others like scallop shells that have fossilized.

There are so many different forms, colors and patterns that sometimes I return home all muddy kneed from trying to get a close-up shot of something I haven't seen.

Winter Surprise

 

What a surprise to find in my garden.  This summer annual marigold is still waiting for a frost.

Movie Title

Guess what movie I saw yesterday? Found this old zoo photo and had to give it some mood swings to go with the movie.

Morning Light

Thought I would share some morning light in a photographic painting.

Just had to add that this was taken from the side of my deck and cropped so that you could not see the roof of my neighbor's house. Then I photo-shopped with lighting and filters. I do like how it turned out!

Soft Beginnings

The sky is blushing with excitement to start the day, but the heavy fog pulls a veil over her excited face and leaves only the clawed outline of branches in silhouette against the rosey sky.  The air is heavy with water and warmer than usual.  I can hear the mist collecting on the few remaining leaves hundreds of feet over my head and then rolling to the leaves' edges and falling with abandoned effort to the forest floor giving in to gravity and creating a soft snapping sound.

Eventually the sun pierces through in places turning the straw, which covers newly seeded patches in the lawn, to gold.  Almost everything else is still hidden in the silk of fog.  It feels safe and comforting as if this misty blanket can protect me from anything harsh.  All the sharp edges of the end of fall have been smoothed to a soft sheen.  All is reverent and quiet.

I am compelled to take the path to the river to follow the early morning call of Canadian geese disturbed by the increasing light. Their chatter always sounds like the panic of old women at the empty bargain table going for the last treasure and is misplaced in this gray cathedral.  Their camouflage is being removed in subtle layers with each degree of the sun's climb over the southern horizon and they are wary.

The geese have heard me or seen my dangerous shadow before I am near for they are just distant fuzzy ghosts barely visible in the middle of the river heading rapidly and with magical grace to the opposite side.  For a short time it is very quiet.  I am alone.  But wait...I hear the tenuous songs of several birds in the trees.  There is the high cry of a jay above me and the song of white-throated sparrows calling from the shelter of the salt bush to my back.  Even the rhythmic tat-a-tat of the red bellied woodpecker tells me that the day is beginning with or without the sun.

Flyover

I was flying over the river...via the bridge...hubby was driving.  These are called drive-by shots and would not hold up to the scrutiny of a magnifying glass for sharpness since we were moving about 30 MPH.  But they were the last of the fall a few weeks ago that I could capture, and I thought I would share one of the neighborhoods I pass fairly regularly.

The Tapestry

Each day I savor the little things, because like the threads that knot together a magnificent tapestry, they make the pattern of my life.

Drum Roll Please

The American poet, Robert Frost Carl Sandburg, said that fog comes in on little cat feet.  We were driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike after Thanksgiving and find that winter comes in following a drum roll!

Yellow and Green

I will be in a car on the day of Thanksgiving traveling north into possible snow in the coming days.  Nothing like forcing early winter into my psyche.  May your Thanksgiving, if you celebrate, be filled with good fellowship and understanding in the company of those you love.  If that cannot be arranged, may you have peace.  Below are some hosta photos and their changes in my yard these past two weeks that were so lovely I had to post them.

 

Late Dinner

Last evening hubby headed out on a 'fishing' trip in the canoe with the small 30-year-old motor attached. There are no fish this time of year in our river, but he was winterizing the engine with some chemical and decided to take advantage of such a lovely day.  Not warm, but not cold,  just right.

He "drove" around in circles for a while making sure the motor had coughed its way into agreement and submission and then then waved and asked me not to hold dinner.  (I had been holiday shopping and was too tired to join him...OR make dinner, thus, was in total agreement with the late day plan.)

As I have written, there are no fish this time of year, but he doesn't really care.  The fall has been much too nice to waste even one evening and he is more fish than man.

I took this from the other side of my dock while listening to a kingfisher chastise me with his machine gun song while he sat to my back and high above.  Kingfishers are only brave when they are behind you and can flee.  Later as I was heading back to the house he must have seen some small fish because he hit the water with such a pop I thought he might have injured himself.  Nothing subtle about this bird.

I must start sorting all the fall photos that my addiction has made me too greedy to delete.

Dying

I am slowly accepting the fact (as I have many autumns before) that I cannot preserve summer's beauty no matter how well I plan or protect.  I did go outside yesterday and try to cut most of the new rose buds before we get our first frost...which currently is a long ways off according to the weather report.  When I pick the buds this time of year after they have held through the cold nights they usually last only a few days and burst forth into fat open blooms when placed in my warm house and in normal water.  By the end of the week they are dropping rose petals everywhere as if throwing confetti to remind me the party is over, but to compensate for their messiness, they smell really, really sweet in the autumn!  Their short lived beauty is a reward.

Even though I cannot choose colors or sizes of blossoms at this time of year for the perfect asymmetrical bouquet, they do give me pleasure in their simple country style as I clump them together.  It is a more comfortable style...like winter slippers.

Later in the same afternoon I peruse my summer annuals outside, and even though they are retreating from the weather, I think they still have a certain beauty about them.  These zinnias look a little like impressionistic paintings done by the artist who saw the perfect flowers earlier in the month and then attended a carnival that evening.   Upon waking he grabbed his bright paints and did these.

As I venture further into the more open fields where the weather is harsher I find that even the end of the wild flower has its perfect moment before snow brings her down.  (I do not know what these are/or were.)

Each season certainly has its own reward.

Sometimes

Sometimes Fall is late to the party and arrives after all has dried and crumbled to gray and brown.  The only noise in the air is the bold cry of the crows. All Fall sees as she coasts over the surface is the leftovers of the celebration scattered hither and yon in all their crackly glory.  Sometimes Fall arrives too early and finds everything green and slimy and slippery.  Then the leaves ignore her bidding and cling dirty black until the winter winds tear them from their watchful posts.

But some years she arrives exactly on time and dressed in her best dress with her hair and make-up exactly in place.  She makes an entrance as only the Belle of the Ball can do and we stop in our tracks to admire her beauty and fawn over her timing.  We line up to be added to her dance card and we feel so lucky to have her attention for even such a short time.   (Click on photos for blogger to give you a close-up.)