Tag Archives: Nature

Awash in August

Rain and More Rain 

Rain repeatedly overflowed my flower pots these last few days. One night’s accumulation was over five inches. An ice chest beside the deck has completely filled too. What a lush and beautiful Arkansas August we are having!

Surprise lilies

Surprise lilies at base of crape myrtle

My daily walks lapsed this week, due partly to the thunderstorms, drizzles, and downpours. This morning was different though, because I headed out with umbrella and camera … to see what Nature was newly up to.

BEDRIZZLED

outdoors
under
new-wet
leaves,
thrilling
to the
pit-pat of 
second rain

Buzzards in Snags

Buzzards

Buzzards on alert in snags

Along the route to the lake, I encountered storm debris, burgeoning weeds, deer, and buzzards. Also, a man appeared, walking out of the bushes and waving arms overhead as if to signal for help. Turns out, he was just doing arm exercises with weights. We teamed up for part of our walk and had a good conversation. He walks almost daily too, mostly on the lake shore instead of the lake road. He was very knowledgeable about habitat and critters, and I liked that.

Two “Feathers”

IMG_3243a Two Feathers

In the grass alongside the white-edged asphalt, I caught the impression of a large feather that turned out to be fast-food packaging. I laughed to think how bird- and buzzard-oriented I’ve become. Then, wow, about two feet further ahead there was a buzzard feather. I don’t normally rearrange found objects—though that would be an art option for the future—but, in this case, I did bring the two “feathers” together for one vignette.

 


More Rain Effects

At another location, crabgrass was encroaching on the asphalt. Arkansas is beginning to morph into jungle.

IMG_3253a Bermuda grass encroaching

Rainstorm results also prompted the poem below:

Hickory Nuts in Grass

SPRINGING A SURPRISE

Well, now—
who do you think had the brass 
to lay green summer eggs
in green summer grass?

The Easter Funny? It could be.
Or—perhaps?the Hickory Tree.

Rain is predicted for the next two or three days … I haven’t investigated beyond that. And, of course, there is major flooding nationwide. This will certainly be a summer to remember. ~ ♥Jo

* * *

My Nature is Natural

Treasure Hunter

IMG_3182a Cabela bagI took two plastic shopping bags with me on my walk this morning, just in case. I’d been carrying rocks home all week for edging a flowerbed … and carrying them by hand. Bags might be more “handy.”

Ever alert to treasures—in the child’s sense of the word—I noticed ferns, tree bark, caterpillars, a turtle and a hawk, clouds, flowers, large and small stones, and … a trash bag. New. It wasn’t there yesterday. That surprise started an internal dialogue:

– Pick it up.
– What for? I already have trash bags with me.
– It’s serendipity. Pick it up. You’ll find out later why.
– Oh, please. That’s silly … just magical thinking.
– Yes, exactly. Pick it up.

– But WHY?!

– You’ll SEE why.

IMG_3183a Cabela bag


I picked it up.

Picking up on serendipities is my nature—the WHY was now self-evident, like a Declaration of Independence truth. [By the way, the bag is from Cabela’s, the outdoors outfitter. Some other person is currently enjoying these woods. Good to know.]

I returned home with three shopping bags unfilled. But I did not return empty-handed, meaning empty-hearted:

HEARTENED

Love
is the treasure,
the storehouse,
the key.
All “open secrets”
it opens to me.

The fruits of my treasure-hunting expedition are that poem and another. The second is about magical coincidences and the relativity of reality:

DAY DREAMS

Why should magic by day—
     coincidences,
          serendipities,
               delusions—
differ from magic by night?

Are they not both
     sleights-of-mind?
          Illusions?

IMG_3156a road curve


Epilogue. 
My partner just came home from a hard and hot day’s work.After supper, he relaxed in a chair and asked me to tell him a story, just a child might at bedtime. I related all the adventures of my treasure hunt, including visits with neighbors. I take it as a compliment that he drifted off to sleep.

I spared you many of the treasure-hunt episodes in today’s writing and will fill you in later. Or not … depending on serendipities and further wonders. May you have many. ~ ♥Jo

 

* * *

The Truly Great Outdoors

Surprised by Beauty

Outdoors, when I look around, I always find surprises—something new, something never-noticed, or something that contradicts my expectations.

Fence Rail

Yesterday it was a large bee that inspected me several times from head to knee as I prepared to stretch at a fence-rail barre.After her inspection, the bee bumped around and into the rail a few times, including the bottom side. I concluded that she was a carpenter bee heading home. How smart to bore a hole in a place like that and create a wooden roof overhead.

Yellowed Leaves

Again and again, I am surprised by beauty—such as leaves on a broken branch turning color prematurely or Queen Anne’s lace shadowed on asphalt.

IMG_3161 Queen Anne shadows

Recently I noticed the latest in a series of hickory nuts that had fallen to the pavement. The first ones appeared about two weeks ago, and the nuts have been getting larger as the hickory crop matures. So far, the insides of the nuts have not been eaten, just exposed.

TO EACH THING A SEASONIMG_3157a hickory nut

Already in early summer, yellowed
leaves and tree debris find their way
to the ground, whether by weather,
insect, bird, or squirrel.

An occasional small hickory nut— 
gnawed open but uneaten, and
found on the pavementtestifies
that 
squirrels have been honing
their 
safe-cracking skills in advance.

Many things can be hurried,
many cannot; 
and many things seem
falsely premature
or delayed.
But all is in order, and even 
the skill of
discerning this 
must ripen in its own time.

Beautiful surprises are life’s real poems. My words here are primarily records of my appreciation . . . love letters to this lovely world. ♥ ~Jo

* * *

Captivated

It’s More   (?)   , Y’All!

Newspapers as mulch . . . that was the edging treatment I had just put down beside our front deck. When I watered it with a hose to keep it in place, this little fellow hopped out. He courteously stayed put while I went inside, located my camera, installed its memory card, and returned.

Frog

Froggie may have been captivated by the honky-tonk ad on which he’s sitting, wondering if bull-riding has anything to do with bullfrogs. (I was certainly captivated by him.)

Actually, the local watering hole is on the other side of the house …  a set of fountains where local toads gather for croaking duels each night. This guy looks like a city slicker in comparison, but I hope he sticks around and can fit in. Then we can find out WHAT it’s more of, Y’all!  ♥ ~Jo

* * *

Observing and Musing

My Daily Walk

I live uphill from a lake and my daily walk usually takes me to it or near it. One route takes me down a hill, alongside the water, and eventually to a boat ramp. The other begins on gravel then shifts to pavement, winding fairly level till the end when it takes a downward incline to a hideaway vacation compound. From its entryway surveillance sign, I can see lake water ahead.

Daily Walk Route

Both routes are scenic, but the second tends to be more private and shaded. I often encounter hawks, deer, squirrels, turtles, and other creatures on that road or in the woods alongside it. And I have plenty of time to observe and muse.

“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
– John Muir

Yesterday I had my camera with me and photographed a word that had been spray-painted word on the pavement by a utility worker. That word figured in one of last week’s walks and poems:

MOMENTOUS

Most people I know
are Superglued to their beliefs.
I’d rather set mine free
to drift downstream, paper boats.

“Where are the others like me?
I wondered aloud yesterday
to no entity in particular …
“Where is my family?”

I happened to be walking “alone”
on a paved country road.
Some utility company, I noticed,
had spray-painted cryptic guidelines
at its edge—along with the
single word “LOCATE.”

My answer came, as a knowing,
in that one moment.

 Locate Sign

 

In other words, Kindred Spirit, I now have my radar out for you.  ♥ ~Jo