Poor Jack. He’s has been photographically neglected for a few months now as I have really not had a whole lot of time to play. So this morning I decided that no matter what, we were going to have a session on his regular romp in the park, and it turned out to be a beautiful morning to do it. After chasing many sticks and romping through the grass, he decided it was time to rest in a frost covered patch. I suppose he kind of enjoyed the sun on his back and the cool grass underneath. All that running had made him hot and he was satisfied to just chomp and a select stick for a few minutes. As soon as he lay down, the steam started rising from underneath him. It really was a satisfying moment for both of us. A little rest was in order.
This was a different kind of year in the garden as we moved all kinds of stuff around. Crop rotation I guess you would call it. Interestingly, tomatoes flourished and corn did not, even though both did well where they were at last year. But maybe that had more to do with the sporadic rain we had here all summer. Whatever the case, tomatoes are coming out of our ears and corn looks like it belongs in a wok.
But the big project for me this year was the crop circle! Well, with time crunch as it was in May, it was more like crop semi-circle, but I do plan on finishing it this fall. I took a stake and drove it into the ground, tied a piece of string to it, then put a spray can of white paint on the end of the string and made a template for the circle about 15 ft in diameter. Then, of course, came the real work of getting the sod up and the earth turned for some planting.
So this year I planted it with sunflowers from the seeds I had harvested last year. The seeds were from a dwarf variety that only got about 2 feet tall, but as plants will do, they reverted from their hybrid traits and I got plants from 2-5 feet tall. That was kinda cool as I think it looked more natural than when they were all the same height. There were plenty to cut and give away to friends and neighbors, which everyone always appreciates. It’s nice to bring a little of the outside inside.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do next year. Maybe a whole circle of sunflowers. Or maybe plant some perennial grasses in it like pampas and other tall varieties. I like ornamental grass and it usually looks good year round.
The sunflowers have peaked and are now starting to wane. But I really like that time of the year, and I always like the look of sunflowers that are a little spent. The texture is awesome, the way they kind of wither gracefully. But, I really like to contrast of old flowers and new ones. In a couple of months, all of them will be dried up and I get to explore the seed pods, which really is one of my favorite things to photograph.
But for now, the bees are buzzing and things still look like summer. But in a few weeks, the leaves will start to turn and things will settle down, and we’ll all be ready for some football weekends and maybe a trip or two.
So here are a few shots from the crop circle this morning. It is hard to photograph bees with a macro and no tripod, but one or two turned out like I wanted. Boy, did I ever need a little personal shoot time. All work and no play was making Kemper a dull boy.
Energized….CHECK!!!
As I predicted several blogs ago, despite the dry weather this summer this fall has been spectacular, not to mention the longest on record I would expect! I mean we have had almost a month of great fall colors and it hasn’t stopped yet. This is November for crying out loud. Thanksgiving is next week!
I really don’t spend much time in Tidewater during the fall, but I was there for Shannon and Kurt’s wedding on the 27th. As I was driving down the Colonial Parkway towards Yorktown, I spotted this splash of color on a bridge as I was crossing a tributary near the Chesapeake Bay. I stopped and captured this panorama of fall color which is not done justice on a little computer screen. Ever since I read James Michener’s Chesapeake I have this very romantic view of the bay’s natural areas. I would be willing to bet that, standing on the edge of this river bank or one like it 400 years ago, things looked just about the same.
Here’s to a very beautiful lack of progress. Save the Bay!
It is the end of summer. Ok, so I’m a few days late. Been busy!
But it really is fall, despite the 90 degree temperatures that hit us every few days. I think I’m really ready for some cool weather and fall colors. Everyone seems to think that we’re not going to have much in the way of fall colors due to the lack of rain this summer. But I seem to remember a similar summer about five years ago and the colors that fall were spectacular. I remember driving on the parkway through Floyd and Bent Mountain, and that area had some bodacious looking reds and oranges. I think I’ll trek back there for sure just to see if we have a repeat.
So, today I marked the end of summer with a few shots of the sunflowers I had out back. Of course, they have died out, but who could really blame them. After all, they spent all summer wrenching every bit of water they could out of this uber-parched dustbowl. They did a very good job, because there were lots of seeds in the flower heads. I’m actually surprised that there are still some in there. The Cardinals usually have torn them to shreds by now. There have been a few smaller birds eating on the sunflower buffet, but I haven’t seen a Cardinal there yet. Maybe they still think it’s summer.
I love the texture, color and smell of dried flowers and leaves. I can just lay down in a pile of raked leaves on a sunny fall day and nap my afternoon away. Most of the mountain bike trails will be full of leaves soon, and the smell when you ride through them makes me think of the hot summer days when they were providing much needed shade.
So here is to the end of summer, no more lightening bugs to catch…..
but plenty to see if you just look
I spend a lot of time in the woods, most of it on mountain bike trails (well known and secret ones, too!) all over Mill Mountain, or Carvin’s Cove, or Brush Mountain and Pandapas Pond. For me it’s a place for spiritual renewal, a realignment so to speak with the simple Earth. The simple Earth doesn’t have wireless anything, or perhaps it has wireless everything, depending on how you look at it.
For me, climbing a hill on a bike is the best part. It’s a time of focus on your effort, but it also affords the most opportunity to really look at everything around you. You don’t often see anything on the fast paced downhills, just what is immediately in front of you, and all that is a blur. But the uphill is slow and steady.
In a way, it’s almost opposite of life. In life, the uphill is the struggle and the focus where we sometimes lose our ability to see everything around us. In life, the downhill is the easy ride where we take it all in to enjoy.
Either way, cheers to all of the uphills and downhills in life. We need ‘em both to get the thrill!
