Namaste

Posted on May 21, 2012 by

21 May, 2012    Namaste
I’ve been even less disciplined than usual. If you know how undisciplined I normally am, you may find that difficult to comprehend. I’ve been wanting to write my little addendums at the end of my posts but haven’t put one up lately. I began this one back in March but let it sit for a while. Finally I’m putting one up. I hope to put another one up soon. Meanwhile, some pictures that have accumulated while I’ve been undisciplined. Some are pretty neat.

There were lots and lots of plants in my last post. This post has some plants in it too, but a bunch of man-made stuff too. A train or two, of course. Bikes, etc. If you want to see some amazing pictures of plants, visit my friend (and blogging mentor) Grace’s blog at Life 2 Seriously. Meanwhile, my stuff.

First, the requisite train picture – a big coal train, here pulled by a matched pair of big GE AC44CW locomotives:

A pair of AC44CW’s waiting to move 10,000 tons of coal

Those locomotives were produced by GE; GM produces the EMD SD70, shown below. You can identify it from the left side by that large rounded blower duct. Which I learned on a very cool site called “Finn’s Train and Travel Page.” I see so many AC44’s that it’s nice to see a different locomotive:

SD70MAC followed by an AC44 followed by thousands of tons of coal

Mom and Dad and I have been meeting for lunch up in the mountains for Mother’s Day every year for some time now. Next month is their 54th wedding anniversary! I always bring dogs along; Mom and Dad are always happy to see them. Last year I brought Ivory; unfortunately for all of us that was his last trip up there. It was a great day with him, though, and I’m glad he got to spend time with Mom and Dad. The people who taught me how to relate to animals. Turner (brown and silly) and Mackey (black and contemplative) bring their own particular energy. I regret not collaring a bystander to take a picture of all five of us, but there weren’t many people around. First, Dad took a picture of my posse and me with The Guest of Honor:

Mother’s Day with the Guest of Honor! (and two no-good mutts!)

Then The Guest of Honor took a picture with our Gracious Host:

Our Gracious Host!

Down at Pony Pasture a few days later I got a neat picture of a moth. I know zero about moths, but the pictures are pretty neat:

There was a bee just a few bushes away, busy (as a bee, you may say) on a privet:

Busy as a bee

Later when I got home there was a moth on the wall outside the back door of my house. Just hanging around:

Another moth…

When my buddy and I were down at the train tracks last week we saw another different locomotive, this time a GE C40-8, a.k.a. a “Dash-8.” Number 7526 could use a paint job. Number 266, behind it, is another AC44CW. It’s got about 10% more horsepower, and they always put the higher powered unit closer to the train for better braking power:

C40-8, in need of paint!

Since I’m putting up pictures of inanimate objects on this post, one more. If you’re a really great photographer like my friends Lynda and Ariel and Chanin and Grace, you can take excellent pictures in any light. Pure amateurs like myself learn quickly that perfect light forgives a lot of mistakes. I went for a ride Saturday and it was one of this string of days we’ve been enjoying this fine Spring that is just beyond compare. This is my bike on top of my car at a little church out in Goochland, just after I finished a quick ride:

Fun

Saturday, Mackey and Turner and I went to the Open House at an excellent new animal hospital near Glen Allen High School, the Glen Allen Animal Hospital. Mackey won a prize for Best Trick (he can sit when I spell “S-I-T”) and Turner won a prize for best at “Bobbing for Tennis Balls”! Mackey’s always been a gifted speller, but our friend (and former housemate, and current vet tech) Alex taught Turner – quickly – how to bob for tennis balls. I wish I’d photographed them in action! But I was too busy hovering anxiously. Fortunately we caught the photographer before he left and he graciously agreed to photograph us with my camera. His name was Hunter Tate and he was talented and engaging and did great with the dogs. After he’d been with the dogs (and cats) at the Open House all day! You can see some of his work here: Hunter Tate

Two fun dogs and one happy dog-lover!

Until next time,

Jay

= = = = = = = = = =

Since I began doing one on one work with people around eighteen years ago, I have only worked with one female. Many of the people I spend time with have traumatic brain injuries or autism, groups of people densely populated with males. But I worked with this young lady for around a year and she taught me a lot.

She could say “hello” in nearly any language. Any language of any person she’d ever met, anyway; once she learned how, she never forgot. We see a lot of people from South and Central America and she always greeted each with a friendly “¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás?” It was easy for her to recognize Chinese people, and she would always bow a little and say “Nín hǎo!” I think she could say hello in around ten languages. Maybe more. I should have counted.

Once we were walking around Stony Point Fashion Park. She always found Build-A-Bear entertaining. We went through the main section and a janitorial crew was walking toward us. There was a big, big, grave looking middle-aged Hispanic man dressed in the Stony Point uniform. My friend pranced up to him and chirped “¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás?” He stopped for a moment and put a hand calmly on her shoulder and said “bien, bien.” That interaction, like so many I see with the people I spend time with, was win-win-win – it was good for her, it was good for him, it was good for me.

Early in our acquaintance I picked her up from school and we went to Deep Run park. She had a children’s copy of Cinderella. She wanted to be on one end of the see-saw and me on the other and she wanted me to read it to her. I weighed as much as about three of her so I just see-sawed along with one hand and absent-mindedly read the book aloud while holding it with the other. I went through the beginning and through Cinderella’s cruel step-mother and step-sisters et al. Page after short page, my friend did not say a word. I thought she was dozing off. Fairy godmother, turning a pumpkin into a coach, mice into horses, etc., not a word from my friend. Then as I read the fairy godmother saying “I can’t let you go to the ball dressed like that” my friend’s head popped up and she shouted “dressed IN that!!!” She knew it word for word. Just liked the reassurance.

Another time we were at Deep Run park and a dark-skinned older woman was supervising her young grandchildren on the swings. My friend walked up and greeted her with  “¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás?” The woman merely smiled. It was April and she was wearing a rich and colorful sari and had a red spot on her dark  forehead. I told my friend I didn’t think the woman was Spanish. The three of us managed to understand one another enough that we could exchange pleasantries. And my friend had found a person with a new language and she didn’t know how to say “hello.” As always, she was eager to add a new language to her repertoire, so she asked the woman how people say hello in India. The woman clasped her hands in front of her and bowed deeply and said “Namaste.” If you had the good fortune to witness this, you too would have seen this was more than just an explanation. I have heard many explanations for the meaning of the word “Namaste.” My favorite is “the god in me bows to the god in you.” I am positive that’s what the woman was saying to my friend. We all have god in us, but the older we get, the more layers of “civilization” cover it. I often have the opportunity to spend time with people who leave the god inside open for all the world to see. The woman with the red spot on her forehead clearly saw it in my friend. And helped me yet again to see it in both of them.

I meet a lot of great people.

= = = = = = = = = =

Posted in Dogs, Endurance, Flowers, Fun, People, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), Trains | 4 Comments

Windows open, A.C. off, BREATHE!

Posted on May 8, 2012 by

8 May, 2012    Windows open, A.C. off, BREATHE!

It’s early May and if you live in central Virginia, if you haven’t noticed, it smells incredible. It’s 3:00 in the afternoon as I write this and the temperature is not even 75º. This is no time for air conditioning, either in the car or in the house. This is the time for open windows and lots of deep, deep breaths. Preferably inhaling through the nose.

My last post was late April and there were already lots of flowers out. Some have  already come and gone. Redbuds, e.g., forsythias, etc. But right now nearly everything is blooming. Of all the flowers that are blooming now, this is my favorite, by far:

Beautiful honeysuckle

That picture doesn’t take my breath away, although I like it. Honeysuckle looks nice against a dark background. I put up a post in mid-May of last year called “Flora – and some fauna”. The first picture in that post is a honeysuckle image I consider truly spectacular. I’ve put up around 75 blog posts, probably 400 or more pictures, and that honeysuckle image from last May is possibly my favorite. I got a cool picture of an owl in that post too, and a couple of a very ancient Ivory, but that honeysuckle image is superb. Here’s a link to that post: Flora – and some fauna

I went on a longish bicycle ride Saturday out in Goochland. At one point I rode past a wall of honeysuckle as long and tall as a boxcar. Or two. It was heavenly. This is my route, if you’re curious: Fifty mile spin. I did a 22 mile loop twice because I was afraid I’d get caught way out in a heavy rain but fortunately it held off.

There are two other delightful smelling plants blooming now, often in the same area as honeysuckle. Evelyn tells me these are privet flowers; they’re all over Richmond, growing in large bushes. This is a closeup, because I like the bright white against the dark background. But the closeup skews the perspective. Each flower is smaller than a pea. But each clump has dozens of flowers, and each bush has dozens of clumps, and the bushes are often lined up in rows:

Privet flowers – just a tiny part of a hedge

The third wonderful smelling plant currently blooming is one I’ve mentioned already, multiflora rose:

A beautiful multiflora rose

I regret I haven’t included a picture of a whole multiflora bush too. Because it’s hard to get an idea of the scale from these little pictures. Wikipedia refers to it as a “scrambling shrub” and says it will climb up to 15 feet and that it’s used as a hedge. I’ve never seen a small rosa multiflora.

Something the three of these plants have in common is a profusion of blooms. The individual blooms are not large, but a big bush has hundreds of them, probably  even thousands. The smell is at once delicate and unavoidable. Not that you’d want to. Avoid it, that is.

All three of the plants abound at Pony Pasture. It’s possible all three are what’s referred to as “invasive species.” I suppose that depends on your perspective. Since, if I understand my history books correctly, caucasian humans are an invasive species in North America. Those flowers smell great though!

When the dogs and I were at Pony Pasture this morning, you could not take a step without smelling some lovely plant. And I was getting a few photographs I knew would look good. But at the same time I was reflecting that a photograph of these plants does them very, very little justice. There’s the smell, obviously; I’ve hardly written about anything else. And you can get a sense of their beauty from the pictures too. But the sounds are part of the experience too. It was breezy this morning and you could hear it drifting through the treetops the whole time. And, especially for the first half of the walk, the sound of the river is a beautiful white noise. And the birds – their noise is anything but white. Birds, birds, birds, the songs are every tone and texture. And on a morning like this, they have no beginning or end – step out of the car and they’re singing, and they don’t stop. A more intermittent sound at the river is trains on the other side. Paul Simon says that “everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance” and there’s no doubt I do. The flowers are for seeing and smelling but the sounds that surround them heighten every sensation.

The multiflora rose are mostly finished now. When they fruit they put out rose hips, and I got this image more by accident than by design on Sunday. Some fading flowers on the top, dropping the last of their petals, and rose hips below, with a couple of spiderwebs if you look close:

An old rose and new rose hips

This was a pretty little flower I saw at Pony Pasture this week too. Not sure what it is, besides cute:

A pretty little flower

I haven’t only seen flowers and turtles. The bugs are pretty now too. The pollen and the inchworms are for the most part gone. But I saw this butterfly – perhaps it’s a moth – on a rosa multiflora the other day:

It may be a moth, it may be a butterfly – I am uncertain.

My fellow Richmonders are aware that in another month or two, the weather will be something other than comfortable. The bugs won’t be very cute either. But at the moment there are some interesting specimens climbing around. This ladybug looks okay:

Pretty ladybug

I’m not sure what this next one is, and I regret not getting a better image. But it’s a neat looking bug:

Unusual (and, regrettably, blurry) bug

Here’s a cute flower from the river; it was very, very tiny. Evelyn said it was, if I recall (I may not, or I may recall incorrectly), a wild pea:

A wild pea – I think

While I’m displaying all these plant pictures, I need to recognize my friend Barbara who corrected me about a plant I misidentified as a catalpa in my previous post. You can look at that post here: Element of blank. Scroll down to the fourth picture. Purple flowers, below the two squawking goslings and above the dough-like fungus. Barbara tells me that’s pawlonia. Catalpa is a.k.a. “Indian Cigar Tree” (that’s what we called it when we were kids, anyway). It gets seed pods over a foot long, there are hundreds on each tree. I don’t know where we got the idea those looked like Indian Cigars, but there it is. Come to think of it, I have no idea what an Indian Cigar even looks like. Or if such a thing exists or ever existed. Catalpa flowers are white, not purple and if you are in Richmond and would like to look at one right now, a catalpa is blooming in front of the Epiphany Lutheran Church, where Monument Avenue dead ends into Glenside drive. When you get to the light, look across Glenside and a little to your left. It’s the only tree in bloom, you can’t miss it. Thanks for the correction Barbara!

Speaking of trees in this area, I have a very prolific mulberry tree on the side of my house. This is a picture I took the other day while cutting my grass. Those are too light-colored to be really ripe yet. It’s right outside our bedroom window which is open (it smells so good) and in the morning that tree fills with raucous birds. I’m uncertain how fast those birds digest their food. But it couldn’t take them more than a couple of seconds to fly across my yard and deposit the berries on my car in a much different form.

Last, a pair of mallards with a baby we saw this morning. The picture is un-stellar quality as this little family was wisely staying very dog-shy. I suspect some aquatic-bird mishap may have befallen this group at some point. I have never seen a pair of mallards with only a single duckling. Normally it’s either zero or several. Wikipedia says mallards lay eight to thirteen eggs at a time, and families are usually larger. But I had the impression that they were, like us, enjoying the morning. I hope you did too!

A small mallard clan

Have a great day,

Jay and friends

Posted in Dogs, Endurance, Flowers, Fun, Rivers | 4 Comments

Element of blank

Posted on April 27, 2012 by

27 April, 2012        Element of blank

My mind wanders at the river, especially when it’s drizzly and misty like  when I walked there yesterday morning. I spend time with lots of people who have spent lots if time in comas and I spent around five days in a coma in 1988. I hear lots about the experience of coma. My own experience was, to paraphrase Emily Dickinson, “an element of blank.” More at the end.

I’ve only done one post this month; in April of last year I did eight! I’ve been very delightfully busy but I wanted to post at least once more. My last post was only nine days ago. And Monday is the last day of April! I like to have some pictures I enjoy to hang a post on, and I’ve taken a couple. I was able to get down to Pony Pasture with Mackey and Turner for a few minutes on Tuesday. After they’d run for a while they stopped on the trail. Mackey, as ever, was ready for a break. Turner, as ever, was looking elsewhere. :

Mackey is looking at me. Turner is looking like he's ready to do something else.

Spring is showing now with baby geese being herded around by their parents. Or, if not their parents, some large and confident and authoritative looking adult geese:

Grownups and youngsters.

I couldn’t hear the babies and then I got home and looked at their pictures; they were making little gosling squawks!:

I'll bet their parents don't approve of this language! Even though they use worse language themselves - I've heard them.

I didn’t even know they did that. Squawked like that, I mean.

These pretty flowers were blooming on a tree in the parking lot. I first thought they were catalpa but am now uncertain. Please enlighten me:

Is this a catalpa? I'm sure I don't know. Please inform me and I'll credit you in this caption! Unless you prefer to remain anonymous; just let me know.

These fungus are prolific as well. They look like undercooked dough with oatmeal sprinkled on top:

I think it even looks kind of tasty. Fresh out of the oven. Maybe I need to bake some bread.

My buddy and I saw a coal train parked at our favorite spot when we were down there Wednesday. When we walked up there the headlight was off. Maybe he saw us looking because he turned it on while we were standing there. The locomotive in front (#819) is an ES44AC; you can tell by the two radiator vents at different angles on the rear. The locomotive behind that is a little older, #429, an AC44. They’re both 4,400 HP, but the “ES” stands for “Evolution Series” and pollutes a little less. They could also say that “ES” stands for “Environmentally Sensitive” but that may come across as a little disingenuous as it’s hauling ~10,000 tons of coal, and that’s all it’s designed to do:

Two 4,400 HP CSX locomotives, followed by ~10,000 tons of coal. Wow. Both locomotives are made by GE Transportation Systems.

Thursday I had a few free minutes and Pony Pasture is always a good place to spend them. It was drizzly and gray and cool, that always feels great on a spring morning. It keeps the dogs energetic. At the beginning, anyway:

Happy boys

The river looks pleasant in this light:

Misty morning

A rock in the river must have had a little clump of dirt in a pocket and some grass seed washed into the clump. It grew out there in the middle of the river and was bright against the gray:

Probably won't need a lawnmower out here. Or a sprinkler either, come to think of it.

Much farther down the river – almost at the golf course – we came into a large clump of these spiny seed pods. I have no idea what they are; I am open to all plant ID people:

Unidentified seed pod. It looks like I would not want to step on this barefoot.

I fussed around a lot trying to make this last picture look just the way it looked in the woods and I was never able to pull it off. I was flummoxed. I’ve really been looking for an opportunity to use that excellent word. It’s a beautiful green leaf and it had an enormous and perfect drop of water sitting in the middle like a silver jewel. The top was clear and the bottom was like a mirror. I wish I’d made it happen. Maybe another time. It’s unfortunate you weren’t there to see it, but try to look at this and imagine:

Almost like a jewel. Of course, the leaf was also like a jewel.

Thanks for looking at my blog; it’s always a pleasure. Have a great day,

Jay and friends
= = = = = = = = = = =
Originally, inexplicably, when thinking about this post while walking in the drizzle beside the river Thursday morning, I was thinking “A coma is a singular experience.”

Or at least mine was. It was the absence of every single thing. A five-day placeholder. So I was thinking that a coma has an element of blank, since your life stops for a certain amount of time – it stops in every way, except you breathe (or it would stop completely) and your heart beats. My coma had no pain, but it was the very definition of blank.

I had started out with a small company and grown with it and it was a company with lots of turnover. But I stayed for seven years and I was that person who knew where everything was and how everything worked. I was one of those people no small company can do without. I was, in my mind anyway, irreplaceable. The day before my accident a lot of others may have characterized me that way as well. Guess what! The company didn’t fold! That’s a kind of cool thing about a coma like mine – I stopped, but the world didn’t, and I’m having a chance to do stuff again. Which is really, really excellent. My five days in a coma happened twenty-four years ago, and I’m still happy to get up in the morning.

I have an acquaintance who had a very severe spinal cord injury three or four years ago. He is in his mid-twenties. Absent some major medical discovery, he will live his life as a quadriplegic. But he’s as happy and positive and motivated and active and engaged a person as you’re ever likely to meet. I saw someone in his family last  week and overheard them say “we’re the luckiest unlucky family ever.” Awesome. Have a great day.

PS I was just about to post this when I realized the person I referred to in the preceding paragraph has a great website. Or blog or something; it’s worth a look. Check it out at:

http://www.aspokinlife.com/

Posted in Dogs, Endurance, Flowers, Fun, People, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), Trains | 3 Comments

The cruellest month? Seriously?

Posted on April 18, 2012 by

18 April, 2012        The Cruellest Month? Seriously?

Another title for this post could be “a little knowledge is dangerous.” I’ve dabbled in English enough to know the line “April is the cruellest month.” But I had to resort to wikipedia to learn it is the opening line to T.S. Eliot’s enormous 1922 poem The Waste Land. Further investigation reveals the final (434th!) line is “Shantih    shantih    shantih,“ Sanskrit for, if you will, “peace, peace, peace.” An April image from my backyard:

That’s a white lilac; the purple ones (more conventionally lilac colored, equally fragrant) finished before I got a picture. Leading to another April poem known to a person with a little knowledge of English: Walt Whitman’s 1865 When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, his elegy after Lincoln’s assassination. Maybe then it was the cruelest month. But aren’t those lilacs stunning? You should smell them. Wow. It would be the cruelest month if it literally took your breath away.

Speaking of “a little knowledge,” I’ve put a caption on each picture. And whenever I save it, the caption disappears. By the next post I’ll have a little more knowledge and the captions will work. Stay tuned. Please! While I’m in this conversational tone, please put a comment at the end of the post (should you be so inclined) and give me a little feedback. I love to hear from readers. I hope I’m correct using the plural there!

The river’s staying high. Mid-river rock real estate is valuable. Just like valuable human real estate, it gets crowded. Location, location, location:

A crowd of cormorants.

Tons of turtles.

If you were in Richmond this fine Spring, you noticed that inchworms are not choosy about location; a muddy hand holding dog leashes is as fine as a country estate:

For me in this “cruel” month, the plant life steals the show, and not just the lilacs. Rosa multiflora is one I love each spring. The smell is not as powerful as a lilac, but it’s gentle and delicious and the flowers are wonderful:

When we were young (when my two brothers and two sisters and I were younger than we are now) we attended and worked at Camp Waredaca in Gaithersburg, MD for years and years. I think starting in the early seventies and continuing for so many years. We still go there often, although it’s a little different these days. We swam in a big lake and we’d walk down there barefoot and I’d often get clover stuck between my toes:

Some of these pictures are almost too close up; it almost makes them unrecognizable. But we all know what a dandelion and a clover and a buttercup look like, and these closeups are kind of fun:

Except for the lilac at the top, all the pictures on this post were taken at Pony Pasture. Including this old friend I found in the woods; it’s been a long time since I’ve seen ironwood:

I don’t know if it’s true but I’ve read it’s the only wood that sinks in water. It makes  axes and saws very dull very quickly. All you have to do is put your hand on it and it’s easy to feel how dense it is. I also read they burned it in the  old days and used the charcoal to make gunpowder. Carbon being the element that makes gunpowder black or gray.

I’ve got a ton of images piled up since it’s been about three weeks since I last put up a post. Thursday, April 5 was the 24th anniversary of my accident, a milestone I’m always grateful to reach. I plan to see a minimum of 24 more anniversaries and if I’m careful and fortunate, 24 more after that. But right now I’ll just see if I can make it through the next 24 hours! I hope yours is great too. Have a terrific day,

Jay

Posted in Flowers, Fun, Rivers | 10 Comments

Every season I say the same thing…

Posted on March 29, 2012 by

29 March, 2012    Every season I say the same thing…

…”THIS is my favorite season.” Every season I mean it. My last post was March 21 – I’m startled to realize. My only post for March, wow. Last March (2011) was my first full month of blogging and I put up fifteen posts. Now March is almost over and this is only my second post! Anyway, it’s early Spring and this is definitely my favorite season. Until summer arrives. The philosopher (that’s one way to describe him) Joseph Campbell said “life lives on lives.” So many things are bursting out and being born now and consuming and being consumed, it’s difficult to tell where one stops and another begins. If you’re in Richmond, VA now it’s difficult not to notice pollen and inchworms. I read up on inchworms on wikipedia and discovered this outstanding sentence: “They are seldom hairy or gregarious and are generally smooth.” I’m going to work that sentence into a conversation at some point today. I wonder if the person I’m speaking with will know I’m talking about inchworms. Gregarious. I certainly didn’t see that one coming.

Flowers are everywhere and Pony Pasture is (as we’ve already seen) full of  beauties. I’ve done a lot (to put it mildly) of hiking at Pony Pasture yet somehow remained unaware of these gorgeous flowers. Not sure how I could have missed this:

I’ve posted other pictures of these on fb so maybe you’ve already seen them. Some seeds (I presume) have washed down the river into the park. But the inimitable Ralph White and I presume the Friends of the James River Park planted hundreds a couple of weeks ago. They’re Virginia Bluebells, a.k.a. Mertensia virginica a.k.a a lot of other fascinating names, e.g. “Lungwort Oysterleaf” (!?) and “Roanoke Bells.”

Many flowers (and many other outdoor sights) say “Spring” to me but it’s possible Redbuds (Cercis canadensis) say it most sincerely. I have many positive associations with redbuds stretching far back into my childhood, perhaps into the Spring of my life, and redbuds never fail to evoke those good feelings.

Believe it or not (I can hardly believe it myself) there were no dogs in our home when I grew up. Always cats, from before I was even born, but we didn’t get a dog until I was leaving for college and for good in 1979. That was the incomparable Cassie, a dog who foreshadowed Ivory in many ways. I hope someone in my family will send me a picture of her so I can include her in a future post. If you’re familiar with Greek mythology, you may recall Cassandra as being granted the gift of prophecy, but cursed never to be believed. We didn’t know much about dogs when we first had Cassie. She didn’t have a name yet. She would give us plenty of signs – she prophesied – that she had to use the bathroom, but was cursed never to be believed. We in turn were cursed with many wet spots on the carpet until she finally convinced us of the accuracy of her forecasts. Cassandra was her perfect and perfectly inevitable name.

Anyway, a favorite book of mine in that era (before Cassie arrived) was written in 1961 (the year I was born) by a man named Wilson Rawls. It was called – a little more foreshadowing here – Where the Red Fern Grows – The Story of Two Dogs and a Boy. Who could possibly have seen this coming. I may have read it twelve times. Or more. This time of year I am reminded of a particular passage. I am reminded every Spring  since I would imagine sometime in the early 1970’s when I first read it. Rawls opens the book with this passage – in this case it is classic foreshadowing – and closes on the final page: “In the spring the aromatic scent of wild flowers, redbuds, pawpaws, and dogwoods, drifting on the wind currents, spread over the valley and around our home.” – Wilson Rawls (2011-01-12). Where the Red Fern Grows (Kindle Locations 153-155). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

There is already no shortage of wildflowers in this blog and in this post. My homage to Mr. Rawls and to the book and to all of the dogs that have influenced me. First a redbud from Pony Pasture:

Followed by an infant pawpaw I found clinging to the south bank of the James River at Pony Pasture this morning:

And this glorious dogwood gracing my front yard.

Boy. I totally didn’t outline this post. Does it show? I just sat down and started typing. You may even say this post is organic. Somewhat less organically, my friend and I were at the tracks yesterday and got this picture of an eastbound coal train rolling past a work crew. Each of those coal cars weighs ~100 tons. The biggest guy standing there probably about 1/1,000th of that. They sure do look relaxed. I guess you get used to it.

Back to the river. Back to this morning. I could have done a little better with this shot, but I like the geese on the water in the sunrise:

It is just a treasure to be down at the river early in the morning. The latest sunrise of the year here in central Virginia is around 7:30 in late October. The earliest is mid-June, when it comes up around 5:45. That is really early. But these days it’s coming up very close to 7:00 and I get the privilege of seeing this:

I’ll close with one more shot I enjoyed a great deal. If you’re so inclined, try to take a picture of a spiderweb some time. It is really difficult. But this one was sagging from the weight of the early morning dew and the sun was coming up behind it and everything came together:

I hope you’re enjoying this magnificent early spring as much as we are. Have a great day,

Jay and friends

Posted in Flowers, Fun, Rivers, Trains | 6 Comments

Quick!

Posted on March 21, 2012 by

March 21, 2012    Quick!

“Quick!” as in “I’d better get a post up really quick or another day will pass!”
My best laid plan is to put up a lot of blog posts but I have allowed myself to be  thwarted. I’m still thwarted and not taking the time to do the text I’d like and to  elaborate here and there. But it’s been a long time since I’ve put up a post and if nothing else I’ve got some pictures I enjoy. I’ll put up a “real” post (your guess here is as good as mine) in the non-distant future. But for now, some of the pictures that have accrued since my last time on here.

First, however, a leftover picture from February that I enjoyed. This is one of the rear “trucks” of a General Electric ES44AC locomotive:

We arrived at the river shortly after sunrise on Thursday, March 1. I like this shot because it’s an angle I don’t often post:

And  I enjoyed this lovely yellow flower:

These three weren’t at the river at all; they are lending fragrance and beauty to my driveway:

 

My driveway smells and looks so beautiful

Lee and Lucy joined us at the river on Sunday, March 4 – he was kind enough to take this picture. I wish all my dogs had been kind enough to pay attention! I think they wanted to keep hiking:

The sun is coming up earlier every day. Although we’ve switched to Daylight Savings Time. I took this picture on the morning of March 8, the last Thursday before the time change:

A buddy and I made it down to the tracks the following week; we were fortunate to see a “double” parked there. Notice neither locomotive’s headlight is lit. #19 is an AC4400 and #5254 is an (obviously newer) ES (or “Evolution Series”) 4400:

We made it to the river again on Thursday the 15th. The flowers are becoming quite prolific. This yellow one and this purple one are beautiful examples:

A purple beauty
(Identification also welcome)

And we can’t forget the delightful wrens!:

I make it a point to get to the river as often as possible in this weather. A friend and I went down the very next afternoon and saw these beauties:

So much to enjoy!

I have a few more pictures to put up but this post is over-full. I’ll put up a brief addendum post.

Speaking of addendums, I’ve been adding a brief narrative at the end of each blog posts. I’ve got one partly written but I’ve put off posting too long. It will be here soon. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy these pictures.

Have a great day,

Jay

Posted in Dogs, Flowers, Fun, Rivers, Trains | 6 Comments

Dancing about architecture

Posted on February 26, 2012 by

26 February, 2012    Dancing about architecture

The comedian Steve Martin says that “writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” More about that in the second section of this post. First, Turner, airborne:

Roux & Mackey discuss weighty matters while Turner goes airborne

If you’re in central VA, you know what an odd month it’s been. Weather wise, anyway. Friday afternoon I was at the river with a buddy and it was 82º and you might have said it was humid or at least muggy. Distinctly un-February like. Saturday at noon – less than 24 hours later – when I got on my bicycle it was crystal clear and 45º with 20 mph winds gusting to 35. I’d planned a 50 mile ride but after practically having my bike blown off the top of my car on the way out there, I opted for my 30 mile route. Click this link if you’d like to see it: Wind Fest. It took a lot of effort to average 14.6 mph for 2+ hours. Normally that’s one of my fast routes and I average in the mid- to upper-16’s and occasionally average 17. Not Saturday, that’s for sure.

On a ride like that, sometimes the best part is the end. I start and finish at a little church in eastern Goochland. I love daffodils and there are hundreds on the lawn:

Daffodils on the church lawn

It’s awful that it’s been two weeks since my last post. I’ve wanted to do ~1 post/week but life has intervened, as it sometimes does. Things are going well, just busy, which I never mind. I don’t know if the readers of this blog miss my posts – but I sure miss putting them up!

It’s been nearly a year since I began this blog, and I recall a picture of a dandelion being one I especially enjoyed. Dandelions will outlast us all; when there is nothing else, there will be dandelions. I saw this one on Wednesday. It’s only a dandelion – king of weeds in this area – but it’s a very pretty flower:

“Just a weed” but wow!

The dogs and I got to Pony Pasture a little late on Thursday; daffodils are blooming there too! Spring is early this year. It sprinkled a little the night before. This one is still wet, and perhaps even more lovely, if such a thing is even possible:

Beautiful!

On an entirely different note, we cross the James River to get to Pony Pasture on the 50-year-old Huguenot Bridge. It is in the midst of a multi-year replacement project. The base of the new bridge is girded by girders. If you were wondering. They bring them down on 18 wheelers. This picture is taken from the Starbucks parking lot. One end of the bridge has Starbucks and the other end has Pony Pasture; we use it regularly!:

That’s a lot of girder.

Daffodils and dandelions are only a few of the flowers brought out by this early spring. These hyacinths are already opening up beside my driveway:

First hyacinth

I have an obligatory dog picture at the top of this post and I like it a lot. I will close with one more. We had a nice hike this morning and I grabbed this picture of Turner speeding down the trail behind Roux. I don’t know why one is in focus and the other is not, but it’s still a cute picture:

Fast and fun

= = = = = = = = = = =
I began this second section writing about people I spend time with. I’ll return to that intermittently as the blog evolves. Today I will dance about architecture. I have a lot of friends who do a lot of yoga. I read about yoga. It occurs to me that reading about yoga is like dancing about architecture.

A friend gave me a great book called The Wisdom of Yoga (2006) by Stephen Cope. At the beginning of the book – even before the Introduction – Mr. Cope quotes another author from a work of hers. The quote is from a book called For the Time Being (1999) by a woman named Annie Dillard. The quote resonates for me:

“There were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure generation. There is no one here but us chickens, and so it has always been: a people busy and powerful, knowledgeable, ambivalent, important, fearful and self-aware; a people who scheme, promote, deceive, and conquer; who pray for their loved ones, and long to flee misery and skip death. It is a weakening and discoloring idea, that rustic people knew God personally once upon a time – or even knew selflessness or courage or literature – but that it is too late for us. In fact, the absolute is available to everyone in every age. There never was a more holy age than ours, and never a less.“

I hear a lot about how rotten things have become and I find it discouraging. It’s not discouraging because I think things have become rotten. It’s discouraging because some of us allow ourselves to think that way. Bad things happen regularly – but, as Ms. Dillard notes, they always have. And they always will. Things weren’t great back in the old days, and they’re not rotten now. She is much more eloquent about it than I could ever be: “It is a weakening and discoloring idea, that… people knew God personally once upon a time… but that it is too late for us.” In my opinion, this is the best time, and it is our responsibility to make it better. At the risk of sounding preachy and abrupt, to buy into the notion that “it is too late for us” is to be part of the problem – not the solution.

I have to get up early and work tomorrow too. I have a hard week ahead. But, just as they do every year at this time – you can count on this – each day will be a little longer, a little brighter, perhaps even a little warmer. The dandelions and daffodils and hyacinths shown here are just a taste of the riot of flowers we’ll see in the coming months. I will enjoy it all. Have a great day,

Jay

Posted in Dogs, Flowers, Fun, People, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!) | Leave a comment