Taper time! And more!

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Jay McLaughlin

15 October, 2012

The training is coming to an end! Endurance athletes call this the “taper.” All of the  distance training that’s consumed my time since Monday, July 23 is wrapping up. My body is (or so they tell me) slowly recovering and will peak Saturday morning  when the flag drops and I set out on my 2.4 mile swim down the Intracoastal Waterway in Wilmington, NC. It’s one of my favorite swims anywhere. I climb out of the water and get my wetsuit off and my cycling gear on and pedal away for a beautiful 112 mile bike ride through southeastern North Carolina. After finishing the bike I begin a 26.2 mile run that consists of two 13.1 mile loops through downtown Wilmington and around Greenfield Lake. I am dedicatedly un-fond of running and I walk a lot. But that route is also among my favorite ever.

I typically begin the run between 3:30 and 4:00 on the afternoon. Each loop takes me just over three hours. Sunset that evening will be around 6:30. So even if I’m having a peak performance, the second loop will be almost entirely in the dark. Running (and walking) around that lake, chatting with volunteers and spectators and other runners, suffused with an endorphin/dopamine tsunami, the final three hours of an ironman is my favorite three hours of the year. There is just nothing else like it. I am so fortunate to have this opportunity.

Lots of thoughts are going through my head. But I’m also preparing for the race, plus working. So let me put a few pictures in here and continue with race preparations. Here’s the race website, by the way: PPD Beach2Battleship

As an aside, I think they’re going to have live athlete tracking this year. You may be able to follow my progress online. When I learn more about that I’ll try to get the word out. Meanwhile, it was a month ago today (!) that I put up my last post. I’ll scrounge up a handful of pictures to put here. I may get another post up before the race, but if not I’ll definitely post one after.

I know I already posted a picture of this enormous fungus last month, with the dog leashes. This one is really cool – my iphone is inside it, set on FaceTime, so it’s taking a picture of me taking a picture of it. If you click on the picture you can zoom way in. And see me with my gray hat on, holding my camera. It’s nerdy + fun, at least to me:

iphone in a fungus taking a picture of me taking a picture of it. Not weird, but it could be seen that way if you’re so inclined.

I’ve mentioned in earlier posts (last month’s) that I develop a mild (sometimes not-mild) obsession with photographing late season flowers as the days grow shorter and the nights get cool. This pale yellow rose is in my backyard, amazingly enough. My camera really took advantage of the light and the picture is stunning:

I’m very happy with this one

I took that rose picture with my “real” camera but I used my iphone to get this picture of Dash, my cat, looking out the back porch door:

Dash! Isn’t he dashing?!

Harper Lee published the Pulitzer Prize winning To Kill A Mockingbird in 1961. I heard an interview with her not long ago and the interviewer asked her why she didn’t publish anything after Mockingbird. She responded that “when you start at the top, there’s only one direction you can go.” You may or may not agree with that but it’s among the greatest American novels. I took the following picture in my front yard, of this mockingbird in the top of an old dogwood. And Ms. Lee can provide the caption, taken here from the book:

“”Atticus said to Jem one day, “I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. “Your father’s right,” she said. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird ”

“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy.” – Miss Maudie, to Scout, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, 1961

For those who have tired of my fascination with giant locomotives – this time another of the 6,000 HP variety – did you watch the Gangnam Style youtube  video? You shouldn’t miss it; it’s youtube’s “most watched K-pop video” according to wikipedia. First class distraction if you’re over this whole locomotive thing: Gangnam Style

But if you still like big locomotives, here’s yet another GE AC6000:

AC6000

Here’s a bizarre detail – this is a closeup of the horns from that locomotive. See that unusual looking black-garter-like-object wrapped around the back (right-hand side)? Your guess here is as good as mine:

Closeup of locomotive horns. Isn’t that wild? And what in the world is that thing wrapped around the back?

Here’s another cool detail. I should have composed this picture better. But see in the lower right corner, that vacuum-cleaner-nozzle-resembling thing pointing at the front of the wheel? When the wheel is slipping, that sprays sand to give it better grip. I think it’s sort of cool:

Closeup of sand sprayer, to prevent wheels from slipping (lower right hand corner)

Now for true locomotive arcania. The pairs of wheels on trains are called “trucks.” In boxcars and coal cars etc. they only have two axles per truck and the trucks aren’t very long. But on these big engines they’re really long. When they go around curves, they tear up the flanges on the inside of the wheels and the tracks get torn up. To correct this, on big locomotives they have “self-steering” or “radial” trucks that lean and turn a little bit on curves. If you’ve ever wondered about that always-blurry line that separates interest from obsession, it’s right around here somewhere. When first you like looking at trains and gradually you want to know how radial trucks work. Anyway, here’s a picture:

Radial steering or “self-steering” trucks carrying the weight (200+ tons) an AC6000 locomotive.

To snap myself out of my train-obsessed-funk, of course I turn my attention to our beautiful James River. First, the water:

Beautiful James River water

Followed by a rock:

Beautiful James River granite

And in closing, the water, the sky, the rocks, the plants, this is the antidote to train-obsessed-or-any-other-funk:

Where it all comes together

No story today, but hopefully soon. All best,

Jay

Posted in Endurance, Flowers, Fun, Rivers, Trains | 5 Comments

Echolalia

Posted on September 15, 2012 by Jay McLaughlin

15 September, 2012        Echolalia

Not a word you hear every day, at least most people don’t. In my line of work it’s a little more common. My dictionary (American Heritage 5th Edition) defines it thus: echolalia: n. 1. Psychiatry The immediate and involuntary repetition of words or phrases spoken by others, often a symptom of autism […]. This is true, classic autism, not Asperger’s or ADHD. More at the end of this post.

= = = = =
Meanwhile, in the three weeks or so since my last post – which I regret was my only August post – I’ve managed to take a few enjoyable (to me, as usual) pictures. I hope you enjoy them too. I’m usually more chronological with my pictures. But I just took this one just a couple of days ago and I love it.

Stunning late summer scene

On my last post (August 23, Recovery Week! Happy Birthday to me!) I put up a nice picture of a female tiger swallowtail butterfly. You can tell (I learned) the females since they have blue trailing edges on their wings. And they’re larger. I got this picture of a male in late August. If you compare the two pictures, you’ll see how much more graceful the female is. She (the female tiger swallowtail) also chose a nicer background. Graceful and elegant. But here’s the male; he looks nice too:

Very, very handsome

To go to the complete opposite end of the graceful/delicate scale, I present you this rare image (there just weren’t a whole lot of these made) of a GE AC6000CW locomotive. It is rare, I’m not even kidding. CSX only has a little over 100 units. By comparison, CSX has over 600 units of their main coal hauler, the similar but less powerful AC4400CW. They look a lot like an AC4400, only longer. With CSX they’re easy to identify because they all have a 3 digit number that begins with “6”. They’re the only CSX locomotives that have a number beginning with “6”. At 6,250 HP, the AC6000 is among the most powerful locomotives ever manufactured. It’s not likely a more powerful locomotive will ever be built. This is unlikely ever to be mistaken for a butterfly:

GE AC6000CW

I admire a great deal of Eastern religious thought, and the idea of staying in the present. But as soon as I flipped my calendar to September I began thinking about summer going away and became obsessed with flowers. They’ll be gone soon. At least until spring. In Peter Matthiessen’s Snow Leopard (1978) he was returning home after working at being in the moment for his whole trip. He had just spent two months trekking in the Tibetan region of the Himalayas. He wrote “With the wind and the cold, a restlessness has come, and I find myself hoarding my last chocolate for the journey back across the mountains – forever getting-ready-for-life instead of living it each day.” When I start furiously photographing late-season flowers like this I feel like I’m “getting-ready-for-life instead of living it each day.” But I slow down and appreciate the flowers when I see them. This was a beauty I saw at the river a week or so ago:

Beautiful late summer Rose of Sharon. With ants!

Same day:

So much pretty color for September

Of course, not all of the plants there have chlorophyll. I saw this enormous fungus the same day too. Look at the two dog leashes for comparison:

As my Dad is fond of saying, “There’s a fungus amungus!”

I always think of spring as the time for colorful flowers. But I photographed all the flowers in this post in September. Which at this point is still summer by the calendar, but school is back in, and daylight is more than two hours shorter than in mid-June. Wow. It feels distinctly like early autumn. The flowers don’t smell as much, that’s for certain – hyacinths have been gone nearly six months, and honeysuckle is long gone as well – but look at all this color:

As bright as a daffodil, cheerful as a forsythia, glowing like a dandelion

I can’t think of a flower this red at ANY time of year. Not at Pony Pasture, anyway.

In more mundane news, I’m wrapping up the second “recovery week” of my thirteen week “Ironman” training program. That means this is the end of Week 8; race day is five weeks from today, on Saturday, October 20 in Wilmington, NC. For those who have missed it to this point (it seems impossible, but what the heck) here’s a link to the race: PPD Beach2Battleship

Each recovery week (they fall every 4th week of training) calls for 2 brief swims, 2 brief bike rides and 2 brief runs. Today Evelyn and I went out and rode at West Creek; the weather was beyond compare. On the way home we stopped for the first time – I can’t believe I’ve never stopped before – at Jim & Robin’s West End Plants and Produce. 12301 Patterson Ave., just east of West Creek, on the other side of Patterson. We got a dozen brown eggs, a melon, a bunch of other produce, etc. Peaches, apples, jelly, honey, mmm. They have gorgeous pumpkins too. But – best of all – we got a half-gallon of ice cold apple cider. And had a few gulps right there in the parking lot. After that ride it was out of this world.

Here’s a picture through my bike:

Jim & Robin’s West End Plants and Produce
12301 Patterson Ave.

These mums were just wonderful:

Spectacular

I also got this lucky autumn image there:

Boy. I know it’s still summer by the calendar, but this is a pure autumn image.

Here’s a little bit about some of the people I spend time with most days. We all communicate in different ways. These guys are my friends and they always help me communicate more effectively. It’s fun to be out in the community with them too; they help expand everyone’s ability to communicate. We go to the Tuckahoe YMCA, to Martin’s, Starbucks, 5 Guys, 3Sports, 7/11, the Westbury Pharmacy, all over town. It is heartwarming and encouraging to see the way my friends engage and interact with everyone they meet. It’s always refreshing in a world that can be  cynical and jaded.

Have a great day,

Jay

= = = = =
I hear so much echolalia that the first time I heard it doesn’t stick out; it’s been ten or fifteen years. If you spend time with people with autism, what you say will be repeated by them, with an accuracy that sounds like a tape recorder. Not just the words you say – those will be precise – but the pitch, intonation, frequency, everything.

An experience with echolalia that stands out occurred years ago when I was just beginning work with a young man. This was around seven years ago, and I continue with him each week. Some people where he was staying were having a difficult time. Although he can speak, it is difficult for him to come up with his own words to express emotion. But he understands emotions. He was just moving in to a group home when we met. Some nights he spent at the group home and other nights at his family’s house. We were heading out and I said “Are you spending the night at your family’s house or at your house?” His reply: “Your house.” He “echoed” the end of my sentence – classic echolalia.

Once he was frustrated with me because he wanted to go to Lewis Ginter and I wanted to go to Maymont. We hadn’t learned to communicate well at this point; it was early in our friendship. To express his frustration – he could only have heard this from people he lived with – he blurted out “Lord, God, Jesus!!!”

I’ve worked with another guy with autism for more than a decade. Once we were walking in Regency Square on a cold and rainy day before Christmas. The mall was packed and noisy. This fellow hardly talks at all, and when he does it’s nearly unintelligible. So we’re in that crowded and noisy mall, and you know how when you’re in a noisy place, for some reason there’s sometimes  a lull in conversation and everything goes quiet for an instant? That happened at Regency Square that day and he chose that precise moment to stop and intone “SUPPOSITORY” with the volume, clarity and precise diction of James Earl Jones. A memorable moment.

Another time I was at his house with him and he had to use the restroom. He always sat in there with the door open so he could call for help if necessary. He’s 23 now but he was maybe 15 then. After a few moments he loudly proclaimed “I’m finished!” Then he waited a moment or two and, in the soft, gentle voice of his father – who had died about six months earlier – inquired  “Are you sure?”

He’s not a dog-lover. Once we were hiking at Pony Pasture and a well-intentioned woman was walking her small, friendly dog. She brought the dog up to my friend and said “Do you want to pet him?” My friend stood up very straight with his heels pressed tight together and said “IT’S NOT GONNA’ HAPPEN!”

After listening to so much echolalia for so many years, I realized the difference between a comedian who does impressions and a person with echolalia. Gifted impressionists sound just like the person they’re imitating, i.e. George Bush or Bill Clinton. An impressionist highlights the tics in a person’s speech, the oddities that stand out to make it unusual. Think George Bush and mispronounced words or Bill Clinton being lewd. Echolalia is not like that – it’s like a tape recording. If you were facing away from the person, you wouldn’t be able to tell who spoke.

My life is not dull. Or unhappy. At least not at present! 

= = = = =

Posted in Endurance, Flowers, Fun, People, Rivers, Trains | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Recovery Week! Happy Birthday to me!

Posted on August 23, 2012 by Jay McLaughlin

23 August, 2012    Recovery Week! Happy Birthday to me!

My next big race (Beach2Battleship 2012) is nine weeks away – and I’ve finished the first “Recovery Week” in my thirteen week training plan. I began training on Monday, July 23 with a 2 mile swim in the Tuckahoe YMCA pool:

A place I’m visiting regularly!

Since then I’ve swum many, many thousands of meters, and I’ll be back in there tomorrow for another 2.5 miles. And I still have over two full months of training left! I’ve also ridden around 250 miles on my bike since beginning a month ago, and my training mileage will be significantly in excess of 1,000 before I reach the starting line on October 20. As for running, many of you are aware that “running” is a term I use very loosely. I move forward on my own two feet. Lots of walking. For instance – my training program calls for a long “run” every Sunday. Last Sunday I was “running,” which of course was really walking, at West Creek, an office park near here. And since I was moving along at such a leisurely pace – true story here – I looked down at a bush and saw this:

A beautiful Luna moth. They only live for a week!

The benefits of moving slow! I never would have gotten to see that gorgeous creature.

Speaking of moving slow (and nice-looking bugs) I was hiking at the river a week or so ago and saw this lovely female Tiger Swallowtail. If you’re ever looking at one, I learned that you can easily tell the males from the females. The females, like this beauty, have blue trailing edges on their wings. The males have black. Also, the females are much bigger, and so of course are easier to photograph:

A female Tiger Swallowtail – isn’t she lovely?

The river and sky were as beautiful as the butterflies that morning:

Beauty in the river, beauty in the sky, beauty on the flowers – what a morning!

I’d planned a lot of writing for this blog, then began taking too many pictures. I will write more, but unfortunately (for me, at least) not right now. In the meantime, I’ll continue to post some pictures I’ve taken.

I also had several opportunities to see this great looking Redtail Hawk from the parking lot of Starbucks:

The last thing that mice see before mouse heaven.

And another cool turtle at the river:

Handsome box turtle

We were hiking in the rain a week or so ago and a green heron popped up and flew off a few yards. He doesn’t look too happy here:

Does this bird look irritated? Or am I just thinking that I would be irritated if I was out there in the rain?

I see (perhaps you’re aware) lots of turtles and ducks and birds and frogs along with the plants and other animals. I was hiking with a sharp-eyed friend earlier this week and he pointed to this long-nosed gar hunting in the shallows. This fish was around 18” long:

Longnose gar – that’s quite a fish. About 2 seconds later it gobbled up a little sunfish that swam past.

It hasn’t all been plants and animals (of course). I’ve gotten a couple of train pictures I’ve enjoyed (and I hope you will too):

GE C40-9W

This is a C40-8; it’s not a great shot except you can see one guy in each window of the locomotive. You can see a boxcar behind it so that’s a “mixed freight.” In other words, not as heavy as a coal train, which means it needs a less powerful locomotive. These C40-8’s are “only” 4,000 horsepower each instead of the 4,400 HP locomotives typically found on the front of coal trains here in the Piedmont region of Virginia. My friend that I go trainspotting with tells me that one is the engineer and one is the conductor:

GE C40-8

Neat picture here of an ES44AH in front of a CW44AC in front of many thousands of tons of eastbound coal:

GE ES44AH and GE CW44AC

I even got a rare (for me) picture of an Amtrak locomotive not long ago when I dropped a buddy off at the station:

Amtrak getting ready to head north

I also can of course never resist posting a picture of me with my wild pack of dogs. This is one of me plus a couple that belong to a friend:

My dogs plus friends’ dogs plus this beautiful river

And this is one with just my boys taken the morning of my actual birthday!

Early morning birthday hike!

Hope this hasn’t been overwhelming! And I hope your August 23 has been as fantastic as mine! Hope to see you soon,

Love,

Jay and friends

Posted in Dogs, Endurance, Flowers, Fun, People, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), Trains | 7 Comments

Happy Summer!

Posted on July 14, 2012 by Jay McLaughlin

14 July, 2012    Happy Summer!

Only two June posts – isn’t that awful? Of course maybe I’ll only get one for July, who knows, but the month and the summer and the second half of 2012 are off to a grand beginning. I’ve seen neat stuff, especially at Pony Pasture, and gotten some rewarding photographs. In addition to being a happy summer it’s been a very hot summer, at least here in central Virginia. That’s helped me get some better pictures than I normally do because, like me, everything else slows down in the heat.

Evelyn and I went to a movie last week and when we got out of the car there was a little flock of mourning doves sitting in the shade on top of the fence. I had my camera with me and when I zoomed in for a closer look, you could see very clearly all the birds were panting! Who even knew? It’s like the answer to a bad joke – “How hot was it? It was so hot even the mourning doves were panting.” Remarkable:


Everyone who has seen my facebook page (and even a lot of people who have not) already saw the huge buck I photographed at Pony Pasture on July 3. The temperature was in the 90’s that day, and this big guy was out on the trail at 11:30 in the morning, within easy earshot of the parking lot. Incredible:

The biggest deer I’ve ever seen in my life not on a magazine cover. And he was in the City of Richmond!

The same morning I got a nice picture of a killdeer too; I don’t see tons of them at Pony Pasture:

Handsome Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus)

I see (more to the point I hear) why the second part of their binomial (Latin) name is “vociferus” – they are only very rarely silent. They sure are good-looking birds, though.

When it was hot and the birds were slow, I also got a reasonable picture of a Green Heron:

Green heron (Butorides virescens)

Blue herons are quite common down there, but it’s not often I see several together like this. I guess the heat was slowing them down too:

Three Great Blue Herons (Ardea herodias). Maybe that one on the right is a youngster. The coloring is a little different.

For many summers a bulb has grown up in my dog-pummeled backyard but I’ve always run it over with the lawnmower before it’s sprouted. This year I kept mowing around it and look what appeared!:

Gladiola. That’s a pretty picture isn’t it?

When the weather cools off in October I like to have a big pile of firewood ready. My friend Tim (what would I do without him!) has been helping me build up my pile as the summer’s gone on. This is what it looks like behind my garage right now. I’ll cover it up next month and let it dry out; it will be perfect when it’s time to have fires:

I wish we’d get a cold snap! Not likely, I’m afraid.

I’ve been friends with a guy named Skye for almost eighteen years (!) now; some of you know him. Unfortunately for me he moved to Charlotte, NC three years ago, but we stay in touch. His grandmother has a nice house at VA Beach. Skye was coming up to visit her so she invited Evie and me to come down and spend some time with them. Evelyn had never met either of them, and they’re like part of my family! We went down in late June and stayed for the day; it was beautiful. It was Betsy, Skye, Evelyn, Skye’s friend Clay, me, and Betsy’s two beautiful dogs Misha and Taffy. The seven of us spent a lot of time lounging out back and enjoying the view:

The hospitality could not be beat!

We saw several birds. First, this purple martin:

Purple Martin (Progne subis)

Followed quickly by this Fighting Falcon:

Fighting Falcon (F-16)

And this… bird…

Has yet to be identified. The eyes are its most unique feature.

July began with Alex and Roux joining Mackey and Turner and me for a quick jaunt to Pony Pasture. I convinced Alex to take our picture. She was more cooperative than the dogs were, but this was at the beginning of the hike and they didn’t want to stop:

I’m happy – the dogs will be much happier once they’re off and running! And swimming!

The next day (Monday) a buddy and I hiked at Huguenot Flatwater. We wanted to go get a last look at the “old” Huguenot Bridge from below; they’re going to begin tearing it down this month. There are some little canals near the river bank and we saw a hen and drake mallard playing in the mud. I say “playing”; I presume this had some purpose:

Muddy mallards

A moment later the male turned directly toward me. I’m certain this is what in the duck world passes for a disapproving glare, but I had a difficult time taking him seriously. I hope he didn’t find my attitude callous, although I may have felt that way if our positions were reversed:

Stared down by a male mallard (Anas platyrhynchos)

Earlier this week I was at the Starbucks near the VA Eye Institute (what a surprise!) and mockingbirds were making a huge racket near the dumpster. I looked up and saw them harassing this magnificent red-tail. I’m sure he (I’m relatively certain it’s a male) was doing just as much harassing; there was probably a nearby mockingbird nest. My friend Meryl works there and she was just arriving for work. She has a special fondness for red-tails and showed me a spot where I could take a better picture. This one turned out relatively well:

Handsome young red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)

My friend Kim later informed me it’s a juvenile red-tail, and she knows from raptors.

I know some viewers of this blog are especially fond of train pictures, and there’s not a single one on this post! Unfortunately the ones I do post are primarily CSX locomotives on the front of coal trains and maybe some people get tired of those. I don’t (obviously) and I’ve gotten a few new ones since my last post. I’ll close with a train picture so all the train lovers have something too. In this picture (it’s sub-par) the front locomotive (872) is an ES44 and #280 is an AC44. If you want to be a goofy train-nerd like me, you can tell them apart by that little extra vent at the rear on #872. But also the train numbers are in different places:

ES44AC (#872) followed by an AC44CW (#280)

Enjoy your summer! I’ll get another post up soon! Have fun,

Jay

PS My Ironman this year will be in Wilmington, NC again, and this year it is on October 20. So “official” training (for me) commences on July 23, thirteen weeks before race date. So I’ll be getting busy with that. But I’ll get some more posts up. For those of you unfamiliar with my annual autumn obsession, you can see more about this race at the Beach2Battleship website.

Posted in Dogs, Endurance, Flowers, Fun, People, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), Trains | 11 Comments

Chop wood, carry water

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Jay McLaughlin

21 June, 2012    Chop wood, carry water

I am not Buddhist. Despite an earlier blog post “Namaste” and this one, “Chop wood, carry water.” But there is a Zen expression that says “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” More on that at the end of this post. Meanwhile, the usual river and dogs and trains and so forth.

If you’ve only recently joined this blog – or if you haven’t looked back in a long time – it’s worth a look back. At some of the old posts. Just click on a link on the side under “Archives” and look at this month a year ago. Or at your birthday month or at some month that looks interesting. A season you enjoy. And click on a link inside that month and see what was going on. What’s changed. Look at some pictures from a year ago or whenever. The diesel locomotives look generally the same. But the river always changes, the dogs come and go, the plants are different, it’s fun to take a look back if you have a moment.

I see my last blog post was way back on June 2 – that was a Saturday. Of course Evelyn and the dogs and I were down at the river the next morning; it’s still bright and Springy-looking. Spring presents itself non-stop in a million ways. One is baby anything, and it’s hard to go wrong with baby mallards. I saw a nice looking family of ten swimming around with a female who I presume was their mother. Here’s  one watching the river go by while his brother (or sister) snoozes behind him. I think male and female babies maybe indistinguishable. Maybe the males don’t get their distinctive green heads for a while:

A couple of baby mallard heads

It was a pleasant day but later they climbed up on a warm rock. A nice day to take a break and get a little sun:


Some took the opportunity to do some grooming and scratch the occasional itch:

Scratching an itch.
Alternate title: “You’ll have to speak up a little!”

If you’re not a train person you’ve probably long ago abandoned this blog. A coal train was down there waiting when we visited last week; this engineer had his arms hanging out of the cab of the locomotive. Locomotive #519 and the one behind it, #212, are both GE AC44CW locomotives. Although it is clearly written  “CW44AC” on the side. Hmm. The “AC” means “Alternating Current” power. “44” means 4,400 HP. I am uncertain what “CW” means. If you know, please enlighten me.

If you zoom in you can see the watch on the engineer’s left wrist and the cigarette held between his right index finger and middle finger. If you’re into that level of detail. :

Workin’ on the railroad. All the livelong day.

Here’s the “headlight” from the “hood” end (really the back) of locomotive #466, another AC44CW we saw another week:

AC44CW from the “hood” end

I see neat looking bugs at the river. They look a lot better when I’m there; I’m often frustrated with the way my pictures turn out. But they’re adequate. Here’s a moth:

Nice looking moth

This dragonfly was quite far away – as you can see – but it’s a neat picture:

Dragonfly on a wire

Sunday the 17th was another nice morning at the river. I was goofing around a little and here are a few snips of larger pictures. One of clouds reflecting off the water:

Clouds reflecting off the river

One of another obliging spiderweb:

Nice symmetry

And another – did I ever mention I have dogs? – of Mackey’s fur:

Mackey’s sleek fur

Speaking of spiderwebs, look at these, draped across yet-to-ripen blackberries:

Beautiful berries

I never like finishing posts – I just want to keep playing with pictures and writing. But there will be more posts. Since I put a picture of Mackey’s handsome fur, I’ll add one of his smiling face:

Mackey’s smiling face. And kind eyes. I described him to a friend as “not impulsive”; he’s certainly not. Always thinks before he acts. I should take a lesson from him.

And I can’t leave Turner out:

No “off switch”

The pictures of Mackey and Turner were taken in my yard; I still have some tough and thorny but beautiful roses blooming alongside my driveway:

Thorny but beautiful roses

Have a great day,

Jay

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
So, “chop wood, carry water.” More to the point, before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water. In other words – this is, of course, just my interpretation – day-to-day life doesn’t change when we become enlightened. Not a lot of us chop wood these days – although thank goodness my friend Tim still does! – and our water comes from the sink. But we need to keep doing the 21st century equivalent of chopping wood and carrying water, i.e. providing for ourselves and our families.

And at least in my own case, enlightenment itself changes after we become enlightened. I thought that enlightenment was something that, once attained, was here to stay. Because I have moments of what I’m certain are enlightenment, when I’m my best self, when I’m considerate and thoughtful and helpful. Then – whoosh – they vanish. Back to being unenlightened, inconsiderate, thoughtless, unhelpful. That’s why they call it “practice.” Because you have to keep getting back to it.

So – this is so not-black-and-white – enlightenment becomes something we have to keep getting back to all the time. And we have to forgive ourselves – and others – when we’re unenlightened, when they’re inconsiderate, when we’re thoughtless, when they’re unhelpful. And of course it’s practice, practice, practice. And regarding that forgiveness is a quote I may have included in previous posts, from the late Henri Nouwen, a man described in wikipedia as “a Dutch-born Catholic priest and writer who authored 40 books about spirituality.” What Mr. Nouwen said: “Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly.  The hard truth is that all of us love poorly.  We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour – unceasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.” See? We need to forgive and be forgiven. By ourselves as much as by anyone else.

Anyway, pontificating again, I should show more self-discipline. I hope to do another vignette about one of my old pals soon.

Until then, enjoy this first week of summer.

All best,

Jay

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Posted in Dogs, Flowers, Fun, Rivers, Smiles (including "dog smiles"!), Trains | 5 Comments

I blinked!

Posted on June 2, 2012 by Jay McLaughlin

2 June, 2012    I blinked!

And May was gone! And I only did two blog posts! They were both decent posts, though. I see I only did five last May, and six last June. I have a few nice pictures left over from late May of this year, and a couple from the beginning of this month, so I’ll start the month off with a blog post. And hopefully get a couple more out this month. It’s been a pleasant, pleasant spring. I got out and rode my bike for a couple of hours and when I finished at 2:00 PM it was only 72º! Very, very temperate for June. I’m looking at a normally reliable weather site now (www.wunderground.com) that’s predicting of low of 48º for Wednesday night! I’ll believe that when I see it, but still. Pretty chilly for the first week of June.

My last blog post was May 21. I’ve had a few nice visits to the river since then; everything’s still fresh and springy looking. The river’s come up a time or two and I’ve gotten a couple of fun new pictures. I posted a couple on facebook but not everyone who sees my blog sees facebook. Plus the photo quality isn’t as good on facebook. I liked this turtle relaxing in the sun on a log in a little canal at Pony Pasture:

This is what an unworried turtle looks like. I would imagine.

A few minutes later she stuck her head out and looked around; I zoomed in and got this:

The eye, as Kim says, is “highlighter” colored. Precisely. Cool looking pupil too, isn’t it? Click on this picture to enlarge it; it’s really neat.

My friend Kim said the eye is “highlighter” colored; perfect.

I only walked downstream a couple more minutes when I saw this crowd also soaking up the sun. That mother mallard only has two babies left. I don’t know if big fish or snapping turtles or maybe raccoons or – I certainly hope not – dogs – are getting the babies, but something is. Foxes, perhaps. Nature is, as Lord Tennyson said in 1849 “red in tooth and claw.” Kind of sad when you take it from the perspective of the ducks. If you take it from the perspective of hungry baby foxes, perhaps not quite so sad. The turtles look so ancient. Or timeless:

Two turtles, three ducks, one river, and a branch.

Predictably, a couple of trains from last week or the week before. The train on the left was parked (you can tell because the headlights are off) and it was idling when my buddy and I got down there. That’s #4739, an SD70MAC. You can’t see it in this picture, but locomotive #99 was behind it, an AC44CW. Followed by a loaded coal train. My buddy and I were just getting ready to walk back to the car when the train on the right appeared. That’s a little bit of a downhill right there on the train tracks and the trains hardly make any noise. I think the bulk of the coal train soaks up a lot of the vibration too. Because one minute there was only one train and suddenly there were two. It’s more than a little bit unnerving. The right hand train in this picture, the moving train, the one with its headlights on, #7773 is a C40-8W. Behind that locomotive (another one you can’t see) is locomotive #8520, an SD50-2. That pair on the right hand train (#7773 and #8520) “only” have 4,000 HP and 3,500 HP respectively, not enough to handle a loaded coal train. That entire right hand train was covered hoppers, which usually means some type of grain, which isn’t heavy. Lots of them are owned by Archer Daniels Midland. Coal is always carried in uncovered hoppers because it doesn’t matter if coal gets wet. Grain has to be protected from the elements.

One SD70MAC parked (headlights off), one C408W rolling (headlights on).

Another buddy of mine and I have followed the construction of the new Huguenot Bridge since the beginning. The “new” bridge is nearly complete, or at least the piece they refer to as “Phase 1”, which is west of (upstream of) the original bridge. I get occasional bridge construction update emails from the VDOT. The latest update says that next month (July) they’re going to shift traffic to the new portion of the bridge and close the old side. Then they’re going to tear down the old bridge; perhaps that is what they’ll call “Phase 2.” Because once that’s completely torn down, they’ll widen the new bridge to its full width.

The trail from Huguenot Flatwater that goes under the bridges is still open to pedestrians. They’ll close it soon when they start tearing the old bridge down. My buddy and I walked down there to have a look last week. We got this picture, looking up, and south, from underneath the bridge, on the south bank of the river.

In this picture, the new bridge is on the right and the old is on the left. See how massive the piers are for the new bridge? Also, if you look up on the right side you’ll see it’s currently three girders wide. After they tear down the old bridge, they’ll put two more rows of girders up there. Get a good look, because a couple of months from now – maybe even by the time school starts in the fall – there won’t be any more “old” Huguenot Bridge! Wow. The river will be unconcerned:

Out with the old (left) in with the new (right).

Speaking of the river – did I speak of the river? – Alex and Roux and Lee and Lucy joined Mackey and Turner and me at Pony Pasture last Sunday. Lee was kind enough to take our picture – thanks Lee!:

Alex (left), then Roux, Turner, me, Mackey, Lucy. Thanks for the picture Lee!

We’re still getting plenty of rain and the heat has not yet become particularly withering. I was at the river Tuesday morning and took this picture of a lily. With plenty of bugs pollinating it:

Beautiful lily at Pony Pasture

The same morning I took a picture of this tiny flower; it was very petite. I am uncertain what it is, perhaps a wild pea:

A cute flower from the river – but I’m not certain what it is. Anyone?

And I know I’ve already put magnolias up. But they’re practically hanging on my car door when I get in and they smell so rich and I enjoy them whenever I pull in my driveway. Thanks Bob and Barbara and Brianna and BJ!:

Magnificent magnolia

Nearly all of the train pictures I post are of trains stopped before heading out on the viaduct. Here’s one that’s moving. Locomotive #415 is in the front followed by #35; it’s a pair of AC44CW’s followed by all coal. By far the most common train we see there:

A pair of AC44CW’s on the viaduct

I don’t obsess on blinking too much; there’s always something beautiful to see. But the flowers are so lovely. Forgive me if I’ve mentioned my hydrangeas in an earlier post. They’re on the north side of my house and almost the only time I’m there is when I cut the grass. I can look out my bedroom window in the morning and see them but then my day begins and I get caught up and I’m gone again. I got a picture or two earlier this week. They stretch across the whole north wall of my house. I don’t know as much about hydrangeas as I should. I do know that, like litmus paper, they change color as the acidity of the soil changes. I have lots of big old pine trees in my yard; they do something to the acidity of the soil, but I’m not sure what. When I first moved here the hydrangeas were all blue. I left the hydrangeas toward the back (west) side of my house alone. They stayed mainly blue:

A few years ago I began dumping ashes from my woodstove onto the front (east) hydrangeas but not to the others. They turned pink. Kind of neat:
Yikes! I’ve overfilled a post with pictures yet again! And haven’t written enough! I get good feedback about my “addendums” – thank you all for the support. I love to write them but sometimes – too often – lack discipline. I’ll write one soon, but not today. If my cat could talk (see Della and the Dealer, Hoyt Axton, 1979) he would tell me I put way too many dog pictures in here. Honestly he probably wouldn’t; he is entirely unconcerned with the dogs. If they’re between him and where he’s going, he doesn’t even waste the energy to walk around them – he just walks right under. He’s been around longer than Mackey and way longer than Turner. His name is Dash and he matches my wood floors very well:

Dash – a handsome little boy

Have a great day,

Jay, Dash, Mackey and Turner

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

Namaste

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Jay McLaughlin

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 Jay McLaughlin

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 | 6 Comments

Element of blank

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Jay McLaughlin

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 | 4 Comments

The cruellest month? Seriously?

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Jay McLaughlin

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 | 11 Comments