• Miscellany

    Blog business

    I wanted to touch base about a change you may have noticed if you’ve subscribed to this blog. Sometime in August, Feedburner, the service that has handled my email subscriptions, ended. I’ve been trying a new service, but I didn’t realize it included ads in the emails. I don’t care for this and plan to switch to a different plugin in the next week or so. The only catch is that I won’t be able to transfer the list of subscribers this time.

    If you are an email subscriber and would like to continue, please feel free to re-subscribe! But whether you do or not, I wanted to express how much I’ve appreciated your interest and support. It has meant a lot to me that there are kindred spirits out there interested in what we see around us when we take the time to look. Thanks for reading!

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  • Walks,  Woods

    Memory Lane

    I have several preserves that I visit again and again. Sometimes, I wish I could explore new trails more often than I do. But this morning as I walked this familiar path, I was reminded that I have the companionship of memory — of the many times I’ve been here, and with whom. One of my favorite Wendell Berry stories is the bittersweet “The Boundary,” in which Mat Feltner goes out to repair a fence. He is old, too old for such a foray, and it seems every bend along the familiar creek is populated by others he’s known in the long years he’s lived there, re-enacting the episodes he remembers. He begins to have serious trouble distinguishing present from past, though many of the people he remembers have died.

    It was on this trail 10 years ago that I came upon this fawn lying in the grass. When my parents visited for supper later, my father was concerned and wanted to go back and see if the fawn was still there. So we set out on a drizzly evening. My father tucked my mother’s hand under one arm and carried an umbrella in the other, and we trooped off through the woods to make sure all was well. (It was.) Ten years later, my dad is 85; my mom died in May. Being in that place brought them back to me, two pieces of a whole, in a way I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

    There were other memories, too:

    • The trees where we first saw black and white warblers on Mother’s Day
    • The bench where my husband and I sat eating ice cream one evening while a caretaker on a lawnmower drove loudly past, looking straight ahead as he blew grass all over us
    • The spot by the creek where my daughters and I always lingered, looking at frogs and tracks in the mud, and feeling peace

    There’s much to be said for new adventures! But it’s also good to experience the richness of a familiar place, and its power to restore and affirm who we are.

  • Back Yard,  Butterflies & Moths

    Giant Swallowtail

    These are, I’ve read, the largest butterflies in North America. It takes around 7 weeks to move through egg, caterpillar, and chrysalis stages. The culminating masterpiece, a gorgeous adult butterfly, only lives 6-14 days.

    Looking at the torn wings of this one feeding in my zinnias, I sure wish they could regenerate and last longer.

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  • Birds,  Butterflies & Moths,  Landscapes,  Plants

    Outer Banks in June

    I thought I’d posted these earlier in the summer. Better late than never! These are a few select pictures of a great experience at the beach.

    To scroll through the photos manually, click on a photo and move forward or back in the sequence using the arrows.

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  • Back Yard

    Summer Visitors

    We have various non-human residents who pass through our yard in the summer. Other people may lead more exotic and busy lives, but one of our joys around here is simply watching what unfolds in the back yard. Some visitors are more welcome than others, but they all bring interest and variety and encourage us to pay attention. You never know what you might see when you look out the window…

    This overgrown lilac just over the stone wall in our neighbor’s yard, for example, is a favorite roost for the female ruby-throated hummingbird.

    She even takes a drink now and then — at least, I think that’s what she’s doing here:

    We have mixed feelings about the rabbits, who ate enough of my flowers that I put up an ugly fence for awhile… but they clearly feel quite comfortable.

    Chipmunks aren’t as welcome as they used to be either, since they sabotaged my sunflowers twice this spring.

    The fence wasn’t pretty, but it seemed a welcome addition to birds who liked to perch on the wire. When I took it down this week, they were briefly flummoxed by the disappearance of their favorite landing place.

    This warbler — I think it’s a Nashville warbler — didn’t appear till after the fence went up.

    A giant swallowtail visited as well. They’re not really common around here, but we’ve seen one twice this summer.

    Last but not least, we have a whitetail deer with two fawns.

    It’s hard not to see them as pests who carry lyme disease and eat garden plants. But they don’t come to our yard much, and when they do they mostly eat the brushy stuff along the edge of the yard. No nibbling in forbidden areas so far.

    On the whole it’s a pleasant set of visitors. I notice, looking at these pics, that most of them weren’t taken in bright, sunny conditions. The light could be better. But it’s been so hot that clouds are actually a relief when they come. I suspect the animals feel the same.

    Still, it’s been mostly sunny, and I can’t complain about a sunny summer — not in one of the most overcast regions in the country!

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