A Walker in Galoshes

A Walker in Galoshes

Comments 1 comment

The rain gauge says we received more than two inches last night. And it’s still raining. There are more flash flood warnings, which we take seriously around here, honeycombed as we are with the rivulets and tributaries of Little Difficult Run.

I read today that unlike hurricanes and tornadoes, flash floods are as deadly now as they were years ago. The main reason: People drive into deep water.

What about walking into deep water? Less of a problem, obviously, since most of us aren’t strolling through a thunderstorm. But still, it’s time for caution. For changing the route. For umbrellas and ponchos and galoshes.

One of these days we’ll have summer. Until then, I’ll keep checking the rain gauge.

(Speaking of rain gauges, the bamboo makes a pretty good one.)

Small Favors

Small Favors

Comments 1 comment

I read in today’s Writer’s Almanac that July 11 is the birthday of E. B. White, essayist, journalist and the author of the beloved children’s books Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web. Here’s what White said about the genesis of Stuart Little:

“I took a train to Virginia, got out, walked up and down in the
Shenandoah Valley in the beautiful springtime, then returned to New York
by rail. While asleep in an upper berth, I dreamed of a small character
who had
the features of a mouse, was nicely dressed, courageous, and questing.
When I woke up, being a journalist and thankful for small favors, I made
a few notes about this mouse-child — the only fictional figure ever to
have honored and disturbed my sleep.”

 What caught my eye is the phrase “being a journalist and thankful for small favors.” As usual, White  nails it in a few words. When one makes a living asking other people questions, one is grateful for information. And inspiration.

It took 15 years after the mouse-child appeared in his dream for White to complete the manuscript for Stuart Little. Talk about inspiration. I’m grateful for small favors.


First Edition Cover from Wikipedia

Tunnel of Trees

Tunnel of Trees

Comments 0 Comment

In the great cycle of seasons, topics announce themselves with some regularity. Every year at this time (if not earlier), I notice the steady progression of leaf and bough, how the trees on one side of the road lean in, reach over and touch the trees on the other side.

The result of this mutual growth and attraction is a tunnel of trees, surely one of nature’s most subtly beautiful offerings.

Why is it so magical? I think about this when I’m driving down Fox Mill or Vale or (when in Kentucky) Pisgah Pike outside Lexington.

Do the lofty boughs remind me of a cathedral? Or is the appeal from the coziness, the impenetrability, of a cavern built of leaf and shade?

There’s no explanation, of course. It’s beauty plain and simple.
 

Photo: ©

All Rights Reserved

by tom8yours

Door, Wall and Flower

Door, Wall and Flower

Comments 0 Comment

Art imitates life imitates art. The door bedecked with flowers, a variety of hydrangea, I think, larger and more open-petaled than the usual. The wall decorated with wisteria — and a bicycle, in case you get tired of walking.

To walk in an old city is to stop often to photograph buildings. It makes for a halting step but a full camera (phone?) upon return.

It’s more than worth the trip.

Perspective

Perspective

Comments 0 Comment

A view from on high. It’s what we get from airplanes, towers, mountaintops, rooftops and other lofty places. It’s perspective. Our world grows smaller when measured against the immensity.

It’s a necessary corrective, an antidote to most craziness. It can also be lots of fun.

Today the indoor parakeets are spending some time outside with me as I work. To say they are excited is putting it mildly. They haven’t shut up since I brought them out here. A moment ago a baby bird landed on the table beside me, attracted by the exotic chirps of these unfamiliar creatures.  A change of scenery for them, too, that of the wild beside the tame.

What has the birds so excited? The same thing I’ve been treasuring recently — perspective.

Flowery Bower

Flowery Bower

Comments 0 Comment

So far so good in this hard-fought battle between deer and day lily. A battle in which the day lily does nothing except bloom and be beautiful. A battle waged by the human on the day lily’s behalf. A human with a spray can of Invisible Fence.

Let us now praise the human and the spray can. Let us now praise the beauty that is the result.

It’s midsummer. The rain has stopped. The lilles are blooming. It’s a flowery bower.

In Miniature

In Miniature

Comments 0 Comment

A view of the Capitol Fireworks I’d never seen before, from across the Potomac and down a few miles. The fireworks in miniature but just as splendid.

The spectators were a mini United Nations; they spoke Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Tagalog (maybe). Babies toddled, parents chased, teenagers stared not at the sky but at their phones. Some people sat on blankets, others on the grass. Some had packed elaborate spreads, but more had simply wandered over with a snack and a soda.

Like the fireworks, the venue was a miniature, a snapshot of our country now.

The Fourth in History

The Fourth in History

Comments 1 comment

I know at least two re-enactors at Gettysburg this week, one fighting for the North and one for the South. And I remember the school trips each of the girls took to the battlefield in sixth grade, playing out roles in their own Picketts’ Charge.

There’s a battlefield site minutes from here where another battle was fought, the Battle of Ox Hill (or the Union name, the Battle of Chantilly) and I think I’ll go there today. It’s a place I’ve passed several hundred times and always meant to see. It’s tucked between malls, hidden in plain sight, a bit of history almost buried by modern life.

But it’s still there, not quite five acres. And visiting it seems like a good way to celebrate the day, here in the Old Dominion.

What To Do When It Rains

What To Do When It Rains

Comments 0 Comment

Conked out to rain, woke up to rain. Rain on the weekend, on Monday, Tuesday, now Wednesday. Dodging the drops to take a walk. Today if there’s a break I’ll be outside again.

Meanwhile, morning arrives gray and soggy. It’s a good day to clean the basement, sort through old files. Only that’s not what I want to be doing on July 3!

Tomorrow will be better, they say. Until then, I pile the books beside me. Four from the library yesterday and another, electronic one I couldn’t find in hard copy. That’s the one I’m reading now.

I’m in war-worn Berlin, riding the U-bahn, hungry, cold and afraid. Is it raining? Is it dry? Who cares?

Bird Land

Bird Land

Comments 0 Comment

New bird feeders have turned our back yard into an avian paradise. Goldfinches flit from branch to seeds, sometimes posing on top of the tomato cage, a perfect perch.

This morning I watched a female hummingbird for what seemed like hours but was only minutes, long enough for her to dart in and out, sipping nectar with each rush to the feeder.

And as I write these words a pileated woodpecker nibbles at a peanut butter block.

Birds catch on quickly. They have passed on word about the chow here. It’s good, you ought to try it. And with the living room couch still turned south I have a, well, bird’s eye view of all the goings on.

Parakeets in the house, and sparrows, robins, cardinals, jays, finches, woodpeckers, chickadees and hummingbirds outside.

It’s Bird Land, for sure.