Heron Alert! Drug F

   Hooray! Four herons the day before May! In flight, 6:30 a.m. a big meaty looking heron at low altitude, motoring across the cloudy morning sky from the east. On a mission.

   Hit the trail: Two herons near the picnic bend and one all the way up at the metal bridge. Stalking, turning and flying. Fuzzy pictures, though. Insuffucient light, too much distance. The lack of sun was good for other subjects and the profusion of wildflowers is exhiliarating if you like that kind of thing. Violets and dandelions, charming combination, both wild, one a flower, the other a weed. The Garlic Ginger with its erect stems and toothed leaves and tiny white crowns, and now the wild ginger with its rounded almost heart-shaped green leaves.

   Twigs and bits. Twigs and bits.

   Nearly called for help as was being held captive by  pathlings. Found 71¢ under the red covered bridge. Boy oh boy. Catbirds do not care to have their pictures taken. Ruth, who paints, says when in doubt, use violet. When she finished her run, we walked together the last half mile.

Box Top

  

Paleton

 

   How would you like a nice upside-down box top? Singles to go! Lemon Berry Squeeze. Sugar Free.  Teeny-tiny baby oak leaves have fallen in a couple of clumps, like a couple of curls at the hair salon. 

   A kingfisher at 7:26, natty bird, zips over the water – what a racket!

    New jogger, nicely turned out: hair brushed and pulled back, simple top, cropped exercise pants, made the effort.

   Eight marker: Gummy candy on paved part of path.  Monday it was shaped like a life saver; now is a molten muticolored tri-colored shape of red, orange and yellow. The donut hole is gone, if that can happen. Filled in.

A Paletón semicircle.

   The herons have sent no delegates this morning.  Miss the representation. Above the pipeline crossing, one pair of Canada geese chats back and forth with another pair across the creek. Trading information. On my return, they are still chattering away from a closer distance in the creek. How we trade information within the species, from group to group. Like neighbors across a fence, then sharing a swimming pool. Trade punches, tips, pointers. Share a drink. Have a drink. It’s on my tab. Free. Go Hawaiian!

box top

Seeing Stars

Monday: Red bandana on the iron bridge railing about where man stood yesterday. NO HERONS AGAIN. What’s up with that? Sine curves from snake across path: grass to grass. Some jaggery curves and markings drawn by man or child, along the path. Snake in the path.

Tuesday. Having employed red bandana copy in sudoku rebus Monday and star shapes, Tuesday while (Ifeelunusual:whilst) driving and going places, saw lots of five-pointed stars. Carryover. Heron tally none.

Risk of Fire

 

Risk of Fire

 

 List of Ingredients:

  Tiny piece of tagging; Risk of Fire Assemble a.

   One sticker with an R with arrows.

  One model horses’s foot, snapped off above the ankle. It isn’t every day one finds a white fetlock in the parking lot.  

Yellow balloon #1 at 50% capacity, floating in the creek and stuck along shore. A mink darted into the water.

Fishermen. One was unhooking fresh catch and he pulled two up from his line in the water. Three nice ones.

Shadows, crisscross of lines and pathlings. Pathlings: What I have decided to call the divination items in the path.

Lots of red accents. 

“Your black and white needs a little bit of red.”

Your black and white bleeds a little bit of red.

or as the Google search line reads, “your black and white needs lyrics.”

All or nothing.

Yellow balloon #2. Herons no no no. Shy bird, displaced by or scared off by the many fishermen.  One smokes. One’s in midstream, cell phone to ear and paying nearly no attention to his fly-fishing line, which is not in perfect river runs through it form.  Eight men are assembled near the metal bridge, as if posed for a movie set, seven in the water, on on the bridge. It is an eight day after all, as well as being the 26th.

Muse Planet Arbor

   Without the um, arium and etum;  visited the grounds of  the Reading Public Museum Saturday .

Wish

I wish it were last Saturday all over again.

Lightning in a Bottle

   Again no herons on an abbreviated walk. WTF. Let’s hit! Found: a big Gatorade bottle (the other day) and stashed it, swiped the label and placed the bottle in the recycling. Rehydrate, Replenish, Refuel. Replete. Rather. Rinse. Repeat.

Lightning in a Bottle

Trout Magnet

   Babe magnet, trout magnet. Animal magnetism. Today is for helpful people and travel, and begins beautifully. Clear and sunshiny. This bonus: sighting of a heron in pennant pose in the water behind a string of rocks. It peers, peeks and poses,  then strides out into the creek in almost human fashion. Big big bird it is.

   Bounty of photos await gallery installation and comment. Subject: squirrels and shadows.

   Answer to your question: two Metropolitan Homes and four Architectural Digests. Helpful people and travel day. For more information about the number 24: go to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_(number)

The Heron Report

   Heron. Zero#.

Gravity Fingers

    Please come. Get into the self-driving machine.  Let me clear the glass of moisture.  Gravity fingers streak the hatchback window, vertical path of water’s descent.  Figures. What comes down must show up.

   Pit stop: An irregular customer has spilled coffee amid the thermoses at the bakery. When I reach for a cup from the upside-down stack, she says Be Careful. I haven’t even noticed the mess, she’s interrupting my focus. Meg and Carryl come with white towels and we mop it up. Good as new. Not the first time, won’t be the last, Meg says to the apologetic customer, a spectator lost in translation.

    Gofer walk:  Do I see an empty M&M peanut package? Yes, it is on the ground near the balance beam parcours station. Could be useful. 

  Rain overnight, damp earth, sun beginning to towel off world. Cobwebs stick out now, funny how a cobweb is so unorganized compared to a spiderweb. Cobwebs are a mishmash of crisscrossed lines. Clusters and clumps. Scrutinize and jam your brain. Spiderwebs are so neat and open and plain to see.

   My walk is nothing, my path is everyday, ordinary. Nothing special.  What is unusual, what sticks out or is everyday the same? What changes, what blends in? Daily practice in the watershed.

   A mallard duck presents himself in the shallow rapids. Seems not to be standing, or sitting, he looks like a boat run aground, enjoying the flow of water around him without having to paddle his legs.

   How can there be no herons?

   There are four blotches on the asphalt near the Heritage Center so I write them down. It is a four day. Marvelling at the Virginia Bluebells, wildflower of the moment. Initially the buds look tight and  crimped. They are at once mauve, lavender, pink and purple. Behold the beauty when it blooms full cry:  the crimps come out and the bell flower is pure light powder blue. Little trumpets, little trumpets, echo of the woods.

   One plucked unopened red tulip is on the path above the ten marker. Dottie is the first walker I meet today. We bemoan the poor pickature of innocent petals by those who should know better. She, who has come from the opposite direction, warns me: the goose is standing guard. By the time I reach the locks, he is swimming in the murky water below his mate, who’s cleaning her muddy self on what looks like an eggless nest. Sad.

   A pair of mallards busy themselves feeding on the nutrient rich plants in the locks, heads down, bills in the pool. When  I return , they are fast asleep on a branch in the water, parallel to each other, heads tucked in facing each other, kind of sweet, if I may impose my own view.

   Camera ready. Regular batteries, big difference. Lithium last longer. Insistant BATTERY EXHAUSTED message. Turn off. Wait and see. There’s some juice left in the photographic silo.

   Ah! a deer. Almost missed it. Oh! another one. Camouflage. Another and another. It is so close to where I saw the deer in the grass in the fall. Could one of these be that one, grown more? Could be. Could be.

   Less sun by the time walk is done. Many squirrels out today. Was unable to take picture of tree top with four squirrels nibbling the fresh leaf buds, the tiny tender green sprouts of spring. Their furry squirrel forms along the limbs, some out to precarious places in search of the new nourishment and delights of the season. Sometimes it’s amazing now they stay up.