Stunning Nuts

   Today is national bittersweet chocolate with almonds day and that sounds good if you like that sort of thing. There is not a heron to be seen this morning and when George and I meet, we talk cameras and picture taking. He says that a couple of days ago, he went home to fetch his Canon and came back by bicycle just to capture a digital image of a tree he saw growing out of  a rock.

   “Do you have your camera with you?” he asks.

  ”No, I’m sorry to report the lens on my Nikon is dissheveled and a lens error message keeps coming up. George suggests I change the memory card. Taking it to the shop will cost an arm and a leg.

   This morning am well served at the grocery store. I drop the kitties’ water bowl which brings an end to an era. It was one of those glass vintage potato chip bowls with colored twine or string around it. Alas. On to the next thing.

Faded Cloth

 

Faded Cloth by Allison Huyett

  Overcast day. What shall we have? Tall coffee and a smile. Pick of the litter: packet of on-the-go clean up cloth and a bit of bark in great shape. It’s October! Squirrel in the knot of tree nibbles on nut. Leaves a plenty. Heron roars like lion on Tully turn and swoops over the creek like stealth plane. Helicopters in air last night and now. What’s up? Overcast and castaway. Castaway all cares. Care for. Far and away the best.

Notorius Super Big Bol, Wrapper

  We are nothing if not our associations. Constructs and connections, web of thoughts. A prime heron establishes itself on a prominent rock upstream of the overpass. Commanding attention, commanding a view. The rock upon which it stands is split-level and big enough to be a small island. Someone has left behind a candy wrapper, to sustain my existence. It is a BIG BOL wrapper, something you don’t see every day. SUPER is encircled or surrounded by an oval line. Combines with a crushed hickory hull – six pieces – that has a football shape. BIG BOL, super bowl, Notorius B.I.G., the rapper, BIG GLO, BIG BLO, BIG BLOW, fellatio or a crush. Crush proof box, New! BIG OIL, big oil producers. Big lob or a big glob. Bigeloil and Bigelow and a great big globe. Super. Super. Very BIG. GO. Pass go, collect 200 dollars and go outside and play.

Grid Happy

   Working on design for the Girard avenue subway station in Philadelphia. Need:  foil, to make actual size panels and imagination.

   Departure from usual routine: walking at Blue Marsh, and largely along the trails made from rural roads through a process of maintenance atrophy. On one slope, the erosion of blacktop exposes slate layers.

   Deprived of herons. In stead: a wet, unleashed happy yellow lab whose name might be Biscuit if that is what the owner called out. A prime Queen Anne’s Lace flower the size of a dinner plate. Row of rolled straw bales in the morning sun the shadows making a kind of archway pattern. The hickory nuts are plentiful. A tan couple, he carrying a to go cup of coffee, quiet sort.

   On the drive home, behind a van with a red dog halfway out the passenger side window, catching the breeze.

The Morning Paper, A dead bird and Joe Heart Holly

 

Joe Heart Holly, by Allison Huyett

 

  Headlights from the paper delivery vehicle shine around the rooms at 4:58 this morning, although the stove clock is set a few minutes off from real time, I should go check that and synchronize them. It is not my morning paper, it is for the neighbors. The morning paper is becoming an anachronism.

   A dead baby bird is a sad sight to see anytime, here is one at a few minutes to seven.

   On the path, it is written, Joe (heart) Holly. ( Joe’s cup of love for Holly runneth over).

   Today is a three day and a sandwich day and I think about green and red, and sandwiches and holly leaves and berries and key lime pie, cups of coffee and where is my Metro collaborator?

   Herons at same-to-similar spots as yesterday: picnic, toppled, red-bridge plus one flying pretty as a swan dive along the midsection of the creek, close to a fly fisherman whose reel spins and the noise catches my ear.

   Candelario sits at bench: 719.

The doctor is busy, yes we have flu shots, have a nice day

   Is what an operator – not Emma M. Nutt – told Victor when he called seeking relief from side effects of new medication. This displeased him. “If I am calling the doctor I am not having a nice day!” he says.

   Today is another nice day, a beautiful one. The outside air has an odor, something chemical-industrial, and the interaction of warm creek water plus cool air has created a mist, a fog, a vapor.

   An insipid pink pair of  jellies shoes are in the parking lot: strawberry shortcake, with capital esses.

   Three herons, at graduating heights: one two feet above the creek, on a naturally sculpted, complex rock. Another on the toppled tree, a short story above the creek. The third swoops out near the red covered bridge and returns to a locust tree limb. surveying the territory.

   Pick of the litter: a Mentos wrapper, folded flat, then bent.

Tip of Tongue

Magic Square: Tip of Tongue

  

Pit of tongue, a ton of tips, no tip, tip of your tongue and groove. Unguent.  Raymond stops his bike and describes (as one flies by behind him) how herons flap their wings and take off in the most extraordinary fashion,  a great uplifting!

   George stops his bike and we talk about digital camera file and uploading concerns.

   I make a return trip over the red bridge and along Tulpehocken road. First two small white oak leaves on the road and a BRISK Lipton tea can, flattened as a rumpled metallic pancake, and part of fast food restaurant styrofoam cup, with the words: TIP OF YOUR TONGUE. Today’s Magic Square Suoku Rebus.

PluPURRfect

   Link me up: an e-mail-link having been sent to us by an associate, we read an on-line article Cats Do Control Humans, Study Finds  by Live Science, which finds cat purrs embedded in cat cries, possibly at inopPURRtune times.

  http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090713/sc_livescience/catsdocontrolhumansstudyfinds 

    Having listened on Saturday to public radio, we discovered this article had been adopted for use in a quiz show.

    Quick! study: cries and purrs from the cats Wizzer and Domino. Result: urgent! Do it Now! Increase your use of the word pluperfect, which is a tense thing in the English language, and a good, no, a perfect, word in which to embed the word PURR.

   Natural and created words with PURR:

• Supurrating. Wounded, unpleasant somehow.
• RePURRcussion: you can do what you want, but there will be consequences.
• RePURRcushion: repositioning a cushion as one’s cat directs.
• If that doesn’t work, rePURRchase them.
• Listen to Deep PURRple. 
• In this environmental/green day and age: RePURRpose, do not throw away. Anything.
• Anything super may be made that much better, SuPURRintendent suPURRvisor. 
• Do not judge a book by its cover: suPURRsize me.
• This list may be imPURRfect: not exhaustive.
• This verPURRsion is open to input.

Old-Fashioned Nature Walk with Porcupine Pat

 

Porcupine Pat McKinney shows soapwort

 

      On Location: Kaercher Creek Park, Hamburg, Pennsylvania. Park date 7.11

    “See the spider traps on the juniper?” asked Porcupine Pat McKinney. “On a field the size of a soccer field there may be 300,000 of these. Even steel isn’t that strong.”

    The Schuylkill Conservation District Environmental Educator explored within a compact area and condensed time frame an open number and array of natural subjects: from tensile to edible to toxic to utile.

    McKinney Mythbuster: sassafras has four, not three, different shaped leaves: The single lobe, the three-lobed and the two lobed or mitten: left-thumb and a right-thumb!

   McKinney Emcee: Will the real ragweed please stand up? Not to be confused with goldenrod.

   McKinney Audio: That was the sound of a squirrel warning!

   McKinney Mixology: To make Indian tea, mix cold water with staghorn sumac and flavor to taste.

   McKinney Maple Module: Helicopter, nose ornament, OR earlobe piece.

   McKinney Magic: Touch Me Not, or jewelweed seeds release when the cornucopia-like flower is touched. And you can eat them.

   McKinney Olfactory: Every season has its smell.

   McKinney Video: How do you know when an animal is prey? Predator?

Special thanks to Berks County Parks and Recreation: www.countyofberks.com/parks

Pickerel weed

Chemistry and Patience

  

Chemistry and Patience

 

    What is needed for a lasting relationship? John Kincade, on the JK show, ESPN radio, early this morning said:  Chemistry and patience, definitely gotta have it!

   What we have now is a ruddy creek. Intense thunder and lightning prompted me to leap out of bed at 11:00 last night to close all the windows. How intense was that?

      Walk. A white pigeon, aka Rock Dove, with red feet and legs stands on a rock creekside at the dam bridge. A pair of rock towers stands on the other side, little pillars, good feng shui for an entrance, objects placed either side of door. Orienteering relic?

   Path is well washed, wiped off. The WET PAINT sign is wet.  New pathlings; new path users. walking, bicycling, running. Heron pennant style along midstretch. Heron roosting in tree near the 11 post/locks. It launches itself in flight and descends to the next tree over.